Edward Copeland on Film...and more

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noreply@blogger.com (Edward Copeland) — Sun, 12 Feb 2012 14:00:00 +0000

By Edward Copeland
If people appearing in documentaries were eligible to compete in acting award categories, New York Times columnist David Carr belongs among the finalists for supporting actor for allowing such an open, unvarnished presentation of himself to appear in Page One: Inside The New York Times.

Directed by Andrew Rossi who co-wrote the documentary with Kate Novack, Page One does present an interesting portrait at the nation's newspaper of record during a period of crisis for the industry and the Times itself, though I question how truly a "warts and all" picture the film paints. Coming from a newspaper background myself and knowing so many people who have or do work within the industry at publications throughout the country, too much of the documentary sounds like beating the same bad guys to explain the drop in newspapers' circulation and ad revenue while you don't hear one employee at the Times — not even the incredibly entertaining, outspoken and odd Mr. Carr — point a finger at the highest levels of management.

Carr himself is such a fascinating figure if the documentary focused solely on his life (and it nearly does), it would be just as good as the documentary that resulted. Overcoming his crack addiction and the loss of his family only to bounce back, get a job at The New York Times, serves as their Carpetbagger reporter dedicated to covering the awards circuit, particularly Oscars, before leaving to head the paper's first media desk, devoted to covering the changing media and online world. It's hysterical to listen as he discusses his initial resistance to Twitter before finally giving in and getting an account.

It's also amusing when Carr talks about the paper's hiring of Brian Stelter, a blogger extraordinaire who ran the TVNewser blog and marked the merging of old-style journalism with new kind, though Carr sometimes believes Stelter could be a robot built in the Times basement to destroy him.

They do touch on some of the Times' scandals such as Jayson Blair and Judith Miller, but they let her and the editors who let her stories through prior to the Iraq War get off way too easily, then I imagine some prices had to be paid for access.

The documentary does tell of the paper's misfortunes when many speculated whether it could survive (A TV talking head points out that a share of its stock cost less to buy than its Sunday edition). Layoffs hit the newsroom with buyouts of staff that's been there for decades, a situation that has been repeated at newspapers across the nation many times. There's a brief scene of a panel discussing what has gone wrong and former journalist David Simon, now better known as the creator of The Wire and Treme, and he starts to speak the simple truths of what's killing the industry, but the people still in the industry shut him down and you never hear from him again.

Don't get me wrong: As a documentary giving viewers a glimpse at the day-to-day operations of The New York Times, Page One: Inside The New York Times works extremely well and is both entertaining and informative. However, it does regurgitate the same old arguments about what happened to newspapers, laying all the blame at the feet of the Internet when newspapers started sealing their fate before most people had any idea what a URL was. I kept waiting for someone to say what you'd get someone to say at just about any newspaper, alive or dead: "This place is being run by idiots." The list of dumb moves made by publishers and people of various titles who ultimately ran newspapers yet seldom stepped into the newsrooms themselves is a long one and stretches back to when I was in grade school.

In Paddy Chayefsky's ever-more prescient script for Network, in one of Howard Beale's monologues, note what he said in this film released in 1976, but written earlier than that. I've bolded the crucial portion.

Edward George Ruddy died today! Edward George Ruddy was the Chairman of the Board of the Union Broadcasting Systems, and he died at eleven o'clock this morning of a heart condition, and woe is us! We're in a lot of trouble!

So. A rich little man with white hair died. What has that got to do with the price of rice, right? And *why* is that woe to us? Because you people, and 62 million other Americans, are listening to me right now. Because less than 3 percent of you people read books! Because less than 15 percent of you read newspapers! Because the only truth you know is what you get over this tube. Right now, there is a whole, an entire generation that never knew anything that didn't come out of this tube! This tube is the Gospel, the ultimate revelation. This tube can make or break presidents, popes, prime ministers. This tube is the most awesome Goddamned force in the whole godless world, and woe is us if it ever falls in to the hands of the wrong people, and that's why woe is us that Edward George Ruddy died. Because this company is now in the hands of CCA — the Communication Corporation of America. There's a new Chairman of the Board, a man called Frank Hackett, sitting in Mr. Ruddy's office on the 20th floor. And when the 12th largest company in the world controls the most awesome God-damned propaganda force in the whole godless world, who knows what shit will be peddled for truth on this network?

So, you listen to me. Listen to me: Television is not the truth! Television is a God-damned amusement park! Television is a circus, a carnival, a traveling troupe of acrobats, storytellers, dancers, singers, jugglers, side-show freaks, lion tamers, and football players. We're in the boredom-killing business! So if you want the truth…Go to God! Go to your gurus! Go to yourselves! Because that's the only place you're ever going to find any real truth.

So long before the Internet, newspapers were losing circulation and starting blaming the enemy, only then it was TV and they tried to imitate it. It's sad. A former boss of mine once told me that when the newspaper industry dies, it won't be because of competition, it will have committed suicide.

I can't fault Page One for not being that documentary because the documentary that it is, is good. I just can't help it that the overall situation makes me wistful.

If anyone believes these two families should not join together…

noreply@blogger.com (Edward Copeland) — Sun, 12 Feb 2012 03:00:00 +0000

By Edward Copeland
Has a movie wedding ever gone off without a hitch? Now, some can turn out to be enjoyable messes from the old (It Happened One Night, The Philadelphia Story) to the more recent (My Best Friend's Wedding, I Love You, Man). In the past few years, even when arguably taking the form of "dark" comedy, dysfunction or worse has tended to be the main dish served at the reception ranging from the blahs of Jonathan Demme's Rachel Getting Married, the blech of Noah "Just go see your shrink" Baumbach's Margot at the Wedding and the boneheaded bombast of Lars von Trier's Melancholia. NOTE: I've purposely omitted the turd that goes by the title of Bridesmaids from either category because it belongs in a separate one called Overlong, Poorly Written Movies That Claim to Be Comedies but Wouldn't Have Any Laughs If They Didn't Cast Melissa McCarthy. All of this preamble brings us to the film I'm actually writing about in this post, Another Happy Day. Ellen Barkin produced the film and leads a strong ensemble in another tale of tensions that erupt when severed and estranged members of a large melded family must intermingle for the wedding of a shared son. What differentiates Another Happy Day from others of its ilk is that, while it's not a great film, most of the cast and the screenplay succeed at being engaging enough that the movie manages to earn laughs and rip scabs off old wounds at the same time.

It's easy to see why Barkin would help see this film get made so she could play Lynn — it's easily the best part she's had since probably This Boy's Life in 1993 (other than the just-for-kicks Ocean's 13). Barkin plays the perpetually frazzled Lynn, mother of the groom Dylan (Michael Nardelli), the oldest of her four children and one of two from her first marriage by her ex-husband Paul (Thomas Haden Church) and raised by his second wife, a real piece of work named Patty (Demi Moore).

Paul and Lynn's daughter Alice (Kate Bosworth) has been away at college, doing what she can to avoid both parents, though rumors have circulated throughout the extended family that Alice has been cutting herself. As her goofy aunts (Diana Scarwid, Siobhan Fallon) discuss it, they suspect it's some kind of new generational thing and wonder what happened to anorexia — they understood anorexia: Who doesn't want to look good?

Then again, Lynn's second brood presents a handful of its own. Her second husband Lee (a delightful, but underused Jeffrey DeMunn, who also is the best part of The Walking Dead as Dale) seems quite pleasant and at ease with the fact that their 17-year-old son Elliot (Ezra Miller, as wry and funny here as he was frightening in We Need to Talk About Kevin) just finished his second stint in rehab and can be quite rude and nasty to anyone, and their youngest son Ben (Daniel Yelsky), just beginning adolescence, who has a mild form of Asperger's syndrome and constantly videotapes most moments of their lives.

Even before Lynn and the boys arrive in Annapolis for the wedding events, Lynn is second-guessing most of her decisions in life and battling depression. She blames many of her problems on her parents, the bottled-up Doris (Ellen Burstyn), who doesn't recall depression running in her family though Lynn's grandfather did shoot himself to death, and her now-ailing father Joe (George Kennedy). Lynn feels they didn't support her during her divorce, siding with the idea that Paul should get custody of Dylan and Alice.

Another Happy Day marks the directing debut of Sam Levinson (son of Barry), who also wrote the screenplay and won the Sundance Film Festival's 2011 Waldo Salt Screenwriting Award for his script. What separates it from other recent films that tapped into this area is that Levinson manages to earn both his laughter and his pathos whereas everything, especially in Baumbach's film, just plays flat and maudlin. Levinson must be eternally grateful that he was able to assemble the cast he did, because they're key.

Barkin obviously relishes having this juicy a part for the first time in a long time, so much so that her histrionics do go overboard at times. She's at her best when she's grounded in scenes of truth with other talents such as the always brilliant Burstyn or selected scenes with Church and DeMunn. When she has to go one-on-one with Moore, things gets out of hand since Demi Moore only knows one note to play and it looks as if Barkin instinctively tries to play down to her level. Demi Moore can play "one dimensional bitch in heels" and that's it. That's pretty much how it always has been.

The two who really hold the film up are Ezra Miller and Daniel Yelsky as Lynn's younger sons, particularly Miller as Elliot. Between his work here as the constantly sarcastic addict (so much so that he keeps lifting grandpa's Fentanyl patches and licking the pain medicine off them to get high) and as the demon spawn in We Have to Talk About Kevin, this 19-year-old actor (surprise from all the other sources I checked, IMDb's birth month and year are wrong) definitely is someone to keep your eye on.

Levinson's career also will be of interest to monitor. While Another Happy Day isn't perfect, it's worlds away from something his father Barry would make, though it's interesting that the son gives Ellen Barkin her best part in more than a decade while his father gave her her first credited feature film role in his feature directing debut 30 years ago in the great Diner.

Not straight out of Brooklyn

noreply@blogger.com (Edward Copeland) — Sat, 11 Feb 2012 14:01:00 +0000

By Edward Copeland
Coming-of-age movies could be the most pervasive story device in cinema's lifetime yet, unlike other genres, the well-tread territory very often manages to find a fresh approach while maintaining that universal feeling at the same time. Writer-director Dee Rees' Pariah proves that again by telling the story of a teen girl's blossoming that hasn't been told before but should be recognizable to anyone.

The "pariah" in Pariah is a 17-year-old Brooklyn girl named Alike (Adepero Oduye) who seems to be facing outcast status on multiple fronts. At school, she's smart and excels in her classes, so some students tease her as a geek. She also doesn't care about fashion, something that makes her a target of mockery, not only by other students but by her image-conscious mother Audrey (Kim Wayans, stepping away from her famous family's comic brand name and giving a fine dramatic turn in a dramatic role) who dotes on her younger sister Sharonda (Sahra Mellesse) instead. In fact, within her family only her mostly absent (and philandering) policeman father (Charles Parnell) even refers to her by her given name of Alike — her mom and most others call her Lee.

The biggest hurdle that Alike faces and can't seem to jump requires the teen to admit first to herself, let alone anyone else, that she's a lesbian. It's more a less an open secret between her and her openly gay best friend Laura (Pernell Walker) and based on their friendship, many assume the truth, hurl homophobic slurs or choose not to see what's obvious.

Her mother has the biggest denial complex of anyone, forbidding "Lee" from hanging out with Laura because she's a "bad influence" and trying to force her into a friendship with a co-worker's daughter Bina (Aasha Davis). That backfires on Audrey since Bina might not have the obvious "bad influence" look of Laura, but she's also confronting her sexuality. This leads her to being an outcast among the outcasts, who feel that Alike's burgeoning relationship with Bina isn't "butch" enough.

Oduye leads the very talented cast that makes film both touching and heartbreaking, with touches of humor at times. She's especially powerful when she does voice the truth about her sexuality to her parents and even better later when she calmly explains to her father that "choosing is not running." Rees impresses with both writing and directing. One of the film's executive producers is Spike Lee, for whom Rees served a 40 Acres and a Mule internship program on Lee's Inside Man and his great documentary on Hurricane Katrina, When the Levees Broke: A Requiem in Four Acts. Though Rees has made several short films and a feature-length documentary of her own, Pariah marks her first feature-length fictional film.

Pariah first began earning acclaim and prizes at 2011 Sundance Film Festival where it was one of the 15 films that lost the Grand Jury Prize for dramatic film to the awful Like Crazy (and I'll testify under oath that four of those 15 were robbed. A fifth I couldn't finish). It did win the Grand Jury Prize for Cinematography in a dramatic film for Bradford Young, though if you check Pariah's awards at the increasingly flaky Internet Movie Database, it will say that Dee Rees won the cinematography prize. If you want to check out some of the other strangeness I've found at IMDb, check out this sidebar.

Actually, that's only true for this feature version of Pariah. It began life as a short film that Rees made in 2007 that won more than a handful of awards and had nearly the same cast as the feature version playing the same roles. (Among the more notable exceptions: the great Wendell Pierce, Treme's Antoine Batiste and The Wire's Bunk Moreland, played Alike's father Arthur.)

I've never seen Pariah the short, but Pariah the feature deserves most of its accolades.

What the hell is going on at IMDb?

noreply@blogger.com (Edward Copeland) — Sat, 11 Feb 2012 14:00:00 +0000

By Edward Copeland
Back in my mobility days, when I had just started working at a newspaper, the Internet had yet to explode into the great reference source it can be. By the time Google appeared and fact-checking became so easy (albeit with possible land mines of misinformation planted everywhere you typed), it became difficult to remember how we looked things up before the Web. The one exception for me was movie trivia — particularly Oscar trivia — because that sort of thing happens if you get exiled to a small Kansas town during your junior high years. You end up accidentally memorizing Oscar facts because instead of buying a book with all the Oscar nominations in it like a normal person (The late Wiley and Bona's Inside Oscar didn't exist yet), you check one out of the library and painstakingly type your own copy of the nominees and winners, building a visual memory without realizing it. (Yes, on a good-old fashioned typewriter no less — even did it with carbon typing paper so I'd have two copies. It's funny, because if I try to recall nominees for best actor in a certain year and get stuck, I remember the list alphabetically so I can narrow the missing actor to a section of the alphabet between the nominees I do remember.) As a result, Oscar errors leap out at me and when I find errors in the Internet Movie Database (of any kind), I try to inform them so they can make the site a better, more accurate resource. However, recently I've discovered something strange has been transpiring at IMDb and I imagine others have noticed this as well.

One gripe I've always had with IMDb is the way they denote the Oscars. For example, let's take last year. The King's Speech was named best picture for 2010, the year it was released. Now, the Oscars, even as they've moved up the ceremony, always bring up the rear, so it received its statuette for best picture of 2010 in 2011. Many an error has been made by people looking for quick Oscar facts who check IMDb because in the awards section for The King's Speech it denotes all its Oscar wins and nominations as being 2011. If you're an Oscar obsessive such as myself or Sasha Stone at Awards Daily or Nathaniel R. at The Film Experience or our own Josh R. here and countless others, you'll recognize that they refer to the ceremony. If you aren't, such as an older entertainment editor in the Midwest, you might put down that it was named best picture of 2011. It was named best picture in 2011 but of or for 2010. If you scroll lower, you'll see that any of the film critic awards the film took tend to say 2010 because they announced them before the calendar year ended. Of course, since we do have the Internet at our fingerprints, they have no excuse for not checking the real authority and looking up things on the Academy's official database which notes that The King's Speech was named best picture 2010 and best picture 2011 won't be handed out until the end of this month.

One early Oscar winner (and in my opinion, still the best of the best picture choices they made), Casablanca proves really problematic, even for movie buffs. The film deservedly holds its designation as a classic and everyone agrees that the movie was a 1942 release, owing to its premiere followed by public exhibition in New York on Nov. 26, 1942. Well, everyone except the Academy that is, It didn't open in Los Angeles for that requisite one week in a L.A. theater until Jan. 23, 1943. Despite the odds against a film opening that early in the year (and competing against nine other films, many fresher in voters' minds), Casablanca, the 1942 release, won the Oscar for best picture of 1943 at the ceremony held in 1944. On the IMDb Awards page for Casablanca. the only two years mentioned are 1942 (at the top as its year of release) and 1944 (as the year it supposedly won best picture, director and writing, screenplay. Oscar itself can have some strange occurrences such as Chaplin's Limelight, which came out in 1952 in most places, such as New York, but such Chaplin was persona non grata in Hollywood at the time, the movie never managed to open in Los Angeles until 1972, but the Academy ruled it eligible and Chaplin, Ray Rasch and Larry Russell won original dramatic score for the 20-year-old film (listed as 1973 on IMDb) — the same touching night that Chaplin received an honorary Oscar from the Academy for lifetime achievement and apologizing to him for being such an asshole to him for having opinions.

The most recent IMDb incident that prompted this post concerned an error I noted in its listing of awards for the movie Pariah. I had just finished watching the film so I made a point of seeing who had done the cinematography, which I thought was exceptionally well done for a low budget film. The credit clearly said (it was the second credit after written and directed by Dee Rees) Bradford Young. As I went to IMDb to check its awards page, it said that Pariah won the Grand Jury Prize for best cinematography in a dramatic film, only it credited the win to Dee Rees. Never mind that on its full cast and credit list for Pariah it properly names Young as cinematographer as does the movie's Web site in crediting him the Sundance prize.

Always trying to correct errors, I went in to try to edit the awards listing but no matter how I tried, it kept being rejected and referred me to a comment thread. The thread was led with a not by a site administrator explaining why they didn't allow updating of the awards section because of a job opening — dating back to late 2010. Of course, someone is updating them since new awards are going in. Here is the letter's text which leads to its thread. It was posted March 14, 2011.

Hi,

This message is to provide an update on the current status of the Awards List.
As many of you will know, we closed down the Awards submissions pipeline in Spring 2010, to completely overhaul the internal systems that we use for Awards data.
We very gradually started re-opening the Awards pipeline in October/November 2010 - using the new system.
This has proven challenging, and we have attempted to make improvements to our internal tools post-launch.
In addition to this, and perhaps more significantly, the individual previously responsible for for the Awards list left IMDb in mid December. This has resulted in us being understaffed within the Database Content Team.
Those of you who regularly monitor the processing times page http://www.imdb.com/czone/times will have seen that we have been in a backlog for the Awards list for a significant amount of time.
We have been actively recruiting for a Data Manger since that time, as you may have seen from our jobs page http://www.imdb.com/imdbjobs/#129661, and recruitment is going well.
Until we have successfully filled this role, we have reallocated some workload within the team. As a result of this, we now have a team member who has taken ownership of the Awards list, and is actively working through the backlog.
There are a number of open bugs with the current interface, which are being actively worked on currently by our software team. I will post a further update on those when I have one.
I appreciate that this has been a less than satisfactory situation for our contributors, particularly those that have been attempting to submit Awards data - and I apologize for that. With a data manager dedicated to this list from this point forwards, and software developers working with that individual, we are now in a position to make the improvements this unique and important type of content requires/deserves.

Regards,

Rachel

Call me crazy, but I'd think they'd still want to be aware of the errors, even if they didn't want people to use the new system. (Never mind that there hadn't been an update in nearly a year.) Wait — there's more. Recently, when I was working on my Centennial Tribute to José Ferrer, I found a couple of errors in his biography. They also were repeatedly rejected, though I found some other way to contact them and sure enough those mistakes eventually got fixed. Here though comes the most disturbing one of all.

Right after watching the movie Margin Call, I went to read their summary, just to make sure I was getting those tricky financial terms right. While there, I discovered the summary had a big plot point error. The summary's date indicated it had been written a few months prior to the film's opening. I went to try to edit the summary where I encountered what apparently any new users encounter if they try to register, what IMDb refers to higher "identity verification" or some such nonsense. I wrote them a note mincing no words that I'd be damned if I was going to give them that information just to try to correct an error. At least I knew it was wrong. Heaven help the people who didn't. I didn't even tell them what was wrong, but they've since had an updated Margin Call summary and the wrong information has been purged, so someone else got it to them.

That error though isn't as troubling as their reaching out for cell phone and credit card numbers. What that amounts to is they expect newcomers or anyone trying to change a summary to give them their cell phone number (making the assumption that everyone in the world has a cell phone) and, more disturbingly, a credit card number that they "swear they will never use." If they are never going to use it, why do they need it? It reminded me of Kirk's question in the awful Star Trek V: "Why does God need a starship?"

The cell phone scam is easy to understand: It's the same reason that Google and Facebook try to con you into giving them yours in the name of "security" should you lose your account. It's because they figure most people don't know that one of the loopholes in the rules of the Do-Not-Call-List law is that it doesn't apply to any business that you have a relationship with, so once they get your number, let the telemarketers ring your cell off the hook. The credit card bit is more ominous. Old users are grandfathered, but for how long? What are they planning? They can't expect run-of-the-mill users to get a hankering for IMDb Pro. unless they are planning to hide more things there, but I sure as hell wouldn't pay for a reference source that doesn't consider accuracy a priority.

On the last season of Boardwalk Empire, they had the wrong actor listed playing a part. Luckily I got the real cast lists from HBO and recognized that the actor's photo and age didn't match. Their TV credit listings are laughable as some actors and actresses will submit themselves as generic types such as "Townsperson" and claim to appear in every episode, though they add uncredited afterward. On the new series Luck, on individual episodes Kerry Condon's character is identified as Rosie but on the main page for the series they still just call her "exercise girl." They don't know what the hell to do with Nick Nolte. Sometimes he's Walter. Sometimes he's Walter Smith. Sometimes he's The Old Man. All are correct, but it's same character and looks confusing that way.

Be wary, all of you. I fear IMDb could start making Wikipedia look 100% credible.

Gosling stays in right acting lane

noreply@blogger.com (Edward Copeland) — Thu, 09 Feb 2012 13:00:00 +0000

By Edward Copeland
When I reviewed The Ides of March about two-and-a-half weeks ago, what impressed me most was the re-emergence of the old Ryan Gosling, the talented actor who captured everyone's attention in the first place before his performances became lost in a torrent of tics that blanketed his characters behind a shroud of phony fog. Now I've caught up with Drive and am pleased to report that The Ides of March wasn't a one-film fluke. I wonder if this means I should give Craxy, Stupid, Love a chance.

Gosling was great in Ides and he's great in a completely different type of role in Drive. I haven't caught up with The Artist yet, but Gosling's character in Drive (known simply as the Driver) is a man of so few words, he could be from a silent film. He's a man of few words, making his living as a movie stunt driver by day, a getaway driver by night.

Driver never carries a gun and Shannon (Bryan Cranston), the crippled body shop owner who sets him up with his daytime and nighttime gigs, provides the cars Driver uses for his getaway work. Shannon also can't give up on dreams — and he's never seen someone who drives as well as Driver — so Shannon envisions him as his ticket to a successful stock car career. All that's missing is the money to fund it. There's good news and bad news on that front. The good news is that Shannon has a longtime friendship with a businessman with deep pockets. The bad news is that he's Bernie Ross (Albert Brooks), a big time mobster in the L.A. area who also has friends such as the shady Nick (Ron Perlman), who uses a pizzeria as a front for his many criminal operations and broke Shannon's body in the first place.

Bernie insists on meeting Driver first, so he gives him a demonstration of his driving skills. He impresses Bernie — not enough to give Shannon all the money he wants, but $300,000. After his display, Shannon introduces Driver to Bernie, who extends his hand. Driver just stands silent, not moving to take it. After an awkward moment or two, Driver says, "My hands are dirty." Ross smiles and replies, "So are mine" and they shake.

Driver's mysterious existence has grown more complicated on a personal level. He has taken a liking to Irene (Carey Mulligan), a woman who lives on the same floor of his apartment building, and her young son, Benicio (Kaden Leos). Driver and Irene inevitably end up involved, though soon her husband Standard (Oscar Isaac) gets released from jail and returns home. One thing that's refreshing about Drive, which was written by Hossein Amini and based on a novel by James Sallis, is that it doesn't follow the usual template where the ex-con husband is an abusive ass. Instead, upon Standard's release, he's hassled by hoods who want either his money or his criminal help.

To go much further into the details of the jagged twists that connect all the characters, would ruin much of the the movie's suspenseful fun. Director Nicolas Winding Refn doesn't let Drive sit in idle for long (if ever) from the moment it starts. Some of the violence proves to be quite shocking while Amini's screenplay comes loaded with quite a few laughs (It's also a big change of pace for the writer whose first feature credits were Jude and The Wings of the Dove).

The cast gives Drive the fuel it needs to really power this vehicle, especially from the performers going against type. Cranston already has wowed TV viewers his amazing range when he went from the loopy dad on Malcolm in the Middle to one of dramatic television's all-time acting tours de force as Walter White on Breaking Bad. Shannon allows him the opportunity to create yet another original character in the body shop owner with big dreams and worse luck.

Perlman has a knack of creating scarier roles when he's not wearing any makeup and just playing a world-class asshole such as Nico as he does here. There are a couple scenes that bounce Cranston, Perlman and Albert Brooks off each other that are just hysterical.

Which brings us to Brooks, cast against type as a smooth, intimidating criminal kingpin. When I wrote my 25th anniversary tribute to Lost in America, in describing Brooks' character David's meltdown after his wife loses their savings at roulette:

It might seem an odd comparison, but many critics always made much of the slow burn Joe Pesci can make as an actor, from calm to explosive and in at least one scene here, I'd argue that Albert Brooks is the comic equivalent of that turn-on-a-dime Pesci skill. After the Howards exit Vegas, they head out in the RV, uncertain of where to go or how to make do with a little more than $800 left to their name. Linda keeps apologizing profusely, but David stays eerily calm — until they arrive at the Hoover Dam and Linda suggests they stop and check it out. "Nice dam, huh?" David says. "Do you want to go first, or should I?" The dam doesn't burst, but boy does David, first outside and then inside the Winnebago, when Linda insists the public not watch the fight.

Interestingly enough, as great as Brooks is as Bernie Ross in Drive, that's not exactly how he chooses to play him. Brooks isn't just cast against type, but he plays him in a way that I didn't expect him to either.

The only person who disappointed me to some extent was Carey Mulligan. After her star-making turn in An Education brought her to prominence and her solid followup work in the so-so Never Let Me Go, Irene seemed an underwritten, underdeveloped role for her to take. I haven't seen what she's like in Shame yet.

Gosling though steers Drive from beginning to end. His portrayal of Driver can be downright chilling when that stillness and silence suddenly erupts. I hope Drive and The Ides of March really shows that Gosling has realigned his craft, though I do worry about that new Terrence Malick film in which he's been cast.

Everyone understands the language of a bully

noreply@blogger.com (Edward Copeland) — Wed, 08 Feb 2012 13:00:00 +0000

By Edward Copeland
By the same token, hate, bigotry and intolerance also happen to be among the handful of dialects that don't require translation. Susanne Bier's In a Better World touches upon all those topics and raises the question of whether there comes a time when turning the other cheek ceases to be practical or if vengeance can ever be justified because it simply makes a tormentor's victim no better than the tormentor himself. The Danish film took home the 2010 Oscar for best foreign language film, beating such renowned competition as Biutiful, Dogtooth and Incendies, but only received U.S. release in 2011. I wasn't a fan of Biutiful, haven't seen Incendies and it's difficult to compare Dogtooth to just about anything, but In a Better World proves to be far from an embarrassing winner of the prize (as has been the case so often, coming off quite well and avoiding most of the preachiness that could trip up a film venturing into this subject matter if handled purely as a means to sell a message.

In a Better World marked Bier's second nomination for the Oscar for foreign language film. I haven't seen that movie, 2006's After the Wedding, but it would have to be damn good to best that year's winner, Florian Henckel von Donnersmarck's exquisite The Lives of Others with its touching performance by Ulrich Mühe, all the more haunting now since he died so soon after gaining his greatest international fame from the film.

I did, however, really like Bier's 2004 work (released in the U.S. in 2005). Brothers, which was remade in 2009 by director Jim Sheridan with Tobey Maguire, Jake Gyllenhaal and Natalie Portman cast in the roles played so well in Bier's Danish version by Ulrich Thomsen, Nikolaj Lie Kaas and Connie Nielsen. Needless to say, though I usually give more leeway to English language remakes of foreign language remakes, there was no way in hell that I would dare watch the excellent original defiled by the new cast, especially expecting to buy Mr. Bland Gyllenhaal as a believable screwup. Of course, the biggest screwup concerning the original Brothers occurred in 2004 and was committed by the Danish jury picked to select Denmark's entry for the Oscar.

That year, there were two critical (and, coincidentally, box office) successes: Brothers and a film I'm not familiar with titled King's Game. Everyone assumed that one of the two would be chosen as Denmark's entry and would make for a strong contender. Instead, the jury opted for Lars von Trier's The Five Obstructions, really a documentary, which attracted less than 13,000 moviegoers total in Denmark. Critics, scholars and citizens protested to no avail and The Five Obstructions remained Denmark's official entry for the 2004 Oscar foreign language film jury and failed to make the cut. Even if Brothers had made the cut, it wouldn't have been a guaranteed winner, even I were the sole voter because as much as I liked that film, I don't know that I would have voted for it over the winner, the great film The Sea Inside for which Javier Bardem deserved a nomination, and one of the other nominees, Downfall, with Bruno Ganz's overlooked performance as Hitler (and eventually endless source of hilarious YouTube parodies).

Enough digressions. Time to talk In a Better World. The story concerns two 10-year-old boys from families fractured in different ways, transplanted to Copenhagen, Denmark, who gravitate into a friendship spurred by both being bullied. Christian (William Jøhnk Juel Nielsen) moves there with his father Claus (Ulrich Thomsen) after the death of Christian's mother and Claus' wife. The death has shattered Christian, who feels that his father's attempt to be strong for his son really indicates a lack of caring that she died at all.

The other boy, Elias (Markus Rygaard), is the son of a Swedish doctor named Anton (Mikael Persbrandt) and his wife Marianne (Trine Dyrholm), who are separated and considering divorce because Anton divides his time between home and working for Doctors Without Borders at a refugee camp in a wartorn African country. The school assholes have made Elias their favorite punching bag, mainly because he's a "Swede" in their Danish homeland. I found this concept rather shocking since I'd never heard of Danes hating Swedes, so I actually looked it up, but couldn't find any evidence of such a hatred but I did stumble upon an interview Bier gave to Roger Moore of The Orlando Sentinel where she explained this:

"We went to some pains to not deal directly with one clearly defined country or religion. I wanted the movie to be about intolerance in a more general way. We question that lack of desire to understand another person or another culture. Some people are just like that.…
“It’s kind of a joke in the movie, this idea that we don’t like Swedes. OK, maybe a little, but there is not general prejudice against Swedes in Denmark. When we show that in the movie we’re showing how stupid prejudice is, how foolish racism looks. It’s like saying, ‘Come on, we’re all pretty much alike. Swedes and Danes? Exactly alike. Look how stupid in its core racism is.’”

That little joke might be funny, but very little in the movie itself is. While the adults get the top billing (and turn in good and great performances, especially Persbrandt and Dyrholm who both give excellent turns. Thomsen, who was so great in Brothers. almost seems an afterthought at times here.

In a Better World's success rests squarely and superbly on the shoulders of the two young actors, particularly Nielsen as Christian, whose carefully modulated performance begins as a sad young boy, transforms into a heroic kid who wants to help his friend stop being a victim before he turns into someone that scares even Elias and his parents, fearful of what he might be capable of doing.

The parallels established in the screenplay by Anders Thomas Jensen (who has had a hand in most of Bier's major films), from a story devised by him and Bier, nicely matches both visually and otherwise the parallels between suburban bullies and African warlords. It teeters closely at times toward being too obvious in its message, but the script does a good job at making situations gray enough that even the nonviolent advocates begin to question if sometimes the only way to end a bully's reign and make it a "better world" is to follow the Golden Rule literally into a not-so-nice direction.

Bicentennial Tributes: Charles Dickens

noreply@blogger.com (Damian Arlyn) — Tue, 07 Feb 2012 13:00:00 +0000

By Damian Arlyn
While perhaps it does seem unimaginative and a downright cliché to say so, nevertheless I must admit that Charles Dickens is one of my favorite writers. And yet the reason I cannot recall when I first was introduced to this wonderfully witty wordsmith is the same reason that it feels vaguely silly to be writing today about the bicentennial of his birth: namely, that it seems as if Dickens has been there always, from the very beginning, right beside me, amusing me with his colorfully unique and eccentric characters, shocking or moving me with his deliciously complex stories and captivating me with his musical and, of course, plentiful prose. Indeed, Dickens is one of the most verbose writers I've ever encountered in my many readings, relaying such intimately atmospheric details (including the location of the pitiful pawn shop where the kettle, out of which the maid just poured the steaming hot green tea for the nervous little boy, was purchased for the beggarly sum of twopence) that he was able to weave a rich, textured and thoroughly engaging world with his words. Arguably, the greatest author of the Victorian era, his influence can be felt in all forms of fictional storytelling even today and a proper tribute to him and his art could not possibly be done satisfactorily without some sort of pathetic attempt to emulate his distinctively loquacious style in the opening paragraph of said tribute. Since I already have embarrassed myself sufficiently with such an endeavor, I shall cease to imitate this great genius and write of his life in my own humble style from this point forward.

Charles John Huffam Dickens was born Feb. 7, 1812, the second of eight children, to John and Elizabeth Dickens. Though his fledgling imagination was stimulated by avid reading, he was forced to leave school at 12 to work at a Boot Polish Factory to help support his family while his father sat in debtor's prison. In his teenage years, Dickens worked as a junior clerk at a law office, but it was his experience as a journalist in his early-mid 20s that led more directly to his ultimate calling. Under the pseudonym of "Boz," Dickens' first novel, The Pickwick Papers, was published in 20 parts over 19 months (beginning in March 1836 and ending in October the following year) after which it was put out in a single volume. This unfolding of the narrative serially and subsequent printing in book form (a common literary practice at that time) was how most of Dickens' novels also would be released to the public and it allowed for a certain freedom and spontaneity in his writing since he did not (as many authors did) write out the entire story beforehand but rather more or less created it as he went along. Pickwick was a huge success, providing Dickens with the money he needed to marry his then sweetheart (Catherine Hogarth with whom he had 10 children), and soon was followed by Oliver Twist (1837-39) and Nicholas Nickleby (1838-39). As with all Dickens' works, it did, however, have its detractors, who criticized the long-winded writing style by suggesting that Dickens was paid by the word…a myth which has, unfortunately, followed the great raconteur to this very day.

One of the major themes found in Dickens' stories was the plight of the poor. Dickens' sensitivity to the subject of poverty was perhaps first inspired by his own experiences in his early life. In particular, the dirty, cruel and oppressive working conditions at the Blacking Warehouse where he worked as a young man disgusted him and opened his eyes to the inhuman manner in which the poorer classes were handled by society at large. This anger at the severe inequality of the day manifested itself in his personal life as well through his philanthropic efforts. He helped found the Urania Cottage (an institution characterized as a "home for the redemption of fallen women"), gave generously to those less fortunate whom he encountered on the street and became, as G.K. Chesterton called him, "the spokesman for the poor." Dickens' commitment to, in the words of Jesus, "do unto the least of these," was tied closely to another major theme in his writing (and one of the first elements I personally connected to as a reader): his faith. Raised as an Anglican and later leaning toward a more Unitarian worldview, Christianity was clearly an important reality in his life and his work. Nowhere is this more apparent than in what is perhaps his most beloved and iconic tale, "A Christmas Carol": a story of repentance, forgiveness and redemption. Though it is true that Dickens didn't always practice what he preached (he had, for example, a decades-long affair with an actress named Ellen Ternan while still married to his wife and his anti-Semitism was demonstrated clearly in his depiction of the Fagin character in Oliver Twist), that does not create doubts in the mind of this reader as to the authenticity of his belief.

In his later years, Dickens' writing became more mature and more carefully planned out (though certainly no less successful) than his earlier works. Stories such as David Copperfield (1849-50), Bleak House (1852-53), Hard Times (1854), A Tale of Two Cities (1859) and my personal favorite, Great Expectations (1860-61) were decidedly more serious, darker, less humorous and less fantastic than his earlier works. Dickens also, despite his clearly failing health, began doing public readings of his own stories. His readings were very profitable (though in his typically liberal style, much of it was donated to worthy causes) and quite compelling since he was apparently a very effective reader. It is said that while enacting the passage from Oliver Twist that describes the murder of Nancy, women would faint in the aisles. Dickens died at home on June 9, 1870 from a massive stroke he had the previous day. He was buried in Westminster Abbey. The nation and the world joined in their mourning of the loss of one of the 19th century's most beloved and prolific writers. Today, the stories he told and the interesting characters he created (many of them inspired by real people whom he actually knew) are virtually immortal. Who doesn't know Ebeneezer Scrooge, Bill Sykes, Madame Defarge, Miss Havisham and many others? Furthermore, the stylized Victorian world that flowed forth from his untiring pen was so unique that, like other visionary artists who would follow him (including Alfred Hitchcock), he was given his own adjective to describe them, "Dickensian." As British biographer Lord David Cecil said of Dickens in 1935: "It does not matter that Dickens' world is not lifelike; it is alive." Today, two centuries after his birth (and more than 140 years since his death) his world still lives.

Luck Episode No. 2: Part II

noreply@blogger.com (Edward Copeland) — Mon, 06 Feb 2012 21:00:00 +0000

BLOGGER'S NOTE: This recap contains spoilers, so if you haven't seen the episode yet, move along.

By Edward Copeland
When you recap a television show the way that I do, you see an episode more times than the average viewer (or critic, in many cases) and it allows you to see how individual episodes hold up in relation to others. Having seen all nine episodes of Luck already, I can say truthfully that it gets better as it goes along. It follows the path that many series do in that it takes until about the fourth episode for everything to really jell. Mistakenly, coming off the high of a season that was great overall, I felt that the show just kept rising — each episode improving on the one before until it found its groove. Now that I've delved into the first two with my recap microscope, I can say that while most of the characters improved in the second episode, the second installment itself pales when compared to the pilot. For one thing, it has too many of those microscenes that drive me up the wall but even worse, these short scenes make it seem as if the show was edited out of order. Ace comes out of his meeting with his parole officer to the news that he has a lunch invitation. At the track, the morning workouts are going on. Then Ace has lunch but Marcus and the gang appear to be having breakfast where Renzo meets Goose and they decide to go to the track. We get a couple track scenes after the morning workout, then a quick insert of Renzo getting his photo taken for his owner's license. Then, his partners are back at the motel and Renzo appears, bearing coffee. Next scene, Marcus and Jerry arrive at the track by themselves. Then Renzo shows up, though he had been with them at the motel. The order of the day and scenes just seem out of whack. By the way, if you started here by mistake and didn't read the first half of the recap covering those events, click here.

Escalante prepares Mon Gateau, complete with his red bandages on his front legs, while Goose walks Renzo through the process of filling out a claim. "Whatever you do, don't spell nothin' wrong or the claim will be null and void," Goose tells him. "On owner, I put my name until my friends get licensed and for trainer, I put you," Renzo says out loud, to make sure he's doing it right. Goose notices the bandages on the horse for the first time. "I can't see his front legs," he comments. "What would that be a sign of?" Renzo asks. "He didn't wear them in his last race so either he has a problem or Escalante's pretending he has a problem so nobody will claim him," Goose speculates. "Why is he pretending if he doesn't want him claimed?" Renzo inquires. "So he looks broken down so the odds go up but he keeps the horse," Goose replies.

The horses entered in that day's claiming race are led up through the tunnel from the saddling stable to the paddock. Renzo has never seen Escalante before but figures that it's him leading Mon Gateau out. "He puts his pants on one leg at a time, believe me," Goose says. Turo marches straight ahead to greet his VIP visitors standing before Santa Anita Park's statue of Seabiscuit. "Gentlemen, happy afternoon," Turo addresses Gus and Ace. "Turo Escalante, Chester Bernstein," Gus makes the introductions. "Good to know you, Mr. Bernstein. Mucho gusto, we say in my country," Escalante says, putting on his humble servant show again. "Don't interrupt yourself — stick to your routine," Ace tells him. "I know he bring you to show you his champion in my barn. First, I have to run this eight thousand dollar bum," Escalante apologizes. Goose and Renzo continue to watch from the fence around the paddock as Mon Gateau walks by. "He looks like new money, Renz, and I wouldn't say that just to get you to claim him," Goose comments. Turo points out to Gus and Ace that the jockey who is going to ride the "bum" approaches. "We call him a bug cause he's just starting out, you know," Escalante informs them as Leon walks up. "Tell him your name," Turo orders. "Leon Micheaux. How you gentlemen today?" he asks as he shakes hands with Gus. "Yeah. Good. You?" Gus replies. "Nice to meet you," Bug Boy answers. Ace wishes him good luck and a safe trip. Gus quietly inquires of Ace exactly what a claiming race is and Bernstein explains. "And after the race you can pull your claim?" Gus asks. Ace grins. "No. He's yours no matter what — unless there's more than one claim. But you knew that."

As Turo and Leon head to the horse, the Bug asks, "Should I warm him up real good, Mr. Escalante?" A displeased Turo, arms crossed, turns to face the young jockey. "Why do you ask a question like that?" Escalante wants to know. "No reason," Leon says. (We get a nice, subtle shot here — something that's been in short supply this week with all the hit-and-run scenes and compared with Mann's work on the premiere. After Leon responds to Turo, he steps out of the frame to the right revealing Joey leaning over the paddock fence trying to listen in.) "You should be as sound as this fucking horse," Turo tells Leon as he boosts him into his mount. "Riders up!" the starter calls out and the horses start their march toward the gate. Escalante returns to Gus and Ace. "Seems like a nice kid," Gus comments. "No brain, but he can ride. If you wanted to make a bet, I wouldn't tell you don't go ahead," Turo quietly confides. "OK. So you're pretty confidant with his chances here," Gus says. "If the Bug don't fall off, they win farther than you can throw a rock. ¿Comprende? Understand?" Escalante tells them. "Sí. Yes," Ace replies. "Gentlemen," Escalante says as he leads the men away from the paddock area.

Goose licks the seal on the envelope marked CLAIM and hand it to Renzo. "Stamp it," he tells him. Renzo slips the envelope into a machine resembling a time clock and hears the snap of the stamp. He then inserts into a green box where all the claims go and shares a high-five with Goose. Marcus motors to behind the last row of a section minus any of his partners. A woman in a wheelchair also sits in that area. "Hello," the woman (Dina Belle Garcia), who appears to have cerebral palsy, says to him, "Yeah. Back at ya," he turns and offers in stunned response, not used to social niceties. "Who do you want?" she asks, referring to the horses about to race. "The four, yeah," he replies. Renzo and Goose hurry to the rail to watch Mon Gateau race. Marcus spies through his binoculars and sees who Renzo has with him. "Jesus Christ — that low-ball numbnut you're gonna use to train," he comments to himself.

While Marcus by necessity sits in his own chair at the back of the grandstand and Renzo and Goose stand at the edge of the outer rail, Ace and Gus get shown to box seats by an usher (Aaron Perilo). "Right this way, gentlemen," the usher, Caleb, says as he allows Demitriou and Bernstein to enter the box section. "You take care," Ace whispers as he gives Caleb a tip. "OK. Thanks," the young man responds. "There isn't three hundred people here today," Ace notes. The Greek waves his betting slip. "Ace, this is the biggest bet I ever made by a hundred and ninety-five dollars. Do you believe it?" Gus smiles, amazed at himself. Leon and Mon Gateau behave well as they're loaded into the gate, but some of the other horses up for claim act somewhat rambunctiously. "You ready, kid?" an assistant starter (Kevin Steed) asks Leon. "Yeah, yeah," the Bug replies with a hesitancy in his voice as he pulls his goggles down. With all the horses loaded, Leon stares ahead at the long expanse of the dirt track that awaits. On the spectators' side, Renzo and Goose stand in anticipation, Ace and Gus sit, with The Greek slightly more interested than Bernstein and Marcus gets out his binoculars again, focusing them on the gate until the starting bell rings. The chime tolls and the thoroughbreds for sale begin their run, all tightly bunched at the start. In his box, Escalante stands as well. Mon Gateau has hung back toward the rear while two of the other horses put a squeeze on him, making it look as if they're creating a Bug Boy sandwich. Renzo grimaces at the sight. "That's our horse, right Goose?" he asks. Goose just nods. Marcus lowers his binoculars for a moment, looking concerned, then raises them again. "What the fuck? He should be pissing on these cucarachas, this pinhead…," Turo proclaims from his box, picking up his field glasses as well. (Unfortunately, try as hard as I could, I wasn't able to make out the rest of Turo's dialogue and with Luck, I haven't been as fortunate to have helpers with access to scripts who could or would clarify lines for me.) Leon starts pulling back on Mon Gateau, taking the horse further behind but at least escaping the vise. He then steers the horse wide and outside, passing the troublemakers with ease and moving up in the standings quite quickly. "Come on now, you conyo," Escalante says. Everyone in the stands appear to be on the same wavelength as Renzo, Gus and Marcus, though seated separately, nearly simultaneously root variations of, "Come on, horse." From the back of the pack, Leon has moved Mon Gateau into a sizable lead. Renzo, Goose and Marcus have played the game too long to let their excitement blow yet, but Gus' enthusiasm bubbles over. "Ace, look, that horse is going to win," The Greek glows while Ace smiles for his friend. Leon and Mon Gateau cross the finish line impressively. Gus is giddy. "Ha ha ha. Ace, I had two hundred dollars on this race. Don't ever knock this fuckin' country to me," Gus proclaims. Renzo, Goose and Marcus cut loose with their exuberance once the race officially finished. As Escalante climbs the stairs to leave the grandstand, one of the patrons (Paul Perri) makes a comment referring to the price he was asking compared to how Mon Gateau just performed. "He run good, yeah," Turo replies and keeps moving. "Hey, you won," the woman sitting near Marcus says to him, giving him a "way to go" gesture with her arm. Marcus halfway grins until he spots Goose and Renzo's celebration. (Like it was in last week's premiere, the race scene proves to be the highlight. Mann might not be directing, but it's been widely reported that he left detailed instructions for directors of subsequent episodes to follow, telling them what angles they are allowed to use, what type of lighting has been approved, etc.)

Goose and Renzo come down to the Winner's Circle to see Turo, Leon and Mon Gateau have their photo taken. While Escalante prepares to smile for the camera as always, he's pissed off to see a red CLAIMED tag has been attached to the horse. Renzo asks Goose if they shouldn't be in photo as well. "First let's see if there's a shake," Goose tells him. Walking past the two of them is the man in the cowboy duds who expressed unhappiness with the way Ronnie worked out his horse earlier that morning. "What's a shake?" Renzo inquires. (Scroll to the bottom of that page for shake definition.) "Just come out with me," Goose whispers. Leon dismounts Mon Gateau and expresses astonishment when he sees the tag. "Ah jeez…he got claimed?" Leon says. "You better hope I don't find out you ran your mouth," Turo growls at Bug before marching off in a huff. "I didn't say nothin' to no one," Leon swears. "You know, for a guy who just won, he don't look none too happy," Gus observes from the box while Ace smiles in stillness as if he were a statue of Buddha. "There's another claim in for him," Goose informs Renzo. Apparently belonging to that horse owner who argued with Ronnie since he's standing with Renzo and Goose awaiting the shake. "Oh no. Oh my gosh," Renzo starts getting jittery. While they wait, the steward's assistant (Amanda MacLachlan), who will conduct the shake, has to weigh-out Leon first. "It's us and Mulligan. We've got a fifty-fifty chance of getting him," Goose reassures him. (Hey — W. Earl Brown's character has a last name: Mulligan.) "Ahh — my stomach's all butterflies," Renzo says. The steward's assistant is ready for the shake now. "Number one is Goose Kellogg," she snnounces. (I hope she said Kellogg. I feel like singing about New York right now, but I'm not going to say why.) The woman reads the other claim card. "Two is Chris Mulligan." (He's got a first name as well. Maybe he's a trainer, not an owner, or perhaps a hybrid like Walter Smith.) She literally shakes a brown bottle containing two numbered items in it. She removes it and proclaims, "Two. Mulligan." Renzo doesn't get Mon Gateau. "You got outshook Renz," Goose says, shaking his head. "Mulligan gets him, not us," Renzo sighs.

Escalante storms up the steps of the box seats to resume his meeting with Gus and Ace, but he can't put on his polite Peruvian charade while he's this red hot angry, so he rambles about losing his horse to "some fuckin' cowboy with three different size haircuts." Gus tries to get Turo see the bright side that he at least won the race, but Escalante's rage won't be quelled that easily. "Don't worry. When I found out who has spilled out their beans — I make the fucker a little sorry," Turo pledges. "Yeah. Good," says Ace, always one to appreciate a little payback — as long as it's not taking up his time. Escalante sees he needs to get back on track and apologizes for wasting their time with his own problem. "When can he see his horse?" Bernstein asks. "Right away, señor. I'll take you both right now," Turo tells them.

Joey tries to boost Ronnie's spirits ahead of his meeting with Walter. (Again, this timing seems all off. Smith told him to drop earlier that morning and hours have elapsed since then. Joey even mentioned to Leon that he thought that Ronnie and "The Old Man" had a good talk when Leon craved a bear claw well after Ace had his lunch meeting.) "The beaks are a hundred percent if I find a case to tell him," Joey says to which Ronnie concurs. (A reference to a spill Ronnie took that broke his collarbone that was mentioned fleetingly last week, but you understandably might have missed since the focus was on his drinking and drug problems.) "I'm refreshed and I'm enthusiastic," Joey declares, punching the air with his fist. "Jesus Christ Joey, you act like you're walkin' me to school," Ronnie lets him know. That brings on Joey's stammering until all he can get out is, "You go on ahead alone." Joey begins to walk away but he can't resist tossing out one more caution. "We'll have no problem making that weight." Under his breath, Ronnie mutters, "Shut the fuck up."

Goose accompanies Renzo as he watches with sadness as Billy Mulligan walks into the receiving barn to take ownership of Mon Gateau. "I was gonna give him to my friends. I don't know what's gonna happen now," Renzo tells Goose. "I know a guy who's got a two-year-old for sale. Says he can really run," Goose says.

Ronnie comes upon Walter's stables just as the Old Man is taking Gettn'up Morning around the yard for a trot. "Pretty good lookin', ain't he?" Ronnie comments. "Of course, it ain't a beauty contest," Smith says. "Lucky for the two of us. He's just about the picture of his daddy," Ronnie declares, stroking the Big Horse behind his ear. While Ronnie and Walter shoot the breeze about "Kentucky quality," Rosie eavesdrops from another building on the grounds. "Kentucky quality killed his daddy. When the colonel died, they took over the farm and they spent all the money. There was nothing left. They took out an insurance policy on Delphi — thirty million. They killed him," Walter tells him, a sniffle sneaking out. "They broke his leg," his voice definitely is beginning to crack now. "They said it was his fault. You know what breakin' legs sounds like — branches snapping. I always wondered if maybe I could have done somethin', heard somethin'," the Old Man regrets. "Well, you've got a chance with Delphi's son now, sir," Ronnie tells him, his voice breaking up as well. "If I had all the time," Walter mumbles, almost absent-mindedly. "What'd you say?" he asks Ronnie, as if he just woke up from a nap. "You've got a chance with this one, sir," Jenkins says forcefully. "Yeah, you're right. You're right. I'll take it," Smith agrees as he leads Gettn'up Morning off and thanks Ronnie for coming. (Not only do we get the basics behind the two central mysteries in this episode, they come in the form of monologues for the series' biggest names, though Nick Nolte's scene comes off much better than Dustin Hoffman's did, not because of any fault on the actor's but because Hoffman's scene was handled so ineptly whereas Nolte's built to an emotional finish instead of functioning merely as exposition. Though nothing like this happens this season, the way both Ace and Walter get portrayed at times, I can't help but suspect that there are future plans for one of these characters to develop Alzheimer's. Call it a hunch.)

Jerry has returned to The Hustler Casino and one of its high-stakes poker tables. Shifts have changed and a new dealer (Erika Lenhart) has placed the 10 of hearts, the king of spades, the queen of clubs, the 9 of clubs and the 4 of spades as community cards. Lester Chan sits at Jerry's table once again as Jerry mulls his move. Jerry checks his hole cards again and sees that they remain a queen and 8 of hearts, giving him a pair of queens with a king kicker. "I call," Jerry says, pushing all of his chips to the middle. "Straight up and gamble, not to draw," Lester comments. Jerry tosses his pair of queens on the table. Lester shows his pocket pair of 10s, giving him a set. Jerry grits his teeth at losing to Lester again. The dealer button moves to Jerry though he lacks chips, but he tells the dealer to deal anyway. He stands up and pulls a stacks of bills from his pocket and tosses it in front of the dealer, "Jerry got money to win back. Taking him forever," Lester says as the dealer counts out Jerry's cash. Marcus seems to possess Jerry again. "Keep it up, bug ear and I'll slap the slant off your fuckin' face," he warns Jerry. The dealer isn't amused and calls for the floor man.

Lonnie, still decked out in his snazzy new suit, has met those infamous lady insurance agents at a bar where he's trying to break the news to them that playtime — and scamtime — has now come to an end. "I only wish I could give specifics on how my circumstances seem to have improved," Lonnie tells them, without giving anything away about the Pick Six Jackpot as Marcus feared he would. "Well, obviously your situation has changed," Lynette (Mary-Margaret Humes) observers. "And you don't need our help any longer in what we were trying to arrange," Adelle (Patti Tippo) adds. Lonnie tells the women that he regrets that the new circumstances have interfered with their plans for an insurance scam. "What I hope we can agree on is, we'll be eligible, every so often, to occasionally, still have a few laughs," Lonnie suggests, thinking of the effect this could have on the Emperor. "Sure. Why not?" Lynette agrees, taking a drink. "That makes me happy. Believe me," Lonnie declares. Adelle gets rights into Lonnie's face and breathily asks, "What about now?" Lonnie seeks clarification. "For a few laughs," Adelle giggles. "He's letting us down easy. He's never gonna see us again," Lynette asserts. "That happens to be bullshit and does not represent my feelings," Lonnie insists. Adelle dissolves into little laughs while Lonnie again apologizes for all the paperwork the women went through setting up the con they never executed. "And I thought you liked your cock between our titties," Lynette says as she places her hand down Lonnie's pants. "Well hello to the Emperor," she announces while Adelle slips something into Lonnie's drink. "Are you trying to wake up the sleeping giant?" Lonnie asks. Adelle wants to know why Lynette is trying to embarrass herself in front of Lonnie. "What's that? I hear a voice from inside my pants. 'What about me?' the Emperor is asking. 'I'm white and 21. When did I lose my right to vote?'" Lonnie speaks for his penis before taking a drink of the spiked liquor.

Outside the casino, Jerry pilfers through a bag in his trunk and grabs more cash to take back inside. (Again, another one of these tiny scenes that drive me up the wall, especially since we had no resolution to that large amount of cash the dealer was counting out in the last casino scene nor her call for the floor man when he lashed out at Lester with the racist remark. Jerry's time in the parking lot lasted 24 seconds.)

Pint of Plain finishes a carrot from Turo's hand as Ace meets him for the first time. "I gotta say, he looks a lot better than he did from last week," Gus says. "Well, you know a lot of time people feel something they don't know about without actually knowing but they still go ahead and run their fuckin' mouth anyway," Turo bitches. "Hey!" Gus exclaims. "Jesus Christ! Keeping a civil tongue too tough?" Ace asks him. "…That's what you expect me to do," Escalante responds. (Another example where it would be helpful if I had support I felt I could ask to consult the script to decipher the first half of Turo's line.) "His cold, it got better and now his feet got better. We giving him better shoes," Escalante reports. "He's got a helluva stride on him when he runs. He showed me some of the tapes of the races," Ace says, realizing he almost slipped in the illusion that it's not really his horse. "Very smooth action. He move very good on the track. Two years ago I got to stop paying all his bills myself," Turo comments. "Bill was scheduled," Ace replies. "The horse's both front legs were bad, broke.…How they were broke — there's no conceivable way. To nothing, to someone you don't like," Turo informs Ace. "You lost him. Looks like you took a beat on a game you ran on him," Bernstein theorizes. "Ace, there's that goat. You know, the one with nuts the size of pumpkins," Gus points out excitedly as his boss stares down Escalante. "Good," Ace responds, never removing his gaze from Turo. "This horse likes him. Always pushing him around with his nose," Turo tells him. A young worker speaks to Escalante in Spanish. "He say when this horse go to the track, the goat comes to the stall and waits for the horse to come back," Turo translates. Bernstein asks Escalante what they charge for the bags of carrots, emphasizing now, not when he started 30 years ago. Turo has to ask the young worker. "Maybe fifteen dollars. What do you care how much my carrots cost?" he inquires. "You know I was in prison," Bernstein says. "That's what people say," Escalante responds. "Maybe what else they're gonna say is this is some kind of mobbed-up project," Ace adds. "What do I know? I'm from Peru," Turo replies. Ace seeks permission to pet Pint of Plain. Turo lets him and Ace gently strokes the white patch on his head. "He's got a very plain head on him," Escalante says. (Now, that's a scene with meat on it. Why did we need 24 seconds of a trunk in a parking lot between the bar scene and this one? I felt bad, in a way, for Farina who basically stood on the sidelines as Hoffman, the well-known powerhouse, went toe-to-toe with John Ortiz, the up-and-coming powerhouse who stood his ground and didn't give him an inch — because Escalante wouldn't unless it worked to his advantage.)

Whatever Adelle slipped in Lonnie's drink isn't helping the Emperor, so she urges Lynette to try to give him a hand. An embarrassed and drugged Lonnie wants to give up and let the Emperor abdicate his throne for the evening. Before he can pull his pants back on, the women encourage him to keep trying, so he does just as Lynette removes a blackjack from the bedside table drawer and whacks him across the back of the head with it. "What'd you fuckin' hit me for?" Lonnie asks as he falls backward on the bed. Since he didn't lose consciousness, Adelle tries to draw him back into sex games while Lynette tells him the truth as she takes another swing. "What we insured you moron is your life," she growls. Lynette keeps swinging away but Lonnie proves surprisingly resilient. (I wonder if Marcus is laughing somewhere for being right.) "Fuck man. Are you trying to kill me?" he yells as he fends off her attacks. Adelle grabs the weapon and starts doing the swinging. "You think you can just doublecross people, breaking promises," she screams. With Lynette hanging off him as he tries to flee Adelle's attacks, the three end up crashing through the motel's sliding glass window. Lonnie spots a landscaper (Jose Reyes) loading his truck and asks him for help. "What's up, bro?" the man asks. "They're fuckin' crazy. I got money. Do you know where the Oasis Motel is?" Lonnie asks him?" The landscaper helps Lonnie into his truck. (I tried to locate an Oasis Motel in Arcadia near Santa Anita and Rod's Grill, but none seemed to be in the area. I did find a chain motel whose exteriors slightly resembled the exteriors of the scenes of their motel, but then I couldn't find the link to those photos again.)

They count out Jerry's cash at the casino again. "Twenty-five thousand," the dealer says. "Twenty-five thousand," this shift's floor man (Christopher DerGregorian) repeats. "The sail's up and ship's leaving," Jerry says. Lester looks amused. "This is a house ruling for this hand only," the floor man announces. "Do not try this at home," Jerry talks over him as he pushes his chips in. Only the flop has been dealt, showing an ace of clubs, 8 of diamonds and queen of diamonds. "By agreement of both players, cash not on the table at the beginning of the hand has now been put into action," the floor man concludes. "Alright guys, turn 'em over," the dealer tells them. Lester flips an ace and queen of hearts, giving him two pair, Jerry shows a king of clubs and a king of diamonds for a pair of kings. The dealer deals a 2 of clubs for the turn (or fourth street), which doesn't help Jerry. The river, however, certainly does as she turns over the king of hearts, giving Jerry trips and winning him the hand. Lester's face sinks. "Give him his chipa," the floor man says, adding. "One-time ruling. Normal house rules resume." Jerry, smiles and stacks his chips. "Floor, cash me out," he requests. "Yes sir, Mr. B.," the floor man replies. "Make it back, Mr. B. Come back tomorrow — I'll wipe the white off your face," Lester tells Jerry. Jerry tips the dealer and applauds for himself.

Outside The Long Shot bar, Rosie's having a smoke when Walter rolls up in his pickup. "Hey boss. Out among 'em," she says as if she's been caught. She asks if the horse ate. "Oh yeah. Didn't leave an oat," Smith tells her. "Listen. I'm red in the face, puttin' you on the spot about ridin'," Rosie admits. "Now Rosie, that was my fault. I just left you out there by not speakin' up. I wasn't sure," Walter takes the blame. "There's my answer," Rosie responds. "There's your answer. You've done a lovely job to get him here. I don't think anybody else could have done it any better and I'm gonna be surprised if you don't turn out to be one race-ridin' son of a gun when you're working…(Something else it would have been nice to have support from someone with a script to decipher)," The Old Man predicts. "At Portland Meadows, it looks like," she says. Walter tells her that Portland probably will be a better place for her to get her start. "Spot you three in Nine Ball," she suggests. "A while back, that'd be an offer you regret," he declares as he goes into the bar and Rosie asks him to have one for her.

Inside The Long Shot, Joey happens to be lurking and makes sure to start a talk with Walter. Before any other subject comes up, Smith asks him if he knows any jockey agents in Portland and tells him about Rosie. Joey says he does and gives Walter his card and tells him to have her call him. Walter asks Joey if Ronnie would be ready to ride the mount on Gettn'up Morning for a six-furlong race a week from Saturday. Rathburn assures him that Jenkins would be.

Renzo tries to talk to Marcus but gets interrupted when the beat-up Ronnie is dumped outside their rooms. Jerry arrives about the same time.

You know the episode has reached its finish when we've returned to the Beverly Hilton suite for bedtime and Ace and Gus have one of their bull sessions about the day's events. "I drive around to the track's back entrances for a chance to wind him up to knock a nickel off the price of his bag of carrots. He'd scream bloody murder, Escalante," Ace tells Gus. "That is a picture — Escalante behind a pushcart full of fruits and vegetables. Him, wanting to be on the inside training horses," Gus says. "All I think he knew was that he was in a strange fucking country and he hated selling vegetables," Ace states. "And he don't know to this day that it was you that got him through that gate," Gus marvels. "It's him that took the bit between his teeth. He's made himself into somethin'. All I did was tell some trainer whose bets I took, 'Hey, there's this guy outside. You should hire him, bring him in here to the stable, to shovel horseshit. Give him a start,'" Ace elaborates. Gus chuckles. "That's how I know what's waitin' for Mike. You don't leave no open contracts," Gus proclaims. "We need a go-between, Ace decides. "Between DiRossi, Cohen, Mike and us?" Gus asks. "Yeah," Ace confirms. "What about me?" Gus suggests. "You get hot under the collar," Ace raises as a reason for Gus not to be it. "Well, yeah, granted, but…" Bernstein interrupts Gus (unfortunately with yet another line I can't decipher leading me closer that without supportive reps, if not at HBO as all my previous great helpers have been then connected with the show itself, it's going to be pointless to continue this endeavor.) "Someone we trust or someone we don't?" Gus asks. (More unintelligible) not make a difference," Ace replies. "All that trouble, getting them to fix that slot so they think I owe them," Gus proposes. "Set a meeting tomorrow with my investment company. I'll pick a go-between so we can do what we need to do to get these guys," Bernstein orders. "Please tell me I didn't let you down," Gus says. Ace shakes his head no (and says something else I can't make out). "Then let's go get these cocksuckers," Gus suggests. (MORE BALLOONS AND STREAMERS FALL FROM THE CEILING) (By about the fourth episode, Luck will really hit its stride, though it's such a short season, it will seem as if it's just getting started by the time it's over. Unless a miracle occurs in the next couple of days, I'm leaning toward abandoning the recap of this show, which I hate to do. It's a very good show and, more importantly, it's complicated and often subtle and I like to serve my readers by helping to explain parts they aren't getting, but if I'm not going to receive the help I need to accomplish this end, I shouldn't try. It will just be too frustrating for me.)

Luck Episode No. 2: Part I

noreply@blogger.com (Edward Copeland) — Mon, 06 Feb 2012 05:00:00 +0000

BLOGGER'S NOTE: This recap contains spoilers, so if you haven't seen the episode yet, move along.

By Edward Copeland
After airing just one episode, HBO has renewed Luck for a second season. That season, which will have 10 episodes, begins filming later this month for airing in January 2013. However, I have to consider whether I should keep trying to recap the series now. It isn't that Luck isn't worthy of recapping — it most certainly is and I've seen the entire season. The problem is that unlike the other shows I've recapped — Boardwalk Empire, Treme, the Mildred Pierce miniseries — I haven't received the kind of easy, simple background support that I require to do these recaps the way that I believe they deserve to be done. It's been like pulling teeth to get the names of actors and characters in recurring parts that aren't regulars and you might as well forget about pieces of music (though the HBO Web site has them the following day). The great, wonderful, helpful support I've had before could give me a hand with lines of dialogue that are hard to decipher. When I'm lucky, I get emails answered, so I haven't even bothered asking about those sort of things now — and when David Milch is involved in the writing, you damn well owe it to him to get the words right. Anyway, I'm posting the first half of my recap, since all these problems plus personal matters have made this an arduous task that only promises to get harder and with the fatigue factor from my M.S., I'm wondering why I should be risking my health if those who should be helping don't plan to do right by Luck or by me. On with the recap: With a first season that's one episode shorter than the second will be, Luck hasn't had time to waste — and it doesn't. The show's two biggest mysteries — why Ace willingly took the fall for a crime he didn't commit and what happened to Delphi, the champion thoroughbred who sired Walter's promising colt Gettn'up Morning — were cleared up tonight. We learn why Walter feels so overprotective of the Big Horse that he employs a night watchman so Gettn'up Morning never lacks supervision. For Ace Bernstein, it shows that he's a true devotee to the idea that revenge is a dish best served cold. Something of interest about Luck: Its episodes bear no titles, just numbers. (I just call it No. 2 in my post title, though technically "Episode 1.2" is its real name.) You don't see that very often. "1.2" has a teleplay credited to John R. Perrotta, the series' story editor, who began as a technical consultant on the pilot and is president of Star Racing Stable in Delaware (though on any David Milch show, Milch usually re-writes a lot). The episode was directed by Terry George, who helmed Hotel Rwanda and received Oscar nominations for co-writing that film's screenplay and co-writing the script for In the Name of the Father. George also is currently nominated for the Oscar for best live action short for The Shore. Also, I wish there were a way to trigger the dropping of balloons when a reader hits a certain word because a Milch trademark makes its first appearance tonight. Hint: It's not hooplehead.

A man flips through papers on his desk, one of which bears a small black-and-white photo of Chester Bernstein. “Have you had contact with or engaged in activities since your release that would violate the terms of your parole?” Ace's parole officer (Barry Shabaka Henley, so great as the doomed jazz musician in Michael Mann’s Collateral) asks at their first meeting. “No, I haven’t,” Ace responds, his eyes darting to photos on the wall ofMalcolm X and John Coltrane. “Any change in residence or contact information?” his parole officer queries. Again, Bernstein answers no. “How you settlin’ in?” the man inquires of Ace. “OK. Good. Thanks,” Ace replies. The parole officer informs Bernstein that he needs a urine sample. As his parole officer escorts Ace to the bathroom, Bernstein says, “I have difficulty if someone’s looking.” His supervisor asks what he did when he was in prison. “People made adjustments,” Ace declares as they enter the men’s room. Inside, the parole officer chooses to stare at the sink instead of at Bernstein directly, but still the piss doesn’t flow. “Shy kidneys,” the parole officer comments before turning the sink’s faucet on for encouragement. Ace thanks him. When the appointment has ended, Ace and Gus exit the building and Gus tells his boss he just received a lunch invitation. “As far as Escalante’s concerned, we can make that another day,” Gus suggests. “We’ll fit this in,” Bernstein smiles. Gus opens the back door for Ace, then calls someone. “My friend said to say ‘That’s fine,’” Gus tells the person on the other end. Once The Greek gets behind the wheel, Ace grins again. "Supposed to put me back on my heels — flying in without notice.”

Jerry may have won ¼ of that nearly $3 million Pick Six jackpot, but that doesn’t mean his gambling itch has been scratched and he’s back at a casino playing Texas Hold ‘em, only this time it’s at Larry Flynt’s Hustler Casino Los Angeles and Jerry’s playing at a high-stakes table. Given the look on Jerry’s face and the fact that the casino has allowed housekeeping to come out to vacuum the poker area, it would seem he’s been there a long time. A king of spades, a 3 of diamonds, a 7 of spades, an 8 of spades and a 6 of diamonds comprise the table's community cards. We don’t see what Jerry holds, but he stacks some chips and bets $2,000.

At the track, lots of thoroughbreds are out and about for their morning workouts. Rosie has taken her spot atop Gettn’up Morning once again as the two head toward the gate. One of the assistant starters (Kelly Steed) fastens part of the horse’s bridle and asks, “When’s the Old Man decide who’s ridin’ him?” Rosie seems miffed by the question’s assumption. “What does it look like I’m doin’?” she responds with a harsh edge. (Thanks to Dale Dye at Remington Park Racing Casino in Oklahoma City for helping clarify some track job titles that I couldn't figure out through Web searches.) “I mean ridin’ him when he runs,” the man clarifies. “If you put me in, he’s about to run right now, “ she says, clearly agitated. “Race ridin’, girl. Ridin’ him in the afternoon,” the guy rephrases again, clearly indicating that he does not consider Rosie a viable option. “Hey limp dick, eat it. Why don’t you stick to loadin’ and let the Old Man train his horse?” Rosie tells him, not even disguising her bile now. She does earn a grin from the jockey loaded in the gate's adjacent stall, Ronnie Jenkins. “Supposed to be a good one,” Ronnie comments about Gettn’up Morning. Rosie pats herself on the ass. “Get used to the view.”

Back at the casino, one of the other players, a Chinese man (Dennis Dun) taunts Jerry. “Sit in on a bigger table, Jerry. What’d you do — maybe sell your house? he asks with a mischievous smile. Jerry says that his aunt died. “My condolences. Sorry for your loss,” the man replies, though he doesn’t sound any more sincere than Jerry did when he lied. “Well, we weren’t that close. How about time?” Jerry says to the dealer (Kurt Basa), getting tired of the man’s delays. “Player calls time,” the dealer calls out to the poker room floor man (David Pease). Even with a clock on him, it doesn’t stop the man’s prattling on, continuing to note how he usually comes in and sees Jerry at $3 to $5 poker tables, but now he’s at his table. “That’s because it’s your century, Lester,” Jerry tells him. “One minute to play Lester or you’re dead,” the floor man announces. “I got the next 88 years,” Lester Chan responds.

The gates finally open for the morning run and though it’s not an actual race, Gettn’up Morning with Rosie in the saddle steams ahead of the other two horses rather easily. In the grandstand, it’s not just the usual spectators of Walter with his binoculars and his dog watching the horse’s progress with interest. Several rows behind and to the right of Smith, another man (Doug Minner) stands with binoculars monitoring the practice run. Rosie and the horse run so far ahead of the other two thoroughbreds that when Walter stops timing and checks the result, he says to himself (or perhaps the dog), “Lord. Heaven help us all.”

They're akso keeping time at The Hustler Casino. “Fifteen seconds, Lester,” the floor man tells him. “Made my flush on the river, Jerry,” Lester claims. “Oh, yeah — congratulations,” Jerry says with the utmost of insincerity. “I show you after you fold,” Lester promises. “Why don’t you show me how you take a raspberry douche?” Jerry responds as if he were channeling Marcus for a moment. (Raspberry douche also is the name of a drink and was referred to in Barbra Streisand's version of A Star Is Born.) Lester’s perpetual grin transforms to a scowl on that comment. “I put Jerry all-in,” Lester says, finally making a decision, though far more than 15 seconds Short attention span theater comes to Luck. On top of the time-stretching shenanigans involved when Lester has been given first one minute and then 15 seconds to make a decision when much more than those time periods have elapsed, why did the poker scene AND the Rosie workout scene need to be sliced into slivers as they were? Ace’s scene with the parole officer and an upcoming lunch meeting run in full. There’s no reasonable rationale for chopping those other parts into bite-size morsels, especially the poker scene. Are they hoping viewers forget that Lester has a clock on him? That can’t be because they remind us. has passed. Jerry looks at the 9 and 10 of hearts that he holds, making sure he has a straight with the 6 of diamonds and 7 and 8 of spades on the board. Jerry then calls, sliding his large stack of chips to the middle of the table. Jerry turns over his cards. “Straight,” the dealer announces. Lester reveals his hole cards one spade at a time, first the 9 of spades, then the ace. Since the community cards also have the king of spades on it, Jerry knows what’s about to be said. “Player has a flush,” the dealer declares as he starts moving all Jerry's chips Lester’s way. “I wouldn’t lie to you, Jerry. Too much respect for your game,” Lester crows. Jerry gets up from the table and begins to walk away, but then returns. “Jerry on tilt. Maybe go get more money from auntie’s shoebox,” Lester mocks him. Jerry had only come back because he forgot his coat.

“I could punch you in the nose, Ace, with all you’ve been through, coming out looking so good,” Isadore Cohen (Ted Levine) tells Bernstein. “No tea party,” Ace says. “It’s a disgrace,” Cohen declares. “They draw the line nowhere,” Nick DiRossi, also present for this impromptu lunch meeting, comments. The three men sit at a table at a dark but elegant restaurant with expansive floor-to-ceiling windows that look out on well-kept lawns. The restaurant itself seems deserted except for Ace, Nick and this out-of-town visitor. “The Greek havin’ fun off that jackpot he won?” Cohen asks Ace. “Oh, life of Riley. (A second possible origin for the phrase.) We’re drivin’ out after this to see the horse he bought,” Ace tells them. “As many stunts as our floor guys pulled so his guy could be the guy who pulled that slot,” Cohen laughs while pointing at Ace and looking at Nick. Cohen may be amused, but you can sense that Bernstein isn’t and that DiRossi feels it too. “You want to get yourself a plate, Ace?” Nick asks. Ace shakes his head. “Before we start Ace, can I quick interject a message from Mike?” Cohen inquires. Hoffman does a nice little character move here as Ace. You begin to notice how often Bernstein avoids answering direct questions, even from a friend such as Gus. He doesn’t say yea or nay to Cohen’s inquiry: he wets his finger and turns a page of paper. “Mike sends his best and anything you want to do, he will support in any form or fashion you think best,” Cohen relays. Bernstein puts his papers down on the table in a way that makes the silverware loudly clink. “Shall we start?” Ace asks, though he declines to wait for an answer and just launches into his spiel. “The U.S. economy is in the fuckin’ toilet. The New York bankers with their three-card monte bond swaps just about brought the fuckin’ walls down. Tremendous structural damage, the tax base, unemployment plus, my impression, tremendous, tremendous compression of the leisure gaming dollar,” Ace declares. “One hundred percent accurate,” Cohen concurs. “Then why look to buy a race track with all the added arguments against — the churn is slow, the unexploited square footage, the stables, the racing surface, the grassy grounds and flowers? Because in California, established and passed by the Legislature, horse racing is legal and casino gaming isn’t, leaving aside for a second the fuckin’ rain dancers, and, like the whole state economy, the track is desperate for new streams of revenue — the perfect fucking Trojan horse,” Ace argues. (No offense to Mr. Perrotta, who was brought into the show’s writer’s room because of his expertise on the industry, but when you hear these words roll off Dustin Hoffman’s tongue, is there much doubt that Milch composed them? When I say compose, I mean it too, because wrote is neither adequate nor accurate enough to describe his dialogue. “can I quick interject a message from Mike?” Ted Levine’s versatility amazes. He never looks the same in any two parts, though that voice usually gives him away. His work with Michael Mann dates back to Crime Story and also includes Heat, Ali and the Mann-produced Wonderland.) “To bring in slots and table games,” Isadore Cohen smiles broadly. “I put up the money, you put up the signs. Your end’s 10 points plus you’ve got a 12-month option up to 39 more — my purchase price plus my cost,” Bernstein calculates out loud for the duo. Cohen laughs. “This isn’t fucking costs. It’s a full court press in Sacramento,” he replies. “The last I heard option means a choice and 12 months stands for a year,” Ace raises his voice a couple of notches. DiRossi comments to Cohen, “Here comes that famous Bernstein temper.” Ace brings his tone back down. “What you get for your 10 points you can decide to nix your option, you get for us being friends,” Ace says. “And our name on the signs,” Cohen responds sourly. “Because I’m a fuckin’ felon — anything else you wanna explain to me?” Bernstein fires back. “No,” Cohen says, shaking his head. “What part Mike wants — he can take a piece of your piece. You tell him he can work that out with you,” Ace tells him. “Chester Bernstein, ladies and gentlemen. The Ace is back in place,” Nick announces. The meeting ends and though we don’t see Ace get up, we know that he has to, quite literally, see a man about a horse. (In this second episode, we can see that Hoffman has a much better grasp on Ace than he did in the pilot. He can convincingly be intimidating as a power broker, but he just looked silly trying to come off as a tough guy like last week. The scene that follows between Gus and Ace is a conversation of pure exposition that explains exactly why Bernstein had been in prison. Therefore, since it's all dialogue, I'm recapping it that way.)

GUS: Are they movin’ the way you predicted?
ACE: Yes. They’re gonna move on the race track. The hook is sunk.
GUS: They swing to Mike with you right there, they’ll swallow it whole.
ACE: Nothin’ Mike likes better than takin’ somebody else’s idea.
GUS: I still don’t know how you ever got involved with this guy.
ACE: Twenty-five years ago — a different person and the best head for business by a lot until — (Ace pauses to point to his nose and make a snorting sound, miming cocaine use) — he started making it big — really big.
GUS: And that’s what happened with that condo.
(We’re still getting exposition out of the way, but this scene plays a bit more clumsily than we usually hear.)
ACE: Co-op. Co-op. We had it in New York for business, entertainment. When we split up, I kept the co-op, he took the plane. Then the grandson at NYU starts using it and Mike starts using the co-op to stash his dope.
GUS: He could have stashed it anywhere.
ACE: You try to see his perverse logic, you’ll go blind. And my grandson’s doin’ what he’s doin’, swingin’ from the chandelier with six broads and then someone upstairs, a neighbor, whatever, drops the dime. They bring in the canines, they find the stash and my grandson says it’s not his and he wasn’t lyin’ — it was Mike’s.
GUS: You know, all’s I remember from that time is this little boy runnin’ around with his shoes untied.
ACE: Six kilos of cocaine? You couldn’t have sent him out to buy six pounds of dog food, the shape he was in four years ago.
GUS: The feds had to know.
ACE:Of course they knew! They wanted me to roll over on Mike and his offshore bullshit. I roll over on Mike or the kid takes the fall.
GUS: The question is this: After you take Door No. 3, where you claim the dope and you do the time, the question is, Ace, what if it was all turned around?
ACE: The answer is Mike would’ve given me up in a heartbeat. So what? I never ratted out anybody in my whole fucking life and I wouldn’t do it, even with that cocksucker.(FIRST TIME USE. PRETEND I DROPPED BALLOONS.)
GUS: I don’t know why you wouldn’t let me kill that prick.
ACE: Stop it. Stop it.
GUS: Hypothetic, I’m sayin’. Hypothetic. (Don't you bet Gus yearns for the days when a draw across the throat made fucking resolution.)
ACE: Enough. (pauses) Hypothetically.

Escalante gives instructions to Rosie's friend, Lizzie, who also is an exercise rider, about how he wants her to ride her Pint of Plain, Ace's horse heading out for his workout, when Turo's distracted by the sight of Gettn'up Morning, who stands near the outer rail as Rosie and Walter discuss his workout. "I'm sayin' out loud — us two really get along," Rosie tells Walter, referring to herself and the horse. Smith sort of nods nervously, but doesn't say anything. "Whatever you think that's worth," she adds. "Um…well…anyways, take him on home to the barn," Walter finally gets out. Rosie starts riding the colt back. "Beggin' — like some chancer on a bed of hope," Rosie mutters to herself. (I can only hope I cut through the second part of her brogue correctly.) Turo gets on his phone with the mystery man who was watching Gettn'up Morning's morning run, inquiring about who the horse was. "That would be Gettn'up Morning, el presidente. He's a 3-year-old colt by Delphi," the man tells Escalante. "By Delphi? He got a right to be OK," Turo grins. "Boy, I must need a vacation, I nearly understood everything you just said," the man declares. "Joto. You understand that?" Turo asks. Ronnie rides down the track alongside another man on horseback (W. Earl Brown, who played Dan Dority on Deadwood). "He's OK. He's decent," Ronnie says, though it's unclear to which horse he refers. "He worked faster last week," the man responds. Ronnie gives an excuse and asks the man if he wanted to ask him and get him sour.(Maybe this isn't a horse they're talking about.) "What I wanted was to not waste a workout, Get him back to the goddamn barn," the man tells Ronnie. (Now I get it. He's talking about the horse Ronnie rides currently. He owns it and feels that Jenkins didn't give him the workout he needed.) "Ain't I glad I got up early to hear you bitch and moan?" Ronnie proclaims just as Joey appears at the rail. Walter overheard the exchange and is laughing as Ronnie rides by. "I guess you ain't been fooling with those Dale Carnegie courses they got out here," Smith chuckles. "How are you, Mr. Smith?" Ronnie inquires, changing his demeanor. "I'm alright. It's good to see another Kentucky face," Walter replies. (While I didn't have any problems with Nolte's performance in the premiere, he's improved in the second outing as well, loosening Walter up a bit instead of just playing him as grizzled and one note.) Ronnie commends him for the speed of his 3-year-old and Smith inquires about Jenkins' "bad fall," but Ronnie insists he's up and fine now. "That's good. Why don't you stop by the barn? We'll tell each other some lies, huh?"

Marcus and Renzo dine at the Arcadia landmark Rod's Grill, less than 2 miles east of the track. "Slickest trainer on the grounds enters his horse cheaper off a win this week which is like hanging a 'Please Buy This Nag' sign off the animal's neck and you propose we claim him," Marcus says to Renzo skeptically. "Yes — for the reason he was key to our jackpot Pick Six success," Renzo argues as Jerry enters the eatery and asks the cashier for aspirin. "How about we get sentimental, hold hands around the men's room toilet, flush the eight grand we blow on the claim and that way at least save ourselves the sales tax?" Marcus responds. "So you have reservations?" the always-on-the-ball Renzo senses. "Nothin' gets by you," Marcus comments. Renzo spots Jerry and gets up so he can sit down Marcus notes that Jerry looks half dead. "Well, gee, I feel like a million bucks," Jerry insists unconvincingly. Renzo excuses himself for a smoke as he sees a man at the door waiting for him. "What was the hit?" Marcus asks Jerry. "You assume I lost," Jerry replies. Marcus grills Jerry on what size game Jerry was playing in and Jerry tell him just $10-$20, describing it as not that big a step up. "No photos we didn't allow. No ceremony presenting us with Pick Six money. All our precautions to keep anonymous and all of a sudden you're Johnny Big Time at the poker table?" Marcus lectures. "You know, it's not like we robbed a bank," Jerry tells him. "Like this mope here," Marcus says, gesturing to Renzo over his shoulder, "wants us to claim Escalante's horse, drawing ourselves attention on that front." Upon hearing that news, Jerry picks up the paper on the table. "I saw that Escalante's dropping the horse down," Boyle comments. "Not to mention that jughead Lonnie likely braggin' to those biddies that he's banging," Marcus works himself up to a coughing spell and has to bring out the oxygen mask. Jerry urges Marcus to take it easy. As Becker continues hacking, he removes his mask long enough to tell Jerry, "Go fuck yourself."

Renzo meets the man (Woody Copland) waiting outside Rod's. "Here's the deal, Renz. You're obligated to absolutely nothing if you put a claim in on a horse," the man tells him. "You look at the horse in the paddock, right Goose?" Renzo inquires. "I know this horse of Escalante's so well, I know every pimple on it," Goose declares. Renzo asks Goose if he knows Marcus. "Marcus — he's a hall-of-fame ballbuster," Goose replies, "Yes. He'd be one of the partners I'd want to eventually involve. Plus Jerry," Renzo explains. "Jerry — of course, Jerry. Brilliant handicapper — and poker room whore," Goose assesses. "And Lonnie. I don't think you know Lonnie," Renzo says, "You know, horse ownerships tend to be fluid. That's why pencils have erasers on 'em," Goose proclaims. Renzo tries to figure the division of costs in his head and out loud, but it's a struggle to watch that little brain work so hard. "You've got the money on your own, right?" Goose interrupts. Renzo confirms that he does and Goose does the computing. "Let's see. Ballpark. Sales tax, Eighty-eight hundred. Can you handle that?" Goose wants to know. "Yes, which I would put up individually, making the horse a present," Renzo announces his intention. "That's a beautiful and noble gesture, my man" Goose says. "Let's go to the track."

Mon Gateau gazes out from his stable and soon Jo climbs out from behind him. "I just gave your eight thousand dollar horse his three dollar shot of Lasix," she tells Turo. "You think I lose him here this afternoon? Someone gonna drop a claim in?" Escalante asks her. "I don't know why you put him up for claim in the first place," Jo replies. Escalante confides to her that he's going to run Mon Gateau with wraps on his front legs this time "to scare away all the vultures." Jo sees what Turo's plan is. "Sure, bandages. The old-school head fake," she comments. *Escalante leads Jo outside of shedrow to show her Pint of Plain. "Ace Bernstein coming with his beard to see what his two million bought him," he tells her. "He's doing great, Turo," Jo rules on Pint of Plain's progress. Escalante reports on how Pint of Plain's trot went that morning and makes a crack about Bernstein thinking he can put a foot in his business. Jo just sighs.

Goose escorts Renzo to have his photo and fingerprints taken so he can obtain a horse owner's license.

At the motel where the four "degenerates" have been residing since they hit the Pick Six jackpot, Lonnie comes out of his room singing and approaches an outside table where Jerry and Marcus peruse newspapers and racing forms for the day. Lonnie is decked out in a sharp-looking new suit and matching hat as he approaches his fellow winners. "Lookin' like a million bucks," Jerry comments to Marcus. "Well, if that ain't right on the nose," Marcus concurs. Lonnie greets the guys and models his wears for them. Marcus mimes a sign as he interprets the message Lonnie's duds send. "Won money. Head up ass. You could've flashed it across the Snoopy blimp," Marcus comments. The always-slow-on-the-uptake Lonnie asks to whom and to what Marcus makes reference. "You. Puttin' yourself in that suit to prove to those cock-struck broads who probably you were already in it at fifty different ways," Marcus dresses down Lonnie. "It so happens you've got things backwards, Marcus. Those women I've been bangin' bought this Brioni for me," Lonnie declares. "Oh sure they did — for your personal injury scam. (I usually link to words such as scam that I imagine most people know because I'm curious about the origin. I must say I was surprised to find that every reference I found cites the word's beginning only in the early 1960s. Hard to believe such a common, widely used word would be such a recent addition to the English language.) So when you take that insurance slip-and-fall they're settin' you up for, you've planted them with the foot traffic. You think you're a real scamster, huh? Meanwhile, they've probably got you signed to some life insurance policy or somethin'," Professor Becker (doctorate in street wisdom) lectures. Jerry grows tired of the oration and unsuccessfully tries to get Marcus to release the students for this period. "No, you bought that suit — you did. Puttin' on airs (third air entry, second noun), it draws scrutiny on all of us," Marcus continues as Renzo approaches in the distance carrying four large cups of coffee. "Maybe you're confused with my mother, Marcus, that I'm required to take your abuse," Lonnie tells him. "That may be you, your circus outfit, your good fortune you had so much to do with, you can put yourself in another section," Marcus suggests. "Maybe I'll go you one better," Lonnie says. "Perish the thought. Be still my poor heart," Marcus replies without a trace of caring, though after that speech he finally has to grab for the oxygen. Having finally arrived at the table but missing most of the fireworks, Renzo looks horribly confused and somewhat sad. "I appreciate our good fortune we had but ballbreaking over my wardrobe is not my idea of fun and my mental adroitness is dulled by this constant negativity," Lonnie declares before walking away. Marcus mouths, "What?" to Jerry. "And don't think they mightn't have bad intentions towards him either — those insurance broads — they find out he scored. Mental fuckin' adroitness," Marcus frets to Jerry as Renzo grabs two of the coffees and chases after Lonnie. Becker returns the oxygen mask to his face. (In the pilot, Kevin Dunn dominated as Marcus, with Jason Gedrick's Jerry seeing the second-most development of the quartet. In this second outing, Ritchie Coster's Renzo and Ian Hart's Lonnie both get material that allow their characters to expand from interchangeable dimwitted comic relief, Coster especially. Both English actors continue to hide their real accents fairly well, though I caught a little British sneak into Coster's speech at times. Gedrick gets to grow Jerry as well as we see his poker world instead of hearing about it secondhand.)

Renzo catches up with Lonnie and gives him his coffee. "He got up on the wrong side of the bed," Renzo says, meaning Marcus. "Tell me the day he didn't," Lonnie responds, still seething. "It's a new situation, Lonnie. It's a process of adjusting for everybody," Renzo tells him. "Why shouldn't that include me? It feels like he's in a movie, falling off a building backwards," Lonnie's voice practically yells all words now. Renzo tries to bring up his proposal for continuing their partnership "under a new concept." "What would you say then?" Renzo asks. "Renz, I'm OD'ing on concepts," Lonnie replies before thanking Renzo for the coffee and continuing his walk to whereabouts unknown. Renzo smiles a grim grin to himself.

Marcus and Jerry make their trek to the Santa Anita doors along with other attendees for the day's racing card since they didn't arrive early to watch workouts as they've done previous. (A brief shoutout of thanks to Pete Siberell, director of special projects at the real Santa Anita Park, who has provided me with some real details about the track for the recaps.) Marcus' rant about the syndicate members' behavior post-Pick Six windfall doesn't seem to have ceased since the motel. "With money comes responsibility, whether you think you can handle it or not," Becker pontificates. "And with some of his money, Lonnie bought himself a suit," Jerry says. "And I have a right to object. On him, it draws scrutiny on me," Marcus insists. "How does him and his suit draw scrutiny on you?" Boyle asks, almost laughing in disbelief. "From being included in his spotlight," Marcus answers as he and Jerry move to the interior of the track's main building. "Same as you running up your come-and-get-me flag at the poker joint." Jerry reads the race forms as he responds, "That puts scrutiny on you." The two turn the corner from the entrance and stop short of Top-O-The-Stretch where Marcus explains further his philosophy of anonymity, though Jerry keeps reading the rundown. "You sit down at a bigger table, right? Because you didn't win your bigger bankroll there, they recognize you won it here where you and me are known associates," Marcus elaborates. "Do you want me to sit in a different section?" Jerry asks. "You're gonna end up broke and alone whether you know it yet or not," Marcus tells him as Officer Kagle arrives to harass them, patting the bag on the side of Marcus' wheelchair. "Does he ever actually wash his clothes?" the security guard inquires. "Hey! What is it to you, you pig-faced, paper bag-lookin' cunt?" Marcus snarls as Kagle, nearly knocking the guard over with his chair. "Whoa! Whoa!" Kagle yelps, stepping back. "You mind your business or you'll find out what happens," Marcus warns the guard. "You better back off — you might cough at me violently while struggling for breath," Kagle retorts. "Hey — we're talkin', Kagle," Jerry tells him while Marcus does put on his breathing assistant. "Let me leave you with this thought. Three points a week — put your cash to work on the street — and make yourself three points a week," the loan shark side of the guard suggests before he departs. "That seven thousand I just lost for the week — I'm six hundred and fifty grand ahead," Jerry informs Marcus. "You just lost seven thousand," Marcus says, looking displeased. "You know, maybe broke and alone is what you're afraid of. Maybe that's why you're carrying what you're carrying in that fucking laundry bag," Jerry tells him. "I've got no idea what you're talking about," an unusually subdued Marcus replies as Renzo arrives. "See you Renz," Jerry says, giving him his racing forms before walking off. "When you comin' back?" Renzo asks Jerry as his back gets farther away. "Probably not today," he says as he keeps up his pace without looking back. Marcus spins to give his farewell to Jerry's backside. "So I'm this moment's excuse for you to go back there and get your teeth kicked in," he bellows to the vanishing Jerry. Renzo makes a sniffing sound and as Marcus prepares to take in more oxygen, he inquires what problem Calagari has now. "I'm claiming that horse, Marcus," Renzo declares while the oxygen mask covers Marcus's face, preventing an instantaneous response. He take it off, still short of breath, and squeezes out, "You're kiddin', right?" Renzo extends the invitation for Marcus to buy in as a partnership and asks for a yes or no. "No — and where you think you're in position to do so? No license or trainer, never mind the wherewithal," Marcus lashes out. "You might be surprised where people were positioned if you weren't busy wading through their feelings left and right — hurting them." Marcus doesn't stay to listen to the third member of his syndicate call him on his crap on the same day and rolls away before Renzo finishes.

Leon's drinking something at one of the tables at the snack bar outside the Backside Cafeteria in the barn area when Joey wanders in. Leon tells his agent he's been mulling ordering a bear claw. "No. No bear claw. I don't need you overweight ridin' back today, pressing your luck," Joey tells him, though the agent's attention keeps being drawn outside. "I was thinkin' I could do some extra road work," Leon says. "Looks like Ronnie had a good back-and-forth with that Old Man," Joey informs Bug Boy, who couldn't seem less interested for he turns the conversation back to Escalante and Mon Gateau, wondering if Turo has mentioned how the horse is doing. "It's not our place to ask," Joey declares. "I'm just sayin' he's droppin' him awful cheaply off a win," Leon comments. "And I'm sayin' you and me, tryin' to handicap a trainer like Turo Escalante — remember what I told you that was called," Joey reminds him. "Heavy lifting with light equipment, Leon replies. "You're worried about the horse being sound?" Rathburn reads into his client's demeanor, especially after what happened to Tattered Flag. "I guess I am a little," Leon admits. (That British accent definitely mucks up the Louisiana drawl Tom Payne is supposed to have as Leon — A LOT.) "Let me give you some advice — acts of God and so forth, bad luck — like that spill you were in. To worry yourself about those afterward…" Leon interrupts. "You worry about everything." Joey continues anyway, "Putting yourself even more in the way of getting hurt, which was a factor with Ronnie and only now he's coming back from that hole." Leon quietly says, "Yeah" and Joey reaches out and places his hand over the young rider's.

FOR PART II OF RECAP, CLICK HERE

Ben Gazzara (1930-2012)

noreply@blogger.com (Edward Copeland) — Sat, 04 Feb 2012 02:12:00 +0000

We've lost yet another of the unofficial John Cassavetes repertory company with the news that the great Ben Gazzara lost his battle with pancreatic cancer Friday at the age of 81. Gazzara left his mark on stage, screen and television throughout his long career and never abandoned his taste for taking risks beyond the works of Cassavetes, who directed Gazzara in three films and co-starred with him in two movies directed by others, eventually appearing in films by directors such as David Mamet, Vincent Gallo, the Coen brothers, Todd Solondz, Spike Lee, Lars von Trier and Gérard Depardieu.

A native Manhattanite from a working class family, once the acting bug bit Gazzara, he studied under Lee Strasberg at The Actors Studio. He made his Broadway debut in 1953 in Calder Willingham's adaptation of his own novel End as a Man which earned Gazzara a 1954 Theater World Award. In March 1955, he created the role of Brick in the original production of Tennessee Williams' Cat on a Hot Tin Roof under Elia Kazan's direction. Barbara Bel Geddes had the role of the original Maggie and Burl Ives put his mark on Big Daddy. Only Ives and Madeleine Sherwood as sister woman Mae made the leap to the 1958 movie version. Though the Pulitzer Prize-winning play was a huge hit, Gazzara departed it later in 1955 to take the lead role of Johnny Pope in A Hatful or Rain written by Michael V. Gazzo, who movie buffs undoubtedly know better as Frankie Pentageli in The Godfather Part II. The play concerned a Korean War veteran who came home addicted to morphine and how it tore his family apart, It earned Gazzara his first Tony nomination as lead actor and co-star Anthony Franciosa a nomination as featured actor as his younger brother. When it was made into a film in 1957, Don Murray got to play Johnny though Franciosa kept his part and earned an Oscar nomination in the lead category. Gazzara's final Broadway appearance in the 1950s was a gigantic flop. The Night Circus also was written by Gazzo, but it closed after seven performances. It did co-star Janice Rule, who Gazzara would wed in 1961. For the remainder of his New York stage career, he would receive two more Tony nominations (but never a win). One for playing George to Colleen Dewhurst's Martha in a revival of Edward Albee's Who's Afraid of Virginia Woolf, the other for an evening of paired one acts: Eugene O'Neill's Hughie and David Scott Milton's Duet. In 2004, he received a Drama Desk nomination for solo performance for his off-Broadway play Nobody Don't Like Yogi about baseball legend Yogi Berra, which he took on tour. He received a 2006 Drama Desk Award as part of the winning ensemble for the Broadway revival of Clifford Odets' Awake and Sing!, his last stage appearance.

Concurrent to his stage work in the 1950s, Gazzara appeared frequently on television, almost exclusively on the many live theater programs that originated from New York, though some episodic appearances pre-date his Broadway debut and stretch back to 1952 on series such as Treasury Men in Action, Danger and Justice. He didn't make his film debut until 1957 in The Strange One, which is the title they gave to a reworked version of the play End as a Man with many of the original Broadway cast repeating roles along with Gazzara including Pat Hingle, Peter Mark Richman (not using the Peter yet), Paul E. Richards and Arthur Storch. His second film in 1959 though is one of his works that will keep his memory alive as the defendant in Otto Preminger's Anatomy of a Murder starring James Stewart. The film still plays well today, though it's hardly as daring now as it was in its original release. While Gazzara always bounced between the three mediums, his only regular roles on series took place in the 1960s. First, as Det. Sgt. Nick Anderson on the 30 episodes of Arrest and Trial from 1963-1964, then as Paul Bryan in the far-more-successful Run for Your Life which aired from 1965=1968 and earned him two Emmy nominations as outstanding lead actor in a drama series. He also was nominated in 1986 for the lead actor in the TV movie An Early Frost and won as supporting actor in a TV movie for the 2002 HBO film Hysterical Blindness.

Gazzara never stopped working and if I attempted to be comprehensive, I'd never finish this. It would be impossible to have seen everything he has made — I imagine even he never saw all of his films. I never realized how many movies he made in Italy. In The New York Times obit, it quotes a 1994 interview he gave to Cigar Aficionado magazine about those movies where he said, “You go where they love you.” So, forgive any omissions, because I'm finishing this fast.

You always want to start with the Cassavetes trilogy: Husbands, The Killing of a Chinese Bookie and Opening Night and how those working friendships spread to other projects such as Gazzara directing Husbands co-star Peter Falk in two episodes of Columbo and, many decades later Cassavetes' widow Gena Rowlands wrote a short film for her and Gazzara to star in that Gérard Depardieu directed as part of Paris, je t'aime . There was the incredibly goofy Patrick Swayze vehicle Road House where Gazzara played the bad guy, but he portrayed Brad Wesley in such a damn entertaining way you kept forgetting that he was the one you were supposed to be rooting against. His mysterious Mr. Klein, one of the many puzzling characters in David Mamet's puzzle picture The Spanish Prisoner. The magnificent duet of dysfunction that he and Anjelica Huston performed in Vincent Gallo's Buffalo '66. The neighborhood boss trying to play peacekeeper and vigilante at the same time in Spike Lee's Summer of Sam. Then he was part of the quirky ensembles that made up Todd Solondz's Happiness and the Coens' Big Lebowski.

Gazzara lived to take chances and loved to work and he did both about as well as anyone. RIP Mr. Gazzara.

Shoot It!: Hollywood Inc. and the Rising of Independent Film by David Spaner

noreply@blogger.com (Edward Copeland) — Fri, 03 Feb 2012 13:00:00 +0000

By Edward Copeland
When you've seen as many films as I have over the course of my decades of serious moviegoing, it becomes harder and harder for one to spring a surprise on me. That's pretty much the case whether the production originated in a Hollywood studio with a big budget or was made on a shoe-string independently. However, the cliché "You can't judge by its cover" became one because that adage proves to be true time and time again. I found that out when I got an advance copy of the just-released book Shoot It!: Hollywood Inc. and the Rising of Independent Film by David Spaner. Given its title and jacket description whose first paragraph reads that it "is a revealing history of how Hollywood, with its eye on the bottom line, lost its ability to support the work of creative filmmakers; it also is a passionate portrait of American independents, and others outside the studio system, who have risen up to fill the void." If I had read closer and all of the jacket before starting the book itself, I might not have gone in with the expectation of another book positing the notion that indie is always good and Hollywood is always bad. Nothing could be further from the truth about Shoot It!, which misleads somewhat with its title. Spaner's book turns out to be a compulsively readable, well-researched book that explores many aspects of Hollywood history and how it has related to independent film ranging from a great beginning section exploring the blacklist and how the studio bosses backed it not out of fear of Washington but as a means of breaking the backs of labor unions to the bullying and strongarm tactics of Jack Valenti, the late Motion Picture Association of America president, who helped the U.S. push for trade pacts with other parts of the world as long as they included ways to stomp out those countries' film industries and fill those screens with American films. Shoot It! isn't a how-to book or a regurgitation of the stories of indie film icons we've heard dozens of times — Spaner's book turns out to be so much greater than that and should be a must read for anyone interested in Hollywood's inner workings from the beginning as well as the struggles of new filmmakers in other countries.

Spaner lives in Vancouver and has worked as a movie critic, feature writer, reporter and editor for various newspapers and magazines. Previously, he wrote the book Dreaming in the Rain: How Vancouver Became Hollywood North by Northwest.

Shoot It! reads quickly and compiles a massive amount of information in relatively small number of pages with extensive endnotes that cite the sources for every chapter. Spander divides his book into two parts. The first deals extensively with the history of American film from its earliest days.

I'm always fascinated by any accounts of the Hollywood blacklist, but Shoot It! paints one of the few accounts that paints the cooperation of studio heads such as Louis B. Mayer, Jack Warner and especially Walt Disney who had less a fear of commies but of union troubles. In fact, one of the main reasons movie production moved west in the first place was to escape strong unions on the East Coast. As everyone should realize by now, scratch the surface of any major problem in this country and you'll find greed and money as a root cause.

Spaner also makes an interesting case for the rising of independent filmmaking being spawned not just from the obvious sources such as John Cassavetes and his groundbreaking Shadows but the way the influx of method actors on the big screen such as James Dean, Marlon Brando, etc., not only changed screen acting but the atmosphere that allowed for behind-the-camera personnel to experiment as well.

Shoot It! also explores the various waves and locales of indie movements and how studios always eventually attempt to co-opt the movement right through today with their "specialty divisions" so that much of what gets labeled independent truly isn't independent.

He quotes the recently passed Bingham Ray's experiences as the founder of October Films who realized how fake the studio independent world was when October was acquired by Universal in 1997 and Universal balked and distributing Todd Solondz's Happiness.

"The dream of being able to work within the studio system as some maverick, autonomous independent — it was just total horseshit." — Bingham Ray

Part II of Spaner's book actually turns out to be its most illuminating part because it covers material that was largely new to me by looking at the history of independent film in other countries and, more shockingly, the shocking tactics the MPAA practiced as Hollywood's lobbying arm to ensure that American films dominate movie screens around the world, decimating the industries in many countries as a result unless they valued their culture enough to stand strong and impose quotas requiring that a certain number of screens be devoted to films made in their own countries. It's not as if these trade pacts, most agreed to when Jack Valenti still lived and headed the MPAA, were reciprocated with the U.S. giving films from other countries equal access.

Spaner begins discussing the memorable student protests in Paris in 1968 when the French government fired Henri Langlois as the director of the Cinémathèque Française, an event depicted in Bernardo Bertolucci's film The Dreamers. Langlois became a hero of the French New Wave by his screenings of Hollywood classics and the latest in European cinema. Letters denouncing his firing arrived from notables such as Hitchcock, Fellini and Kurosawa while the leaders of the New Wave such as Godard and Truffaut took part in demonstrations with the students. Truffaut even was injured when clubbed by police. As Spaner writes, the French do two things better than anyone else — make films and riot.

That sort of French spirit held out against Valenti in the early 1990s when he demanded that culture be included in the new General Agreement on Trade and Tariffs. It was one of Valenti's few defeats and eventually resulted in the dissolution of GATT and the creation of the WTO.

Back in early 1993, when The Crying Game opened in my hometown, I got to do a phone interview with director Neil Jordan. I asked him about the difference between the U.S. film industry and the British one. He answered, "There isn't one." Reading Spaner's chapter on Britain's film industry, I see now how understated Jordan was being. Britain's industry was decimated, not only by Hollywood muscling its way onto all of its screens but also by Tory governments beginning with Margaret Thatcher stripping away film funding.

After World War II, in an attempt to rebuild its shattered infrastructure, England had imposed quotas and levies — that's why U.S. and British prints of films shot in England such as Night and the City and The Third Man would be different. In 1983, Thatcher's government put an end to a lot of what made those great British films of the 1950s and '60s with one of its final acts.

Thatcher's Films Acts of 1985 abolished the National Film Finance Corporation, which had provided small loans to companies to make films to fill the quota; and the Eady Levy, which was seen as too burdensome for exhibitors, was also eliminated that year. By the late 1980s, British cinema had a smaller share of the box office than at any time since the 1920s.

Spaner also looks at one of the few other countries to escape the U.S. stomping — South Korea, which explains why we've been seeing so many great films emerging from that market. Shoot It! also provides an interesting look at the burgeoning film world of Romania which never had any after decades of first fascist then communist oppression.

One of the saddest tales comes in the chapter on how Mexico's industry got crushed when Vicente Fox signed NAFTA in good faith. Between 1984 and 1994, Mexico produced 747 feature films. In 1995, it made five. Even with breakout directors such as Guillermo del Toro, Alfonso Cuaron and others, Fox's elimination of any quotas or subsidies have made their movies more successful elsewhere. In 2004, Mexicans bought a record 164 million movie tickets, but less than 8 million of those tickets were purchased for movies produced in Mexico.

Shoot It! does what any good nonfiction book should — it informs and backs up its facts with solid sourcing. For people interested in film history and its intersection with politics, it's a must read.

It's a Late Night World of Love

noreply@blogger.com (Edward Copeland) — Wed, 01 Feb 2012 13:02:00 +0000

By Edward Copeland
The moment when I knew Late Night with David Letterman wasn't like other talk shows might have been the first time Dave did one of his smallest touches and flung either a blue index card or a pencil through the mock window behind his desk and we heard the sound of breaking glass. Before we begin reminiscing about that magical night 30 years ago when a gap-toothed former weatherman from Indianapolis changed the face of late night television. (If he'd stayed a local TV weatherman, perhaps across the country, more hail would be described on TV as "the size of canned hams.") To commemorate the debut of this standup comic's breakthrough off-the-wall, wacky talk show that took NBC's airwaves hostage following the end of The Tonight Show Starring Johnny Carson, I feel that it's only appropriate that we recognize this anniversary with the proper reverence. You might have already played the YouTube clip above, but that's OK. Play the official anthem of Late Night With David Letterman again, only sing along this time, using the lyrics I've provided below. I'd have an animated bouncing ball if I were capable of creating one that was timed with the music but, alas, that falls beyond my capabilities. After you've paid due homage by singing the Late Night anthem, rejoin me after the jump so we can talk in more detail about Dave's impact on the talk show format, the culture and many impressionable viewers of a certain age. If you don't believe me, you should poll them — and we all know how painful that can be.

There's a cool breeze blowin'
You can feel it across the land.
It's clear blue skies,
It's grandma's eyes,
A place where you can stand.

Late Night is the reason
Our forefathers fought with pride.
It's surfin' fun,
it's dad and son,
A feelin' that's deep inside.

(CHORUS)
It's a Late Night world,
It's a world that we can share.
So turn on your TV
And watch it with me.
It's a Late Night world of love.
(END CHORUS)

There's a whole new generation
who are willing to say yes.
Soups and stews,
A wall of shoes,
A thing called happiness.

So change the channel,
Change your life,
Doesn't cost a thing.
We're talking loud,
standing proud,
now join us as we sing
(REPEAT CHORUS TWICE)
I wanted to make this tribute more thorough, but unfortunately I was hit with a long Internet outage last evening that made finishing this piece a bit of a rush job. In a way, that's more appropriate. Late Night With David Letterman always resembled a fly-by-the-seat-of-your-pants operation, that the tribute follow suit just seems right.

Letterman and I are both Aries born in Indianapolis, Ind. I lived there when he was a weatherman, but I was too young to remember him in that role though my parents do. When Letterman were merely a standup comic, I didn't care for his comedy much, so I don't know when or why I started tuning in to Late Night, which premiered in the second half of my seventh-grade year of school. I never saw an installment of his short-lived morning show. I do, however, remember what changed my opinion on him. Letterman had an HBO special, but not a standup special of the type comedians usually had, called Looking for Fun. Its premise had Dave trolling around Los Angeles trying to find fun things to do and displayed the type of absurd humor that would be perfected on Late Night. I couldn't remember the year of the special — my memory spoke to me and said I watched it in the house we lived in through my sixth-grade year, so I was guessing 1980 or 1981. I checked the "not as reliable as you wish it was" Internet Movie Database and it doesn't even list such a special in Letterman's credits. I did a Google search and found a comic's Web site making the same complaint about IMDb and dating it as 1981. He actually at one point had the special on the site in three video clips until Time Warner asserted its rights and forced him to remove it, so there's a lost gem of Letterman comedy out there somewhere. During my junior high years, I turned Late Night on and got hooked. It was a relationship that lasted through high school and college and even a little bit beyond. Somehow it lost part of that go-for-broke edge it had when it was on at a later hour on NBC when it went on earlier on the Tiffany Network. I'm sure people younger than I am probably feel toward Conan the way my age group did toward Dave. I don't know if there's a new generation that's embraced Fallon or Kimmel. One thing is clear across all age groups: Nobody likes Leno.

The montage the folks at Late Night put together to accompany "The Late Night Anthem" (official title) contains so many moments dear to my heart and the hearts of many friends I know who recall seeing those moments live or remember the individuals, some who have shuffle off this mortal coil. Now, it includes plentiful shots of Late Night regulars such as band leader Paul Schaffer, utility player Chris Elliott and "Where'd-they-dig-up=that-guy?" guy Larry "Bud" Melman. (In fact, Chris and Larry "Bud" played such integral roles in what made this talk show unique, I've written separate posts on each on them. Follow the links on their names.) Elsewhere in the video, we see the great Bill Murray, who was Dave's very first guest on the inaugural show. Sandra Bernhard makes an appearance — her appearances always proved entertaining just by how uncomfortable she could make Dave. Who can forget Stupid Human Tricks or Stupid Pet Tricks? My college roommate and I cracked up for months over that monkey in a dress's expression after she paws at Letterman and then looks shocked. The other band members would get a moment in the sun, such as drummer Anton Zipp or was that Figg? I didn't see the nutty Crispin Glover appearance the night it happened, but I saw the clip plenty of times later — and this took place before YouTube or the Web. After all that fake gunplay, we see the great Penn and Teller. There's Pee-wee Herman taking Dave for a ride in a fake car that in retrospect looks quite similar to when Conan O'Brien drives around in his desk. Comic Jeff Altman gets an appearance (which seems strange in retrospect) followed by the band's guitarist Will Lee and then the great longtime movie star Van Johnson, who just left us in 2008 at the age of 92. Underground comic writer Harvey Pekar (who left us in 2010 and was the subject of the movie American Splendor) made the most of every appearance, usually making NBC's corporate owners extremely uneasy. Then it's a medley of wacky comics: Gilbert Gottfried, Bobcat Goldthwait and the one-of-a-kind stand-up philosopher Brother Theodore, who most of us never would have heard of in the first place if it hadn't been for Late Night With David Letterman. Ironically, it ends with a parting word from guest Jay Leno. How could they know how that would end? What surprised me at the time was the glaring omission from the "Late Night Anthem" montage, Where in the world was Teri Garr? She was one of Letterman's most frequent guests on his NBC shows and the two had such comic chemistry that no one could stop the rumors that the two were secretly married. Hell, Teri even took a shower on the show once. I can't remember the premise, but for some reason they had to do the show out of Dave's office. As a bonus, the clip below includes Dave's Dancing Waters.

The incredible magic of Late Night With David Letterman can be found in how its appeal cut across the usual clique and class divides of your typical suburban high school. In my sophomore year, Late Night had achieved such a level of popularity that the student planners of the school talent show lifted the talk show as the framing device for that year's talent show with a student pretending to be Letterman introducing the acts. I'm not ashamed to say that their material was quite lame and the only two jokes that got riotous laughter were written by yours truly: one being a Top 10 list, the other concerning who paid for promotional considerations that referenced a mini-scandal after a school dance. I'd share them but they were so site and date specific that if you didn't attend that school 27 years ago, the humor would be lost. Weren't we lucky that NBC didn't hear we were stealing their "intellectual property?" This was before General Electric purchased NBC. Boy, they welcomed Dave, didn't they?

In addition to all the memorable guests such as Cher who doesn't mince words as to why she avoided his show. Later, when she and Sonny reunited. The countless appearances of Tony Randall. The features: Supermarket Finds, Viewer Mail, Small Town News, Dropping Stuff Off a 5-Story Tower, Crushing Things With Steamrollers or 80-Ton Hydraulic Presses. Thrill-Cams. Monkey Cams. The NBC Bookmobile. Inventing a catchphrase ("They pelted us with rocks and garbage.") One clip I wish I could have found was a bit they used to do about editing mistakes, talking about the rare times they had to edit the show before it aired. They showed a segment where a guest was keeled over in his chair with an arrow in his back and Letter was pointing at the audience and yelling, "You. Yes, you. You know damn well what I'm talking about." Then there were the suits.

The Alka-Seltzer Suit

The Human Sponge

The Suit of Magnets

The Suit of Chips

The Suit of Velcro

I was so tempted to run every clip YouTube had of Brother Theodore just so those unfamiliar with him could see his act. He had to be seen to be believed, but I narrowed it down to one.

They did plenty of special shows: A mock Christmas special that gave Dave a family, the 360 degree rotation show, the reverse image show, the rerun shows, but perhaps my favorite were the Custom-Made Shows and I thought I would end with a clip from one of those because when Jane Pauley finally gets coaxed into speaking, I think she sums up the feelings of Late Night with David Letterman fans everywhere about the show they loved.

Please remember: This tribute has only been an exhibition. It's not a competition. Please. No wagering.

Late Night wouldn't have been the same without Chris Elliott

noreply@blogger.com (Edward Copeland) — Wed, 01 Feb 2012 13:01:00 +0000

By Edward Copeland
The key to the success of Late Night with David Letterman wasn't just Letterman but the crack writing staff he assembled that shared his bent sense of humor. One of those writers in particular proved to be a breakout star of his own by the many characters he would play during appearances on the show. His name was Chris Elliott and he was a mere 31-years-old when Late Night debuted. As far as Late Night fans were concerned, Elliott quite literally was the guy — as in The Panicky Guy, The Conspiracy Guy, The Guy Under the Seats, The Laid-Back Guy, The Fugitive Guy and The Regulator Guy.

I desperately tried to pin down Elliott's first on-camera appearance on Late Night and I think it may have been on the 25th or 26th show that aired either March 15 or March 16, 1982, in the role of "Garbage" in a sketch about "Urban Paranoia," but I can't be positive. Elliott also would appear as himself, usually in the Viewer Mail segments, as the "staff scientist" answering questions such as the one in this example from YouTube.

Eventually, Elliott would have his own career on television and in the movies. On TV, he starred in the short-lived cult sitcom Get a Life on Fox and later had a recurring role as a brother-in-law on Everybody Loves Raymond, provided the voice for the TV version of Dilbert and served as a cast member on Saturday Night Live for a season. In the 1970s, his father, Bob Elliott, half of the legendary comedy duo Bob & Ray, hosted SNL with Ray and did a Bob & Ray special with the original women of SNL. Now, Chris Elliott's daughter, Abby, is part of SNL's cast, making three Elliott generations involved with the show. On the big screen, Elliott starred in and co-wrote the story with screenwriter and director Adam Resnick (another former Late Night writer) for Cabin Boy, which included a cameo by Letterman (using the name Earl Hofert) as Old Salt in Fishing Village. Letterman turned his single line — "Would you like to buy a monkey?" — into a gag when he hosted the Oscars with stars such as Anthony Hopkins testing for Letterman's role. Elliott's supporting roles in movies such as Groundhog Day and There's Something About Mary came off better. He even did small, noncomic turns in films such as Michael Mann's thriller Manhunter and James Cameron's The Abyss.

Before I let the clips tell the story of the "guys," here are some impersonations and other sketches that Elliott performed on Late Night. First, Chris Elliott testifies during the Iran-Contra hearings.

Next up, Chris did his take on two talk show staples. First, Chris Elliott is the director of the Columbus Zoo, not Jack Hanna. Second, it's Marv Albert with the wild and wacky in the world of sports.

After Glenn Beck, Michael Savage and many of the other wackos we've seen and heard recently, Morton Downey Jr. has largely been forgotten, but back in the 1980s the loudmouth was a phenomenon briefly and spawned "The Chris Elliott Jr. Show."

I have to admit that this one was my favorite and it's hard to not pick every clip out there, but in the 1980s when the great actor Marlon Brando was a world-class loon giving rambling interviews to Connie Chung and Larry King (including a big wet kiss on the lips), when Elliott started showing up as Brando, that was funny enough. When he ended every appearance doing the "Bananas" dance to "Alley Cat," it was hysterical.

The joke about The Regulator Guy, a Terminator-like spoof that was supposed to be Elliott's new series, was that it never aired. Every time he showed up to show a clip or premiere an episode, something would interrupt it or pre-empt it.

One of the earliest running characters Elliott came up with was The Conspiracy Guy, usually seated in the audience spinning outlandish theories about all sorts of topics. Today they are knows as Birthers and Truthers but they have no sense of humor.

Picking just one guy under the seats segment was the hardest of all because they were so many and so varied. Go to YouTube and check out the other ones out there.

Finally, I think the only way to conclude a post on Chris Elliott is to end with the final installment of The Fugitive Guy since it is the one they put the most effort into with location shooting, dragging Letterman along, the credit sequence, etc. NBC can suck on my intellectual property rights as I salute Letterman and his cohorts today.

Or without Larry "Bud" either

noreply@blogger.com (Edward Copeland) — Wed, 01 Feb 2012 13:00:00 +0000

By Edward Copeland
In fact, you could say literally that Late Night With David Letterman wouldn't have started without Larry "Bud" Melman (aka Calvert DeForest) since he literally opened the first episode as seen above. His appearances provided some of the most memorable and funniest moments on Late Night and deserve a separate remembrance — even if you had to wonder if Larry realized his role in the joke.

Even now. very little is known about how David Letterman came upon 60-year-old Calvert DeForest and turned him into Larry "Bud" Melman," let alone decided to take the gigantic risk of letting this odd little man with the giant glasses be the first thing audiences saw when they tuned in to Late Night with David Letterman for the first time on Feb, 1, 1982. Supposedly, for most of his life, DeForest worked for the pharmaceutical company Parke Davis, which Pfizer eventually took over. As awkward as he was in front of the camera DeForest actually worked some as an actor prior to Late Night, supposedly having appeared in five films prior to the talk show, not that any of those were memorable. The first credit was 1972's While the Cat's Away…, a soft-core sex comedy written and directed by an auteur in the genre, Chuck Vincent, who would go on to make late-night Skinemax classics such as Warrior Queen starring Sybil Danning and Donald Pleasence and Young Nurses in Love. In 1976, he was part of the entourage in a comedy called Apple Pie. DeForest is listed as part of the cast of 1979's Blond Poison. a film that IMDb provides no information about except that its cast also allegedly featured James Remar. 1980 found DeForest in the Greek production Savage Hunt. The fifth and final pre-Late Night film that DeForest made comes closet to a title people have heard. They filmed the crude comedy Waitress! in in 1981, though it didn't get released until 1982. Its large cast included in small roles Anthony Dennison (under the name Anthony Sarrero) who would find fame on Crime Story and Chris Noth who would go on to Law & Order and Sex and the City.

While DeForest might have been his real name, while Letterman worked on NBC, he always was Larry "Bud" Melman (unless he was Kenny the Gardener or Johnny Carson). When NBC screwed Dave over for The Chin, Larry followed Dave to CBS but NBC claimed that "Larry 'Bud' Melman" was part of the network's intellectual property, so on Late Show, he had to appear as Calvert DeForest, which he did through 2002 when his health declined too much for him to continue. DeForest died in 2006 at age 85. Thanks to YouTube, I don't need to try to describe some of the best Larry moments. You can see them for yourself. However, it can't be denied what a key role Melman played in the Late Night phenomenon. Carson played characters. Steve Allen "interviewed" them. Letterman mixed the real and the imagined into a potpourri of zaniness. Writer Chris Elliott provided his string of characters. Stage manager Biff Henderson played himself as did announcer Bill Wendell and his assistant Barbara Gaines. The driver of the NBC Bookmobile was really Kathleen Ankers, the show's scenic designer. Another writer, Gerard Mulligan, often became involved as well. The cue-card guy even got in on the action as did the show's director, Mr. Hal Gurtner "THAT'S GURNEE, EDWARD." CBS turned Paul Schaffer's band into an "orchestra." When they were an hour later on NBC, they were "the world's most dangerous band." Now, some of the most memorable Melman moments. First, the gag used toward the show's beginning that Melman owned the show, starting it up with the fortune made from his bus company.

Larry helps a viewer with insomnia,

Larry Bud re-creates Zachary Taylor's final hours

"Ask Mr. Melman

Larry does a Top 10 list

Larry explains the Census

Kenny the Gardener

From the second Custom-Made Show, they put Larry in a bear suit and send him out in the halls of Rockefeller Center to try to get change for a $10 bill.

Finally, the classic: They sent Melman to the Port Authority Bus Station to greet arrivals with decidedy mixed results which only made it funnier. It comes in three parts.Part I:

PART II

PART III

That's how you fictionalize your life

noreply@blogger.com (Edward Copeland) — Tue, 31 Jan 2012 13:00:00 +0000

By Edward Copeland
While watching 50/50, screenwriter Will Reiser's fictionalized account of being diagnosed with a rare form of cancer when he was in his late 20s, I thought of Godard's famous quote about the best way to criticize a movie is to make another movie. Now, I don't think that Reiser and director Jonathan Levine set out to do this, but 50/50 displays an exceptional example of how not to get so locked in by one's life that your movie can't breathe as was the case with Beginners.

Joseph Gordon-Levitt stars as Adam Learner, an NPR employee who has been complaining of back pain for quite some time. When he finally gets it checked out, it turns out to be a malignant tumor on his spine. Doing the modern research technique — Adam turns to the Internet to learn what he can and finds that if the cancer hasn't metastasized, the online information gives the person with his type of cancer a 50 percent chance of surviving. When he shares that information with his best friend and NPR co-worker Kyle (Seth Rogen), Kyle likes the odds, telling Adam they are better than he'd get in a casino.

Adam's overbearing mom Diane (Anjelica Huston, in her best role in a long time) eagerly offers to take over and care for Adam despite the fact that she's already dealing with his father Richard (Serge Houde), who has Alzheimer's disease. However, Adam's live-in girlfriend Rachael (Bryce Dallas Howard) steps up and says she'll stand by Adam through his treatment. Given the turn his young life takes, Learner understandably sinks into depression, prompting his doctor (Andrew Airlie) to refer Adam to a therapist (Anna Kendrick), only she still has her training wheels on, so to speak, as she hasn't completed her doctorate and Adam is only her third patient.

50/50 contains a lot of laughs, but it's more dramatic than I was expecting. In fact, given that Rogen basically plays a fictionalized version of himself (and when isn't Seth Rogen playing a fictionalized version of himself. Keep in mind, I never saw The Green Hornet.), I can't help but wonder if Will Reiser's story inspired Judd Apatow when he came up with Funny People where Rogen becomes best friends with Adam Sandler's comic character with cancer. Of course, 50/50 contains many major differences from Funny People, the most important being that we care what happens to Gordon-Levitt's character while I suffered some disappointment that they didn't kill Sandler off.

Gordon-Levitt continues to have one of the most amazing careers for actors who began plying their craft at an early age, dating back to TV sitcom work on the short-lived The Powers That Be from Norman Lear when he was 11 and a recurring role on Roseanne a year later. At 14 or 15, he gave the best performance in the wretched film The Juror starring Demi Moore, Alec Baldwin and James Gandolfini. Then he more than held his own as part of the comic ensemble of 3rd Rock From the Sun for six seasons.

Since he's grown into adulthood, he's completely missed the curse that often afflicts child actors, giving good to great performances in films such as Mysterious Skin, Brick, The Lookout, (500) Days of Summer, Inception and now 50/50. Reiser's screenplay delicately blends comedy and pathos and Gordon-Levitt has shown that he's adept at both forms with his previous choices, but 50/50 may be his first vehicle that allows him to display his range realistically within the same film.

Rogen, with the exception of the creepy and defiantly unfunny Observe and Report always plays himself more or less. The Rogen you see in Knocked Up simply is an R-rated version of Seth Rogen the talk show guest or Seth Rogen, award show presenter. In most circumstances, an actor like this would drive me up the wall, but I never hold it against Rogen because from the moment I first saw him on the great TV show Freaks and Geeks, he so strongly reminded me of a friend of mine from high school that each time I see him it's like seeing that friend again.

Huston, as you'd expect, turns in a great performance, even if you don't get that much of her. Howard also does the best job I've seen her do, though she never seems to look the same from one film to the next.

The other real bright spot of 50/50 belongs to Kendrick. She was so good (and Oscar-nominated) in Up in the Air. She also popped up in the fun Scott Pilgrim Vs. the World ss Scott's sister and I first noticed her in her film debut, the underrated and underseen musical Camp.

From all the praise that 50/50 received, it didn't turn out to be quite the movie I was expecting. It's good, but not in the ways it had been sold to me.

When radio was at its most beautiful

noreply@blogger.com (Jonathan Pacheco) — Mon, 30 Jan 2012 13:00:00 +0000

By Jonathan Pacheco
Roger Ebert once pointed out that Robert Altman kept track of time by the films he’d made. Similarly, I imagine the average cinephile has a mental timeline for his own life’s events based on the movies he’s seen and when he saw them. (I know that my first kiss came in late 1999 because it was with a girl I’d met earlier in the year through our mutual love for The Phantom Menace.) For the narrator of Radio Days (Woody Allen), childhood’s milestones are marked by memories of radio shows, newscasts and tunes.

As the film opens, he sets the scene of his youth — Rockaway Beach, N.Y., late 1930s — by first asking us to forgive him for his tendency to romanticize the past. Speaking of the rain-swept streets of his neighborhood, the overcast beaches a stone’s throw away and the peeling paint of the massive walls surrounding a nearby amusement park, he says, “I remember it that way because that was it at its most beautiful.” The same applies for the many personal memories he recounts throughout Radio Days, which turns 25 years old today.

Refreshingly, Woody leaves much of his trademark pessimism and sarcasm out of Radio Days, allowing Allen to spend less time trying to be funny and more time simply gushing with affection for Joe, his on-screen childhood persona (played by a young and tiny Seth Green), and his working-class family of parents, aunts, uncles and cousins all living beneath one roof. Sure, Joe’s mother (Julie Kavner) and father (Michael Tucker) still have their share of pointless fights typical of Allen’s autobiographical portrayals of his family life (arguing, for example, about which ocean is superior: the Pacific or the Atlantic), but there’s an endearment that still shows through the animosity, a sweetness that’s absent in some of his other films. In Radio Days, Allen depicts parents capable of simultaneously insulting and expressing love. After arguing in front of a radio relationship counselor and being told they “deserve each other,” the couple is taken aback, the mother saying, “I love him, but what did I do to deserve him?”

Sprinkled throughout the film are memories unadulterated by Allen’s wit or sarcasm, such as Joe’s remembrance of his parents’ anniversary, significant for being the only time he can recall them sharing a kiss. Or when he wakes up late one evening to find his aunt Bea (Dianne Wiest), permanently on an unsuccessful quest to find love, returning home with a date who, as she soon learns, still hasn’t recovered from the recent death of his fiancé, who also happened to be a man. Bea is crushed by this revelation, but she hides her emotions in favor of supporting a man still dealing with a lot of pain.

Allen ingeniously integrates stories of the actual radio personalities as tangential anecdotes to Joe’s childhood memories. His recollections of his family members’ favorite radio programs leads to memories of the programs themselves, leading to accounts of the personalities behind the microphones. Allen smartly resists the temptation to portray them as the “movie stars of their day,” instead depicting them as he imagined them as a child: earnest and sincere entertainers and newsmen, somehow already aware of how quickly their time in the spotlight will fade.

Having Joe’s family anchor the stories brings a cohesion to Radio Days’ many vignettes; no matter how far off topic the stories get, they all lead back to the core group, to the film’s heart. That’s why the subplot of Mia Farrow’s Sally White stands out as the film’s weakest element. It doesn’t really stem from the family’s experiences with radio the way the other stories do. Instead, the narrator’s recollections of Sally are presented as secondhand gossip, “insider” stories of how this aspiring radio star slept and lucked her way into the industry. Though her stories provide some vintage Woody Allen scenes (she escapes execution at the hands of a mob hit man when he discovers that they grew up in the same neighborhood in Brooklyn), they feel emotionally detached from Allen’s other wonderfully personal recollections.

In The Purple Rose of Cairo, Allen warns us of the dangers of escaping into the mediums we love, and in Midnight in Paris, he recognizes the folly of being too engrossed in the past. However, the director seems to have little desire in drawing any such lessons from Radio Days. In this film, he simply wants to hold on to his nostalgia, to cherish the highs and lows radio provided him. As Radio Days closes, our narrator worries that the ghosts of the radio era fade more and more with each passing year, but by making this film, Allen chooses not to let them go without a fight.

Luck Episode No. 1: Pilot Part I

noreply@blogger.com (Edward Copeland) — Mon, 30 Jan 2012 03:01:00 +0000

BLOGGER'S NOTE: This recap contains spoilers, so if you haven't seen the episode yet, move along.

By Edward Copeland
So begins the recapping of another series at ECOF. As you can imagine, even though the pilot only runs an hour, I had to split this recap into two because of all the exposition. As I wrote in the preview Friday, the Luck recaps will evolve as I write them. Be patient. Each show finds its own style of recap. Reminder: My comments are in italics and parentheses. Luck opens with the release of the series' main character, Chester "Ace" Bernstein (Dustin Hoffman), from FCI Victorville Medium II in Adelanto, Calif., which lies a bit away from the fictionalized version of Santa Anita Park where most of the series' action will take place. We won't learn exactly why Bernstein was incarcerated for three years in the first episode, but that information will be parceled out as the show develops. Once Ace exits the prison, he finds his faithful bodyguard/driver Gus "The Greek" Demitriou (Dennis Farina) behind the wheel of his car, ready to take him home. "How you doin', Ace?" Gus asks his boss as Bernstein climbs into the back seat and sighs. "We should get me a tape recorder," Bernstein says. "Meaning what?" Gus inquires. "Meaning what? Meaning we should get me a recorder," Ace replies. Two of the series' best-known executive producers, Michael Mann and David Milch, take hands-on roles in the premiere, with Mann directing and the cast speaking that unmistakable sound of Milchian dialogue. "Your trees. How are your trees in the back yard?" Ace asks. "Good. Good. Thanks for asking. You know, just this morning I was thinkin' that it's probably time to take the wraps off the figs," Gus replies. Much like Gus' figs, many things that have been concealed will be unwrapped during the course of Luck's inaugural season.

"Alright, let me see your horse owner's license," Ace requests of Gus, who hands the card back to his boss. "I'm surprised the camera guy didn't ask me who I thought I was kiddin'," Gus laughs. Bernstein leans over the seat to address his driver. "Hey — hey — no ifs, ands or buts — you're that horse's owner," Bernstein emphasizes. "Yes. I got it. I understand. Understood," Gus replies. "You think you're the first front in history?" Ace asks rhetorically with a slight grin as the car continues to speed down the two-lane mountain highway. Farina is great from the start of Luck, but it takes Hoffman some time to get into Bernstein's skin, especially in the pilot, which apparently was filmed long in advance of the rest of the episodes. He starts out, as in the scene in the car, as if he's supposed to be some kind of tough guy, a role he's never been that convincing at such as when he played Dutch Schultz in the film Billy Bathgate. As the show develops, he gets better as both Hoffman and the viewer get a better sense of who Chester "Ace" Bernstein is. One thing that's unmistakable from the beginning is the language could only spring from the mind of Milch. His unique rhythms, while not 19th century period prosaic, still stand out in a modern idiom from other writers' work.

Recurring throughout Luck, especially in the premiere, shots focus on horses' eyes. Those beautiful creatures' orbs captivate you, even more than the majesty the animals project when seen standing in full glory. (Of course, part of me thinks that if horses's brains were slightly larger, they'd hate our fucking guts.) That thoroughbred leads us to the horse barns and shedrow of Santa Anita Park itself. A rooster crows, a groom washes one horse, an exercise girl leads another on a walk while still others perform morning workouts on the track. Gamblers begin filling in Pick Six cards for the day as a large monitor in the median the track surrounds announces that today's Pick Six winners pays "at least $2,250,540." Our view shifts to a different pair of equine eyes: Pint of Plain, the Irish thoroughbred "owned" by Gus Demitriou. The track's head veterinarian, Jo Carter (Jill Hennessy), currently checks Pint of Plain over. "His gut sounds a little slow," she informs his trainer, a semi-legend at the track, Turo Escalante (John Ortiz). "So see what's what," Escalante, who emigrated from Peru, responds. Jo puts on a glove and adds some lube. "Don't you wish this was you?" she asks him jokingly before she goes exploring. "Loquita. A mental case," Turo replies before being distracted. He walks over to Leon Micheaux (Tom Payne), an apprentice jockey from Louisiana referred to as "Bug Boy" as most apprentice jockeys are. Escalante grabs Leon's crop. "You don't need no stick," Escalante tells him. "Yes sir, Mr. Escalante," Leon says politely. Escalante instructs Bug Boy to jog the horse once the wrong way around the track to loosen him up for the afternoon's race. "I was telling Joey before how psyched I am getting to ride for you," Leon declares enthusiastically, referring to his agent as Escalante helps him mount Mon Gateau. "We'll run big with this horse today." Bug Boy's statement puts Escalante in a foul mood. "Is this morning today or this afternoon?" Escalante asks him. The question puzzles Leon. "Pinhead — is today this morning so far?" Escalante rephrases. "I guess, sir," Leon answers. "Then jog him once the wrong way around and shut up on what you don't know before I call Porky Pig on you," Escalante threatens, using his derogatory nickname for Leon's agent Joey. "Yes sir, Mr. Escalante," Leon replies as he's led out of the shedrow. Escalante returns to the stable where Jo is removing her glove. "I can't believe you got that one in a race," Jo says of Mon Gateau. "I can't believe where you put your hands," Escalante replies. "No displacement, no obstructions or entrapments. Pretty sure it's just a gas colic," Jo reports. "Leche (Spanish slang for Milk of Magnesia) I can give him?" he asks. "Yeah. Give him some Milk of Mag. Once he's alert, just get him walking," she replies before switching subjects. "You met the limo driver yet? The one who broke the bank in Vegas?" Escalante seems skeptical about who really owns Pint of Plain. "And bought this horse for two million? Probably, too. Think they really landed on the moon," Escalante answers. "What? Monkey business?" Jo inquires. "For three years, he's a limo driver. Who he work for before that these three years is in jail?" he queries. Jo guesses Michael Vick, but Turo informs her it was Chester Bernstein. "Gorilla business," Jo says. "A long trip from Ireland. The quarantine — this guy's entitled to a touch of colic, Turo," she declares. He requests she check the horse again that afternoon. As Jo gathers her equipment, she asks Escalante if he's been to Ireland. "No," the Peruvian replies. "You have a heavy brogue," Jo tells him as she exits shedrow. As Escalante speaks Spanish with another worker, we hear Etta James singing, "I'd Rather Go Blind." "Whoo, I would rather, I would rather go blind, boy/Than to see you walk away from me, child, no/Whoo, so you see, I love you so much/That I don't wanna watch you leave me, baby" Escalante gingerly pats the sides of Pint of Plain's head. "For two million dollars, you got some plain head on you," he tells the horse.

At another set of stables on the park grounds, an older man (Nick Nolte) dressed in beige from his pants to his hat steps up on the deck with his dog and doughnuts for his night watchman (Mario Roccuzzo) who sits outside one of the stables. "That's frosted. They said the chocolate covereds weren't fresh. How'd it go?" he asks the man. "The Big Horse got down. He slept all night, Mr. Walter. Even licked his tub clean," the night watchman replies before asking if "Mr. Walter" plans to bet that Pick Six that afternoon. He may refer to him as Mr. Walter as an old-fashioned courtesy, but his boss's name actually is Walter Smith, a longtime horse trainer who came to California by way of Kentucky. Smith not only trains but owns the animals as well now. The "Big Horse" the man referenced is Walter's prized colt Gettn'up Morning. There's a backstory involving both Smith and Gettn'up Morning's history that we'll learn about as the season unfolds. Smith's mind isn't focused on the Pick Six question, so his reply is less than definitive. His life focuses almost exclusively on Gettn'up Morning, to the exclusion of such extraneous matters. "I was wondering if in the last quarter the girl should loosen up and let him stretch the hell out," Smith says as his night watchman continues to talk about possible Pick Six payouts. "Yeah, let the big man show his stuff today," the man concurs with Smith. "Did I tell you that's frosted?" Smith, also known as "The Old Man," asks. "You did," his night guy replies. Smith gives him a pat and tells him to get some sleep. With a whistle and a click of his tongue, Walter gets the Big Horse's attention. "How ya doin' bub? Yeah, you know what I got," Smith says to the horse and we get another close look at one of those marvelous eyes. "What do you think? Do ya feel like stretchin' out?" Walter asks the colt. "Hey bruiser," Rosie Shanahan, the Irish exercise girl (Kerry Condon), says as she blows a kiss at Gettn'up Morning and puts down her gear. "About like last time?" Rosie asks Smith. "About like last time, but maybe you let him stretch out a bit in the lane," Walter tells her. "Great. 'Cause he's been pullin' my arms off," she responds. "He wants to run," The Old Man declares as he helps Rosie take her mount. Smith takes a seat in the bleachers with binoculars. "You're just hobby-horsing him," he comments.

Back in the shedrow, Escalante makes good on his promise and phones jockey's agent Joey Rathburn (Richard Kind) to complain about Bug Boy. "Why are you giving me a jockey who's running his lips about my business?" Escalante demands to know. "You're kidding, Turo," Joey says, expressing surprise from his spot by the track's rail. "I don't kid, you Porky Pig son of a bitch. He's chirping how he's gonna run him big when I told you that horse had no chance," the trainer responds. "A trainer like you throws us a bone, gives this kid a chance to ride for you and then — and then he's — he's gonna run his mouth on you?" an agitated Rathburn gets out, showing how he got his nickname. "Just tell him to shut the fuck up and loose lips sink boats," Turo tells Joey. "I'm gonna take him to the woodshed. Believe me," Rathburn promises as he stands beneath the entrance to Clockers' Corner. Meanwhile, Walter watches from the stands through his binoculars as Rosie begins getting Gettn'up Morning up to a good gallop.

Every track has them and Santa Anita is no exception: The serious gambler. Marcus Becker (Kevin Dunn) sits at one of the tables on the outside patio of Clockers' Corner, lots of forms and tip sheets spread about as he contemplates the day's betting plans. Marcus has to use a wheelchair and, periodically, take in oxygen from the mask that's attached to a tank on his wheelchair. Marcus currently eyes the day's 4th race when a member of his betting syndicate (not a crime syndicate as usually associated with the term, but a group of people who pool their money to make larger bets that cover more possibilities), Jerry Boyle (Jason Gedrick), joins him at the table. "I'm tapped," Jerry says as he sits. "You're what?" Marcus asks, removing the oxygen mask. "I'm tapped out. I'm tapioca," Jerry replies. "Yesterday you left the grounds a 390 dollar winner," Marcus declares. "Yeah, then I hit the Commerce Casino for a little poker fun after dark," Jerry explains. "With three days' worth of Pick Six carryovers worth several million dollars and you hand your bankroll to the ricers?" Marcus says, anger and disdain welling up in his voice. "Here's my picks," Jerry responds, sliding a napkin across the small table selecting horse Nos. 1,4,7 for the 3rd race; 5 for the 4th; 1,3,6,7 for the 5th; 2,3,5,7,8 for the 6th; 1,4,7 for the 7th and ALL for the 8th. "Fuck your picks, you degenerate prick — where's your money?" an openly pissed off Marcus demands to know. "Don't wind yourself up. Your face is going all different colors," Jerry says in his tranquil tone. "Fuck my face," Marcus responds, only to be interrupted by a coughing fit and the need to return the oxygen mask to his mouth.

In the stands, Walter continues to watch Rosie ride Gettn'up Morning around the track through his binoculars. "Oh, you're runnin' him around," Smith mutters as Rosie takes the colt to greater strides. Another member of the syndicate, Renzo Calagari (Ritchie Coster), shuffles on to the patio for the group's morning meeting. "Oh good. Now here comes the brain surgeon," a still pissy Marcus comments. Renzo holds up some cash. "Got my disability. Two hundred and fifty-five simoleons," Renzo announces as he hands the money over to Marcus. "Meaning against the Social Security he's gonna get, which is the mumbo jumbo these joints use to get around the usury laws," Marcus teaches his class. Gettn'up Morning's workout has captured the attention of eyes other than Walter Smith's. Joey Rathburn, pacing along the rail, and Jerry, still sitting with Marcus and Renzo, have noticed Rosie's ride on the Big Horse. Marcus pushes the napkin to Renzo. "That napkin's Jerry's whole contribution. Sick degenerate," Marcus tells Renzo. he took out a payday advance Walter puts his binoculars down and brings out a stopwatch. Rosie's ride continues to captivate Jerry. As she brings Gettn'up Morning to the theoretical finish line, Smith stops the clock and looks pleased. "Guess I still know a peach when I see one," Walter mumbles to himself. "You single the Fourth," Renzo says to Jerry, referring to his selection of only horse No. 5 in the 4th Race for the group's Pick Six plan. "I've got the Fourth semi-spread." Marcus examines Jerry's choice more closely. "A triple-bug apprentice hasn't won ten races in his life. He's gonna single a horse that's been — that hasn't run in two years," Marcus notes. From the racing form, we see that apprentice jockey's name is L. Micheaux and the horse that hasn't run in two years happens to be Mon Gateau, whose morning-line odds are 12-1. No wonder Escalante wanted Bug Boy to keep his mouth shut, but that's the reason behind the bet. "Yeah, but Escalante's the trainer," Renzo tells Marcus, who emits a sarcastic, "Oooh."

Leon slow rides Mon Gateau back and spots Joey. "I met Mr. Escalante in his barn," he tells his agent. "Oh yeah. How — How'd that go?" Rathburn asks as if he doesn't know. "Good. You know he's foreign. He's a little hard to understand," Leon replies, his Louisiana accent clear. One problem that will crop up throughout the series is that Tom Payne, the actor who plays Leon, hails from England and often that accent creeps out and he speaks in an unidentifiable dialect. Joey walks along the rail as the slow ride continues. "Well, you — you did some job," Joey tells his jockey. "I did?" Bug Boy responds with surprise. "P—Pissing him off with your wise-ass chirping about how good you thought this horse was gonna run today," Joey informs him. "I was just sayin' somethin' to say somethin'," Leon offers in defense. "That's what — that's what 'How's the weather?' is for," Rathburn suggests. "With a great trainer, I wanted to have somethin' to say," Leon insists. "Suppose he is making a bet, you — you think he wants some big mouth riding his horse?" Joey theorizes. Bug Boy asks if Escalante could be placing a bet, but the question only aggravates Joey more. "I—I—I don't know and if you want to know, I don't want to represent you. You're a bug. You ride everything hard and you don't chirp about what ain't your business," Joey instructs his client. "He could be on go, Joey," Leon whispers to his agent about Mon Gateau. "Moves like shine on a Saturday night." Rathburn makes another appeal, asking Leon to keep his mind right. As Leon rides on, Joey looks down the track as Walter greets the return of Rosie and Gettn'up Morning. Out of Joey's earshot, Walter says to Rosie, "11 and 2. He pulled up (stopped) at 23 and change." (23 and change is the time in seconds that it took the horse to breeze, or lightly run, the distance. Typically, horses are timed at intervals, in races or workouts — generally in ⅛ or ¼ mile increments. “11 and 2” would be the distance the horse ran, the 11 referring to furlongs. ⅛ mile equals one furlong. In the U.S., the classic distance is 1¼ miles. In Europe, it’s 1½ miles. Santa Anita's main dirt track is 1 mile long. Thanks to horse trainer Samantha Harvey of Alternative Horsekeeping With Samantha Harvey at The Equestrian Center in Yuma, Ariz., for helping explain that bit of dialogue for me.) As both the colt and Rosie pant, Rosie tells Smith, "Walter, listen, this guy's got nine more gears." Joey gets on his cell phone. "Ronnie, whereever it is you've flopped, find your coat, find your keys, find your car, get to the gym," Joey says into his phone. We don't see the person he's calling, but we do see his place, which has walls adorned with images of a victorious jockey, though we see Ronnie's wireless phone standing upright on a charger, its screen showing "12 new messages." Joey goes on, "Because if I didn't just see a Derby horse work, I'm a Chinese dentist. Plus the mount is open for you, Ronnie. An exercise girl was up. Yeah — yeah, call me back. Remember me — I'm y—your fucking agent, y—you drunken prick." I haven't spoken much about Mann's direction of this episode. It's been fine, but has been heavy on quick cuts after the initial Ace and Gus scene. However, I thought this sequence involving the various players noticing Gettn'up Morning that leads in to the great Joey-Leon talk that's filmed in a single walking/riding take shows Mann's most exceptional touch so far.

Jerry turns his attention back to his partners now that Gettn'up Morning has left the track. A hefty track security guard (Peter Appel) comes out of Top-O-The-Stretch (Top-O-The-Stretch is the name given to the betting area, either at self-service terminals that open even before the gates, and some manned ones later after the track opens for admissions) at a good gait. "Anyone seeking admission, please clear the grounds before the gates open at 10:30 unless you're a credentialed track employee," the guard announces as Marcus spins his wheelchair around to face the man. "Anyone morbidly fat? Anyone order a heart attack?" Marcus ridicules the guard (as if he has room to talk). "Yeah well, I wouldn't hold my breath. Oh, I forgot — you can't," the guard retorts. "When's the last time you saw your prick without a mirror?" Marcus shoots back. Jerry focuses the day's races instead of the insults. "Got the Pick Six in your crosshairs, Kagle?" Jerry asks the guard. "Yeah, I hold a few opinions," Kagle replies before getting a call on his walkie-talkie. Before Kagle leaves, he asks Jerry if he's going to "step up," but Boyle stays mum though Marcus looks suspiciously on the glances traded between Jerry and the guard. Renzo grabs Marcus' attention, telling him, "There may be more development at the coffee shop." Marcus seeks further explanation of said development, but Renzo prefers not to say. "A development of what type?" Marcus rephrases. "No. So if it doesn't happen," Renzo responds. "You're a moron," Marcus tells him, but he starts his chair moving when he sees Jerry leaving the table. "Hey — do not reach out to that three percent-a-week-charging bloodsucker," he warns Jerry about Kagle.

The drive from Ace's temporary Victorville residence ends as Gus pulls the car up in front of The Beverly Hilton, where Ace uses a suite as his home. When Chester exits the vehicle, he looks up and stares for a moment at his former stomping grounds. The hotel's executive manager (Spencer Garrett) greets Ace and shakes his hand. "Welcome home, Mr. Bernstein," he says. "If you've been partying up at my place, Maurice, they better all be out," Ace responds good-naturedly. "Oh if I missed one or two, you just send them down the fire escape," Maurice replies, adding that they've been preparing Bernstein's suite all week. "How about this guy?" Bernstein comments, indicating Gus. Maurice calls him "The Man With the Golden Arm," though he's referring to neither heroin addiction nor the Frank Sinatra movie. "I leave town. He hits a slot for five million dollars," Ace says. "I only do this for fun now," Gus offers since it would be unusual for millionaires to continue to serve as chauffeur/bodyguards. "I graduated, Mr. Bernstein," the young doorman tells Ace. "Good for you, kid," Bernstein says to the young man, patting him on the shoulder as he and Gus go inside. "So did I." (In a smoothly edited and executed segue, the glass doors of Ace's building turn into the glass doors where you enter the interior of the track's Clockers' Corner where they serve breakfast, seemingly without a cut.)

"There he is," Renzo exclaims as he, Marcus and Jerry enter the inside dining area. "Why do you sound so surprised?" asks a man in a yellow shirt and a light brown hat with his back to the camera. "I'm not. Because I never guaranteed you'd be here," Renzo replies as the man (Ian Hart) stands to greet the group. Jerry slides into a booth. "You gonna sit at the counter, you mind if I get by?" Marcus asks the guy obstructing his path. "That's Lonnie, Marcus. You met him once before," Renzo informs him as he moves into the booth. "And you're Jerry. We've met also, but I don't expect you to remember," Lonnie McHinery tells Boyle as he climbs in next to Renzo who suggests they all sit together there. Marcus wheels to the table's end. "You know what I still call you when I ask them how you are doing?" Lonnie asks Marcus. "Asshole?" he guesses. "The brains housing department," Lonnie answers. "Is it handicapped accessible?" Marcus inquires. Lonnie reminds Marcus where they met — a race day at Hollywood Park with Renzo. "You gave me a triple which I had to leave before I could play it," Lonnie recalls. "Does this story end sad?" Marcus asks in a tone indicating he could care less as he writes in a notebook. "No. No. No. I played it on TVG. 117 bucks it paid," Lonnie tells him. Lonnie's reminiscing gets halted temporarily by a waitress seeking breakfast orders. Once she finishes her business, the men resume theirs. "Now what would I always say to you?" Lonnie asks Renzo. "Let me once make half a score, I'll bankroll that genius gimp," Renzo replies. "Define — I'm afraid to ask — define 'half a score,'" Marcus seems slightly intrigued. "Off two women insurance agents paying me to fuck them senseless," Lonnie answers, a stack of bills in his hand wrapped by a rubberband.

Ace fiddles with a necktie in the bathroom of his suite before abandoning the effort. Gus calls from another room, asking if he's ready. "How'd you leave it with Escalante?" Bernstein asks. "That I'd call him from a few minutes out," Gus replies. "Your attitude with him — business. One hundred percent," Ace instructs Gus. Demitriou admits to being nervous about his planned meeting with Pint of Plain's trainer. Bernstein notices of pile of envelopes on a dresser that Gus explains are three years' worth of letters and notes wishing Ace well. "I wrote or called all of them back," Gus tells him. "You're friendly with Escalante, but you've got all the friends you need," Ace says, holding up his new microcassette recorder. "Spare me the hat dance," Gus pleads. "Just train my horse," Ace orders as they exit the suite.

Jerry dashes through the growing crowd at the betting windows until he finally spots Kagle and starts shouting the guard's name to get his attention. "Hey, would you loan you a thousand dollars?" Kagle asks Jerry. "What are you talking about? I'm not asking for a thousand," Jerry says. "Well. One policy fits all and from now on it's a thousand dollars minimum," the guard/loan shark informs him. "Why one policy? You're your own boss," Jerry points out. "Do I look self-employed in this uniform?" Kagle asks him. "As a shylock, you're self-employed. Does one pant size fit all?" Jerry says, sounding as if spending time with Marcus has rubbed off on him. "Yeah. Yeah. Good. Insult my weight," Kagle bristles. "Hat size, I said," Jerry insists, trying to erase his slur from the air. "It's a thousand minimum. Three points a week on the balance and I ain't chasin' you anymore for vig on a lousy three hundred dollars," Kagle makes clear. "Look, just let me take the fucking thousand then," Jerry says. "You do not qualify," Kagle declares. "Fuck you then and the Goodyear Blimp," Jerry spits as he storms off, but Kagle calls him back, holding cash in his right hand. "Mark my Pick Six," Kagle requests. A disgusted Jerry takes the money and starts filling in Kagle's betting card. Kagle thanks Jerry when he slaps the picks back at him, Playing in the background during the last part of the scene is part of Gil Scott-Heron's cover of Robert Johnson's "Me and the Devil Blues." "Early this morning/he knocked on my door/I said "Hello, Satan,/I believe it's time to go" Of course, if Jerry gave Kagle the same Pick Six selections that the syndicate has and they should pull off the win, the jackpot would be split — and you could count on Marcus being pissed. (Many thanks to Tony Dayoub for uncovering which artist was performing the cover for me. Check out his blog Cinema Viewfinder.)

The other three members of Jerry's group take spots behind the grandstand's last row since Marcus' wheelchair limits options. "I'll illustrate this degenerate's mind — why his vote's for singling the Fourth," Marcus says, referring to Jerry's picks. "Jerry, he's saying," Renzo tells Lonnie, in case he wasn't clear as to whom Marcus referred. Becker brings out the napkin as a visual aid. "Off form, it's completely open. He should really use every horse, but he ain't handicapping the horses, he's handicapping Escalante," Marcus elaborates. "Jerry's thinking, Marcus feels," Renzo conveys to Lonnie, as if he has to translate every word Marcus utters. "Escalante enters a horse away two years, all slow workouts, and he gives the mount to a triple-bug apprentice. The horse jumps up, who does that make the hero?" Marcus asks rhetorically. "Escalante, Jerry's thinking," Renzo answers, addressing Marcus this time. "We bet four deep in the Fifth and we're five deep in the Sixth. But you single Escalante. You bet only Escalante's horse and he wins, we just knocked out three-quarters of everybody else's bets. We're perfectly protected in the three races subsequent. And if we make it to the last, the Eighth race in which we bet every horse, we're in to a two million dollar jackpot," Marcus concludes, so excited by the strategy that his cough returns and it's oxygen time again. "Brains housing," Lonnie comments. "So where is Jerry? He feels bad because he tapped out in poker. He's probably got that fat fuck's fangs in his neck," Marcus guesses correctly about Kagle. Can't you hear Milch in that dialogue? "perfectly protected in the three races subsequent" "fat fuck's fangs" I love it. I miss being able to go to the track, not that I knew anything about horse betting. If I ever won, it was pure luck.

Ace enters the glass doors of another building and a woman steps out behind a desk in front of a case displaying wine bottles. She asks Bernstein how he is and if he's there to meet Mr. DiRossi. Ace confirms that he is and Nick DiRossi (Alan Rosenberg) spins on his seat at the lobby bar. "Oh. There he is. We're back to full strength," DiRossi says as he gets up to greet Ace and take him to his office, "So how you doin', Ace?" Nick asks, keeping his arms around Bernstein to guide him. "Great. You're doing real well," Ace comments, surveying the surroundings. This sequence is short, but Mann directs it in an interesting fashion. Though Nick and Ace walk and talk at a normal pace, the camera whizzes by unusually fast, giving the viewer blurry glimpses of the many bottles stacked in the display case. As I said earlier that Dustin Hoffman doesn't really get a handle on who Ace is right away, one thing he does do well is establish the physical side of Ace. Note at the beginning of this scene, if you re-watch it, the way Bernstein adjusts his cuffs and collar before he enters DiRossi's building. "The club is still strong. Last year we opened Atlantic City and Miami but the jewel in the crown is a club in Macau. That club is a real draw, Ace," DiRossi tells him.

TO READ PART II OF THE RECAP, CLICK HERE

Luck Episode No. 1: Pilot Part II

noreply@blogger.com (Edward Copeland) — Mon, 30 Jan 2012 03:00:00 +0000

BLOGGER'S NOTE: This recap contains spoilers, so if you haven't seen the episode yet, move along.

By Edward Copeland
The next sequence is one of my two favorites of this entire episode, which surprises me since my anticipation for the series stemmed mainly from Milch's involvement and eagerness to hear his words again and neither sequence involves much dialogue. Actually, this sequence doesn't come in one complete chunk — though I adore the separate pieces. However, I bet it would've been even greater as one continuous piece. In case you started reading the recap with this post, you should click here to read about the first half of Luck's premiere first. The sequence begins with a tight close-up on Leon, perhaps the closest shot of a human face we've had yet on this show. He looks as if he's in a trance, although almost imperceptible movement of his lips indicates a count or a chant. The camera moves to a profile shot and we see that he's in the jockeys' locker room. A quick insert shows another jockey tossing a piece of fruit in his right hand before returning to Leon's profile, only this time we move past it and see that he's staring at what looks like a small shrine, one that would seem to indicate that the Louisiana lad practices Catholicism. The fleeting glimpse and the size of the objects make positive identification impossible, but not all the items that Leon prays to or holds dear can be considered strictly religious ones. The framed picture appears to be of an ascendant Jesus, but I can't be certain if that's a crucifix on the right wall since hanging off it are an upside-down horseshoe and a rabbit's foot. The white plaster praying hands aren't an uncommon sight, but I'm not sure what they used to make the figurine that I presume represents Mary and the Christ child. Leon also has some personal photos in the display as well as an opened package of chewing gum, Tums and what appears to be his own bottle of Milk of Magnesia. We get a brief close-up of the faces on the figurine and the musical score (I assume that was composed by the episode's credited composer, Dickon Hinchcliffe) takes on more prominence as Leon stands and grabs his helmet.

Leon marches through the locker room then stops by the water cooler, placing his helmet and crop on top of it while holding the horse's saddle and colors. The clerk of scales then weighs out Leon. Bug Boy steps off the scale, retrieves his helmet and crop and begins his walk to the paddock in a smooth tracking shot around corners and through the tunnel until he emerges into the sunlight of the open-air track. Outside, Rosie calls Leon's name from behind the fence, "Chicas. Bon temps roullez," Leon says to her. (Treme fans should recognize that phrase from my recaps of that show. Why he's mixing Spanish and French and using the plural for girl, I have no idea.) "Go get em, Jock," she tells him. He continues his walk stepping into the grass of the paddock area until he finds Escalante. "Listen to me. You keep him covered up so he don't go. When you ask him, you take him wide to don't get a stop," Escalante instructs the bug. "Yes, sir. I hope this is the first of a lot of races I get to ride for you, Mr. Escalante," Leon says as Escalante helps him mount Mon Gateau. "Get on the horse, Jock," Joey, who has been watching and within earshot, speaks in a conversation that only he can hear. Leon asks Escalante for a fist bump and the trainer stares at him as if he's lost his mind. "He gonna finish for you. Get him wide. Don't get him fucking stopped," Escalante emphasizes.

"Now this is why the country is in the shitter. Stand-up guys go away while the mugs steer us straight for the falls," DiRossi says to Ace. This is what I meant before. I have complained about this on other series. You can justify the division of the race scene at the track. I just happen to think it would have played better as one continuous piece. However, what is the point of having that tiny scene of Ace meeting DiRossi in his lobby and heading toward Nick's office, interrupting it for the great scene at the track and then stopping the track scene to go back to Ace and DiRossi, now in DiRossi's office. It couldn't have taken that long to get from the lobby to the office. "Far as The Greek, I appreciate the trouble people went to," Ace tells Nick. "He beat a slot. God bless him," DiRossi responds. Bernstein elaborates on how he wanted to make sure Gus showed income and paid taxes when he bought Pint of Plain. "They needed the exercise, those people you put through some hoops. Who we hope that horse gives pleasure to is you, Ace," Nick comments. "Yeah, but I've got to keep my distance from the track…until I feel out my supervised release to see if there's any give on the leash," Ace explains. DiRossi brings up the subject of taking over Santa Anita. Ace seems surprised that Nick expresses interested in the race track now. "Supposed to be close to belly-up, but you knew that," Nick says. "Oh, it's patience and a bankroll," Bernstein responds. "Brains and balls is what I'd say," DiRossi counters. "They're tapped in Sacramento. The local tax base has shrunk in half. If ever there was a time for a casino to get through…" Ace speculates. "Right on the grounds you're saying," Nick seeks to clarify. "There's hundreds and hundreds of beautiful acres with how many tens of millions of people thirty minutes or less? But I can't get in the middle of that yet," Ace spells out the pluses. "No. No no no. No one wants you to," Nick insists. Bernstein sighs. "Sometimes I wonder if I'm still an asset." DiRossi assures him that he not only remains an asset, he's the architect. Bernstein tells Nick that he's "short of temper" and can't keep his thoughts as well as he used to and shows DiRossi the tape recorder that he had Gus get him. When the machine appears, DiRossi looks stricken. "What's the matter?" Ace asks. "Nothing. No," Nick replies uneasily. "It's a memory aid," Ace says. "It's like a good work-around," Nick states. "After I do three years, you suspect me? I take a fall protecting how many people? I've got a tape recorder, you've got qualms. Absolutely not!" Ace shouts and stands, tipping over his chair and ripping his shirt open. "You want to fucking toss me?" Ace yells. "Ace, basta," Nick says. "Basta? What? Are you watching old movies? Don't basta me you fucking guinea prick! Three years! Getting forgetful in everything else," Bernstein rages. "Everyone appreciates what you did, Ace," DiRossi tells him, trying to calm the situation. Ace sets his chair upright. "I tore the buttons off my goddamn shirt. I make a fool out of myself the first day out," Ace declares. "A: You didn't. B: You're with a friend," Nick insists. One of his employees comes in and Nick tells him to pull around back and drive Ace to the Beverly Hilton. DiRossi agrees to delay any talk about Santa Anita Park until Bernstein feels he is ready, but reminds him that having Gus as the horse's owner will offer them an inside view. "I shrunk," Ace blurts out suddenly. "I got to get new shirts." (When Hoffman does the off-the-wall Ace stuff such as complaining about his buttons or he suddenly shrunk, he makes Bernstein more interesting. When he tries to go the tough guy route standing and yelling, he sort of looks foolish.)

The 4th race with the group's single pick, Mon Gateau, inches closer to post time. Joey and Escalante both have taken seats in the grandstand to watch the race. The horses are being loaded into the gate — but Mon Gateau and a couple of the other thoroughbreds prove to be feisty. A man's voice asks Leon if he's OK. "I'm good," he responds. (This is the second half of my favorite sequence that I think they should have played as a single long one. The major difference between the two halves is that the bulk of the first half works almost as if it's an unbroken take, a tracking shot that took Leon from the locker room to his spot atop Mon Gateau. This sequence, which really captures the excitement of a race from the perspective of the spectator with money on the outcome, also adds what common racegoers don't see or hear: the perspectives of the trainer and the jockeys, including words exchanged between the riders, something that I never considered could occur over the hoofbeats or would occur just on the basis of sportsmanship. It's achieved with so many quick cuts, it's nearly impossible to capture everything in one viewing.) The bell rings, the gates open and they're off, It looks from above as if Leon and Mon Gateau got off to a good start — you recognize Leon by his green silks with the big star on the front and back of his shirt. The shots came at you in a barrage as the race starts — above the horses, then in front, as if they're riding toward the camera. A sudden switch briefly shows us the view from the inside rail before taking us behind the jockeys' and their horses' backsides. A thoroughbred's proud mane fills the frame for a split second. We look head-on at a determined Leon before there's an over-the-back shot of two jockeys running neck and neck, side-by-side. Below, we view the rapid movement of the horses' legs on the dirt track. The camera keys in on Bug Boy's face again and he almost appears to be grinding his teeth. The sequence offers us our first shot of the stands as we observe Escalante. "Calmate, pinhead," the trainer says. Now, Mann gives us the first view of the race as someone not in it would see it, with five of the horses in the same shot, a bit further away but close enough that we might conceivably be watching from the outer rail. It stops moving for the first time for the other entries to catch up which, unfortunately, include Mon Gateau. When Leon and Mon Gateau reappear, we go in close again until they ride by and the horse's tail exits the frame. "How's he running?" Lonnie asks. "How's he running, Jerry?" Renzo passes along the question. "Fourth or fifth," Jerry answers distractedly. "Yeah, but how's he running?" Renzo inquires. "Would you please shut the fuck up?" Marcus tells them. Leon has risen to a partial standing position on the horse, but though Escalante told him to go wide he appears at risk for getting pinned against the inside rail. On the bright side, Mon Gateau has moved up in the running order. Escalante watches through binoculars. "Come on, number fucking five," Lonnie shouts. Leon looks as if he's trying to steer Mon Gateau away from the rail but the No. 4 horse and his jockey aren't cooperating. Escalante can see what's happening. "Fucking stupid baby pinhead. You got him trapped on the rail," Turo says with disgust, tossing down his binoculars. "Scooch over. Let me out!" Leon yells to the jockey on No. 4. "Do I look like your fucking daddy?" Leon must have brought Mon Gateau too close to No. 4 because his jockey warns, "Watch it, man!" Escalante has picked up his binoculars again, but removes them. "Conyo," he mutters. "Come on, baby. Come on," Joey roots for his client. "Where is he?" Renzo asks. Leon barely avoids bumping Mon Gateau into the inside rail. Jerry stands up. "Go inside! Go inside!" he yells. Miraculously, though he couldn't have heard Jerry's advice, by switching to that plan and dropping Escalante's, Leon manages to move Mon Gateau past No. 4 and into a challenge with horse No. 2 for the lead. "Come on!" "Come on!" "Go!" The cheering comes from all the faces in the stand with an interest in seeing Mon Gateau and Leon win. "Take it home!" "Oh God! Oh my — yes!" After all that fast-paced cutting, we switch to slow motion and then a freeze frame as Mon Gateau clearly crosses the finish line first. "Oh my God! He won!" Renzo exclaims as he stands and slaps hands with Jerry in celebration. Marcus needs his oxygen mask after the win and exchanges a fluttery finger signal with Jerry to mark victory. "That Cajun can pump," Rosie comments to her friend Lizzie (Chantal Sutherland) about Leon. Escalante stands, looking stunned, but he sits. "Holy cow. That horse run very good," the trainer says as if even he can't believe it. Joey beams like a proud new papa. An announcer in the track's broadcast booth declares, "What an exciting finish for the Number Five horse Mon Gateau. Whoever is the patron saint of long shots, executives all over the track are busy lighting candles to." The track's public face (Don Harvey) enters the booth and looks at a monitor showing the gigantic possible Pick Six payoff of $2,859,540. "Multimillion dollar Pick Six payout distracts schmuck gamblers from track's insolvency," he confides to the announcer. Escalante joins Leon and Mon Gateau in the winner's circle. "Hey Mr. Escalante, we did good," Leon smiles. A win doesn't stop Escalante from criticizing Bug Boy, though he does it while grinning since cameras are taking his photo. "I told you to take him wide," he tells the kid. An offscreen reporter asks the trainer for a comment. "What a surprise," Turo replies before exiting the scene. (If you've never been to a horse race, I don't think the excitement of one ever has been captured better than in this scene. Even coverage of The Kentucky Derby or other real races don't come close. It's really a triumph of direction, writing and editing (the team of Michael Brown, Hank Corwin and Kelley Dixon) and having built the various characters involved up enough to involve us beyond the race itself — and this race didn't even involve either of the show's two marquee name actors, Dustin Hoffman or Nick Nolte. I do wonder how they'll manage to keep the races fresh over the long haul. In the races run in the first nine episodes, they do utilize several of things that can go right or wrong in the running of pari-mutuel horse racing, but I have to wonder if that aspect might get repetitive.)

"I am on some roll," Lonnie declares as the four gamblers enter Top-O-The-Stretch. "Hey, Kagle's got the ticket," Jerry reveals quietly to Marcus. Lonnie has been rambling about how he got the cash from the female insurance agents, though no one pays attention. "They call my prick The Emperor," he announces to no one in particular. "What the fuck?" Marcus responds to Jerry's revelation as the bell goes off and they see on a monitor that the 5th Race has started. "I said Kagle might have our same pick," Jerry rephrases. "I want to gouge your eyes out," Marcus tells Jerry. "I was going for juice. He tells me I don't qualify," Jerry starts to explain. "I'd like to watch you hit by a bus," Marcus says. "I'm walkin' away, he offers fifty for my figures. I figure take the fifty, bet Escalante straight. I wanted to pull my weight in the syndicate," Boyle concludes, handing cash to Becker. "Yeah, and if we win, his ticket cuts the win in half. Do you know Kagle bought the ticket?" Marcus asks. "No," Jerry admits. "Do you know that he did and you're a weak-willed degenerate afraid to admit?" Marcus presses. "No. I don't know if he bought the ticket, Dr. Phil," Jerry replies as Marcus goes for his oxygen. Lonnie and Renzo's eyes have stayed glued to the race on the monitor, so they've missed Jerry and Marcus' entire exchange. Renzo looks at the napkin. "Six horse won. We won the Fifth," Renzo says. "Yeah. Yeah. It's a big hurdle we just crossed," Marcus announces.

At one of the Screen Activated Machines, someone else had bet big on Mon Gateau, though not as part of the Pick Six. Escalante looks around to see if anyone's watching then inserts a ticket representing a $1,000 bet on Mon Gateau to win in the slot. He presses finish on the monitor and from another slot pops a cash voucher worth $13,200. The voucher's date reads April 30, 2010 and sets an expiration date for July 18, 2011. Escalante then puts a #2,000 to win ticket for Mon Gateau in the machine and repeats the steps. This cash voucher reads $26,400. Not bad. The horse's trainer cleared $36,600 for Mon Gateau winning — and Leon didn't even follow Escalante's race plan. As Turo walks away from the terminal, his phone rings. "Who is this?" Escalante asks. "We had an appointment. This is Mr. Demitriou. I'm at Gate A," Gus says. "Oh good. OK. I mean. I come and pick you up, señor," Escalante tells him. When Turo gets Gus back to the shedrow where he can meet Pint of Plain, he's already explained the horse's colic problem. "So is there a more crucial time the horse should shit?" Gus asks. "He better or sometimes even they bite into their stomachs. But your horse ain't walking uncomfortable or looking behind himself," Escalante explains. "So all of that is good stuff?" The Greek queries. "That's all good. I wish that he would take a shit, but I think he's OK," the Peruvian says. "When do we race him?" Gus wants to know. "Not now. He tell us when he's ready," Escalante informs Gus before taking him down to Mon Gateau's stable. "This horse won the Fourth Race," Turo tells him. "No kiddin'," Gus comments. "Twelve to one. What a surprise," Escalante says again. "I wish I'd have known," Gus laments. "That makes you and me both. Believe me," Turo lies. The sight of a small goat staggering around shedrow with sizable testicles distracts Gus for a moment. Escalante hands Gus a carrot. "Give him a carrot, el ganador," Turo says to Gus. "Nah, I don't want to fuck him up," Demitriou replies. "How you gonna fuck him up? That's what they eat," Turo responds, dropping the subservient tone he's been showing Gus so far. "That's his name, this horse, el ganador?" Gus asks. "El ganador means winner in Spanish. His name is Mon Gateau," Turo informs him. Gus holds out his hand with the carrot, flinching slightly when Mon Gateau gobbles it up. "Acting like you don't know," Escalante comments. "No, I never did it before. Swear to God," Gus insists. "I'm gonna call you El Natural," Escalante smiles. "Spare me the hat dance. I'll call you El Bullshitter," Gus retorts, darkening his tone for the first time. "Like many other people," Turo replies. (For the second time, Gus has used this phrase, "Spare me the hat dance." I've asked people and looked everywhere online but can't find a reference to the phrase and hat dance always leads me to the Mexican folk dance of romance. My best guess then is that Gus tells Ace earlier and Turo here to stop trying to win him over.) A man exits Pint of Plain's stable with a shovel indicating the horse's bowels have moved at last. Escalante laughs. "We come out from the woods. You can tell whoever would care."

Joey walks somewhere on the grounds of the track, talking on his phone to Ronnie's voicemail yet again. "Ronnie, I—I'm about to put our hand in on that horse. Walter Smith. Barn Nineteen. If you're on your way. I hope you ain't — ain't pickin' up the phone because you ain't there, ya prick. The kid won. Last race," Joey tells the recording device again. Walter himself sits in a chair in a grassy area with Gettn'up Morning standing in front of him. "You want to go racin' in a couple of week? Huh boy?" Walter asks the horse as Joey comes close enough to overhear him. "You don't know how special you are, do you?" Smith tells the horse. (It's an interesting framing as we don't see Nolte's face yet. Mann holds at a medium shot with Walter's back to the camera but the horse facing it, taking Joey's POV more or less. Then he switches to what could be the horse's perspective, seeing Walter's face close while Joey lurks in the background.) "How you can run. Who your daddy was," Walter continues, making Joey smile. "How they killed him," Smith adds. Joey thinks better of approaching Walter then and exits without detection. "Two thousand miles ain't gonna make any difference, Why didn't I do this? Why did I do that? Why didn't I hear it going on?" Walter asks the horse. Along with why Ace was in prison, what happened to Gettn'up Morning's father provides the other major mystery of the first season, but by next week, both answers should be clear though repercussions will continue.

The syndicate huddles around a monitor watching the 7th Race — the second-to-last race of the day's Pick Six and they've picked every horse in the 8th. Jerry shouts for horse No. 7. "We've got Four. Four's in front right now," Lonnie says. Renzo bites his nails and calls for No. 7. Marcus consults the napkin and sees they can win this race with the No. 1, No. 4 or No. 7 horse, but 7 has the biggest odds. No. 7 pulls it off and wins. "We're gonna win the Pick Six," Renzo whispers in Marcus' ear. Kagle makes a beeline across the floor to the group. "Anyone want to stay low profile with the IRS? Any tax delinquencies, warrants, garnishments, liens, judgments, anything they'll claim? I'll steer you to a beard, He'll claim the take on any tax liability for a small fee," the crooked guard offers. Marcus almost smiles. "You didn't bet?" Marcus says in disbelief. Kagle shakes his head no. "What I don't understand is you had all of Jerry's picks. You could have bought a whole ticket by yourself and you didn't bet," Marcus declares dumbfounded. "Who's going to spend eight hundred and sixty-four dollars for a single to win in the Fourth, especially on that spic Escalante's horse?" Kagle uses as a defense while showing that he's not only stupid and a bloodsucker but racist to boot. "So here we are, with every horse in the last, right? So we cannot lose the Pick Six and it's just a matter of how big the win is in the final race and you, as the saying goes, with the Morning Courier Express," Marcus heckles Kagle. (My best interpretation of what Marcus is saying to Kagle here is that Kagle had the information but he didn't know it, so he just gets to read it in the next day's newspaper. I don't think the name of the newspaper is significant.) "See — he always has to humiliate me," Kagle complains. "No one's trying to humiliate you," Jerry claims. "Yeah, well tell that to whoever put me in this body," the loan shark whines. "Someone called Ronald McDonald," Marcus tells him. Lonnie points to the monitor, which shows the possible payouts ranging from $48,860 to $2,687,632. Renzo would be happy splitting the low amount. "I'd prefer two-point-seven million. It's less an adjustment," Marcus says.

The horses for the Eighth Race start their march toward the gate. Leon rides one of the entries. Rosie watches again from the rail with her friend Lizzie. "You won't get to ride the Old Man's horse," Lizzie tells her. "I'm gonna ask him anyway. Sure, once he tells me no, I'll stop trying to make weight," Rosie says. Leon asks his escort if he's been with the filly he's riding before, but he hasn't. Her name is Tattered Flag and she wears No. 8. It's Leon's first time riding her. "Tie yourself on Bug, he's gonna pop that shit," someone says to Leon and the bell rings and they're off. The oft-called Ronnie Jenkins (Gary Stevens, the last regular to make his appearance) finally shows up taking a seat behind Joey. "Jesus Christ, Ronnie, you stink of reefer and booze. I've been calling you all fucking day," Joey tells him. The group watches and the perpetually confused Lonnie admits he doesn't get it. "We bet every horse. Who do we want?" he asks. "The long shot. The long shot's the biggest score," Jerry replies. Tattered Flag happens to be the long shot, but she's way back in the pack. "Did you get us on the Old Man's horse?" Ronnie asks Joey. "The horse was sired by Delphi. And with you in your present mode, I held off from raising our hand because I didn't think it would be responsible," Joey answers. Jerry recognizes that Tattered Flag's jockey is the one who rode Escalante's horse to victory for them in the Fourth as No. 8 starts moving up fast. "Outside's the upside, Bug," Ronnie yells. As Leon keeps Tattered Flag moving, something snaps and Rosie lets out a small scream and covers her mouth as Tattered Flag stops and whimpers. Ronnie looks sick. "Easy. Easy does it, cher," Leon says to the filly as he dismounts her. The group doesn't seem too concerned about the injured horse — they've moved on to rooting for No. 2, which holds as long as odds as 8 did. "Two's the whole pot," Jerry declares. From the monitor, it appears to Marcus that No. 2 is drifting out, but Jerry corrects him that it's the chalk (term for betting favorite) that is drifting out. Renzo claps and roots for No. 2. Lonnie has no idea what's happening. "Is the Two drifting out or the chalk now?" Renzo asks. "Will someone please tell me what's happening?" Lonnie begs. As No. 2 clearly crosses the finish line first, Jerry grabs his head. "We win. It's over. We won," Jerry exclaims. Lonnie leaps from his seat and begins dancing and laughing in the middle of the wagering floor. Renzo appears frozen solid. "Two-point-eight million and some plus thirty-three percent of the withholding plus fifteen percent consolation (a pool created for bettors who might have had some kind of bet on Tattered Flag, I think)," Marcus calculates out loud. "Humor me," Jerry requests. Marcus removes the actual winning slip from his coat pocket. Jerry reaches out to hold it. "No, no. I don't want to get it all crinkled," Marcus says. Jerry stands and quietly sings "America, the Beautiful" to himself. In an office at the track, a woman hands the phone to the manager who tells someone they've alerted all the tellers to contact them if they find the winner. "Shame on us if we don't make the six o'clock news," the track manager tells the person on the phone. (From this point on, this sequence becomes my other favorite of the episode. It's just so sad each time I see it.)

Tattered Flag lies on her side on the track and Leon gently strokes the injured horse. "You're good right here for now," he tells the horse. A woman arrives and asks Leon how he is and he just tells the doctor to hurry. "Shhh. Look here girl," he says. (The close-ups on equine eyes that Mann has gone to throughout this episode were building to this payoff. I don't know how they accomplished this scene, but this horse's eye does look scared and in pain unless it's one helluva mockup.) Other workers put up green screens to shield the sight from the spectators in the stands. "Look at Leon, cher. Easy girl. Easy girl," he continues to try to soothe the horse. The doctor brings out a large needle. The horse snorts and her eye looks back toward what's going on. "Easy. Good girl," Leon repeats. As the doctor inserts the hypodermic into Tattered Flag's neck, Joey asks the filly to look at him. There's another close-up of that beautiful eye with Leon's hand stroking her below it. Her eye starts fluttering after the needle gets removed and soon it's clear that she's gone. The beautiful untitled track 7 (aka Dauðalagið) by the Icelandic post-rock band Sigur Rós from the band's album () starts playing as Leon gets up and begins his long, sad walk. He passes Rosie but says nothing. Ronnie and Joey meet him. "She was moving good, Ronnie. I wouldn't have been asking her," Leon says with a crack in his voice. "She was movin' great. I was watchin'," Ronnie tells him. "Did you ever have that? The light go out of their eyes?" Leon asks the veteran jockey. "You never get used to it. That's why they make Jim Beam," Ronnie replies. "Go — go on and get — get changed, kid," Joey suggests. "OK, Joey," Leon says and heads to the locker room. "Where do you get off, Ronnie?…Telling that kid to go get drunk," Joey lashes out. "You've got no fuckin' clue. You've never been there," Ronnie gives it back to his agent.

Smith's night watchman returns to the stables as the day comes to a close. "Did you let the girl loosen her hands, Mr. Walter?" he asks. "Yeah, He's a good one," Smith replies as he looks at Gettn'up Morning.

The TV stations turn on their cameras and the track's P.R. flack holds a giant check representing the Pick Six payout in his hands. While he tells the TV viewers about it being the biggest payout in quite some time for some lucky patron, the four who share custody of that lucky ticket discuss their plans behind him. "Do we admit we're the winners?" Renzo asks. "We come forward when we're good and ready and we cash in our own good time. Tomorrow. When we get this IRS shit figured out," Marcus declares. Lonnie suggests that the quartet get hotel rooms with connecting doors so they can watch each other.

What appears to be the signature ending for Luck (much like most Boston Legal episodes ended with Denny Crane and Alan Shore having drinks and cigars on the firm's balcony) finds Ace getting ready to turn in for the night in his suite and going over the day's events with Gus. "Fuckers didn't do nothing. We were in the back room, putting things together from the ground up, learning from those that came before them that had a lot of blood on their hands," Ace says. The camera turns during his speech and we realize that no one else is in the room. "Ace, you want anything from the kitchen?" Gus shouts. Bernstein tells him to check the thermostat and make sure it's set on 67 degrees. "So how did it go?" Ace asks Gus, "Good. The horse moved his bowels. Took that as a positive," Gus replies as he sits in a chair across from Ace's bed. "But generally, how'd he look?" Ace presses. "What do I know, Ace? All four of his legs reached the ground," Gus responds. "Escalante was satisfied?" Bernstein wants to know. "Yeah, Escalante was satisfied. He was grinning, pinching his cheek," Gus reports. "Those screws at Victorville, they could buy Cadillacs what I paid to let his race tapes through the mail room. That horse is all heart. He gets by you, forget about getting by him," Ace tells him. "Roosters and birds, Ace. And goats. You take yourself for being on a farm out there," Gus says. Bernstein lets Gus know that he already knew about this aspect of horse racing. "I saw a goat out there that had nuts the size of pumpkins," Gus shares. "I hope to Christ he was bowlegged," Ace says. "He was bowlegged. How the hell did you know that?" Gus asks. "How else would he walk around," Bernstein guesses. He looks at the clock. "7:45 and I'm falling asleep here," Ace admits. "You had a full day," Gus tells him. "As far as them that did what they — they did to me," Ace switches subjects. "Are they moving the way you want?" Gus asks. "Yes. They are gonna move on that race track," he informs The Greek. "You don't often peg that shit wrong," Gus says. "I think I played it OK. You're the new favorite, Greek," Ace announces. Gus admits that's good, but expresses nervousness since he's working past his own depth. "You don't know your own depth," Bernstein decrees. Ace suggests that he needs to get a girlfriend to see if they reach out. "One we trust or one we don't?" Gus asks. "I don't trust anyone, not even myself," Ace declares. "You I give a pass." (Having this as a semi-set ending works well because Hoffman and Farina have such great chemistry. This could develop into a great show or fade quickly. While most of the actors are good, none of the characters capture my attention as Al Swearengen and many of the other Deadwood denizens did. John Ortiz's Escalante probably comes closest. They need to get to a second season fast to build on these characters.)

Ian Abercrombie (1934-2012)

noreply@blogger.com (Edward Copeland) — Sat, 28 Jan 2012 03:15:00 +0000

Why is this man eating a Snickers bar with a knife and fork? You'll have to ask Tom Gammill & Max Pross who wrote the 1994 episode of Seinfeld "The Pledge Drive" that had Elaine's mercurial boss Mr Pitt do such a thing. Mr. Pitt was just one of a multitude of TV and movie roles played by the British character actor Ian Abercrombie, who died Thursday at the age of 77.

Most of Abercrombie's early work was on the British stage. He made his American stage debut in a production of Stalag 17 with Jason Robards. He made his television debut on an episode of Burke's Law in 1965 and his uncredited film debut the same year in Von Ryan's Express. In fact, all his early film work went uncredited — including some big movies such as Star, They Shoot Horses, Don't They?, The Molly Maguires and Young Frankenstein. His first credited film role didn't come until 1978's Sextette, Mae West's final film co-starring Tony Curtis, Ringo Starr, Alice Cooper, Regis Philbin and Keith Moon, among many others.

During those 13 years of uncredited film work, Abercrombie did get credit (most of the time) for his many television series on shows such as Dragnet, Get Smart, Columbo, Barnaby Jones, Cannon and The Six Million Dollar Man.

While Abercrombie did do film work, television became his focus. Of his post-1978 feature films, the most notable ones include The Prisoner of Zenda with Peter Sellers, The Ice Pirates, The Public Eye with Joe Pesci, Sam Raimi's Army of Darkness, Addams Family Values, Steven Spielberg's The Lost World: Jurassic Park II, David Lynch's INLAND EMPIRE and the voice of Ambrose in last year's Rango.

When it came to TV, you could see or hear Abercrombie almost anywhere. Highlights of his post-1978 work (not counting Mr. Pitt) included: The original Battlestar Galactica, Quincy, M.E., Knots Landing, Happy Days, Fantasy Island, Three's Company, the soap Santa Barbara, L.A. Law, Moonlighting, playing himself on the "Fate" episode of "It's Garry Shandling's Show.", Murder, She Wrote, Dynasty, Twin Peaks, Northern Exposure, Buffy the Vampire Slayer, Nip/Tuck, Desperate Housewives and How I Met Your Mother.

Abercrombie still was working on his final two roles at the time of his death: Playing Professor Crumbs on Wizards of Waverly Place and providing the voice for Chancellor Palpatine/Darth Sidious on the animated Star Wars: The Clone Wars.

RIP Mr. Abercrombie.

I'd rather be lucky than smart

noreply@blogger.com (Edward Copeland) — Fri, 27 Jan 2012 13:00:00 +0000

By Edward Copeland
More than two years after it was announced that Michael Mann would direct the pilot for a possible new HBO series written by Deadwood mastermind David Milch and starring two-time Oscar winner Dustin Hoffman (Kramer Vs. Kramer, Rain Man) and three-time Oscar nominee Nick Nolte (The Prince of Tides, Affliction, Warrior), that series — Luck — makes its official debut Sunday on HBO at 9 p.m. EST/PST, 8 p.m. CST. The premiere episode of Luck's nine-episode inaugural season actually debuted in December following the second season finale of Boardwalk Empire. Mann and Milch both serve as two of the series’ executive producers and Hoffman bears the title of producer as well. Thanks to my good friends of HBO, I've seen all nine episodes of Luck and will be able to post full-fledged recaps the moment each episode has finished airing. For now, I offer this brief, spoiler-free preview of the series that I've found to be a nice addition to the HBO family of dramas. Having that unmistakable rhythm of Milchian language resonating in my ears again certainly pleases me. On top of that, Luck captures the excitement of horse racing, particularly in a Mann-directed/Milch-written sequence in the premiere, like nothing I've seen before. As someone who enjoyed going to the track (even being clueless as far as handicapping horses goes), watching Luck made me miss being able to go. With only its brief run of nine episodes as a barometer, the show's forecast looks good with its future chance at greatness hovering around 75%. Luck isn't there yet. It's no Deadwood — but few things are. More importantly, it's no John From Cincinnati either. As I write this, the first two episodes are the only installments I've watched more than once but, unless I missed others, viewers will get through all nine episodes with only two utterances of cocksucker.

What makes that racing sequence in the Luck premiere mimic the experience of a real race parallels the premise of this new drama. The race gets shown from the various perspectives of those involved in horse racing and Luck tells those sides outside of race scenes as well. Its large cast encompasses owners, trainers, jockeys at different points in their careers, jockeys' agents, track veterinarians and the serious gamblers — and those just include regulars. The world David Milch has created also will cross paths with other track officials and employees. In their own ways, the horses develop distinct personalities as well. While scenes occur away from the fictionalized Santa Anita Park that serves as the focal point of the series, all stories lead back there in some way. As for that race sequence, much of the credit for it has to fall to Michael Mann's direction and the editing team of Michael Brown, Hank Corwin and Kelley Dixon. The cutting of that race should earn the pilot next year's Emmy in that category now.

Mann steered two of the '80s most influential crime dramas to the airwaves — Miami Vice and Crime Story — though he hasn't produced for television since the short-lived Robbery Homicide Division in the 2002-2003 season and he last directed for TV when he helmed the 1989 telefilm L.A. Takedown. It's not that Mann has been loafing — he's directed and/or produced several feature films including Heat, The Insider, Ali, The Aviator and Hancock. The Insider brought Mann three Oscar nominations for producing, directing and co-writing the film. He also was nominated for producing The Aviator.

Milch created Luck, which marks his first new work to air since John From Cincinnati. He wrote a pilot for a series called Last of the Ninth in 2009, but no one picked it up. Milch forever holds a place in the hearts of quality television fans as the maestro behind the prematurely ended Deadwood, whose two two-hour wrap-up movies never came to be. Milch has received an astounding 24 Emmy nominations for writing or producing for Deadwood, Hill Street Blues, Murder One and NYPD Blue. He won four Emmys, two for writing NYPD Blue episodes and one as a producer of that series when it won outstanding drama. He earned his fourth Emmy (actually his first) for writing a Hill Street Blues episode.

In addition to Mann and Milch serving as executive producers and Hoffman as producer, Luck's behind-the-scenes producing team also includes Carolyn Strauss (Game of Thrones, Treme) as executive producer; Henry J. Brochtein (The Sopranos, where he also directed) as co-executive producer; and Eric Roth (Oscar-winning screenwriter of Forrest Gump and Oscar-nominated writer of The Insider, Munich and The Curious Case of Benjamin Button) as co-executive producer.

Hoffman is the series' ostensible lead, though Luck boasts 13 regulars in its opening credits who all get screen time as well as many recurring characters. In fact, in the premiere, some of the other character get more scenes than Hoffman's character, Chester "Ace" Bernstein. We meet Bernstein first as he leaves federal prison after serving three years. The audience won't learn why Ace, a wealthy man who has spent his life operating around gambling enterprises and organized crime, ended up incarcerated in the first episode other than the fact he took the fall for other people. While imprisoned, he spent $2 million to buy an Irish race horse, using his faithful driver/bodyguard Gus "The Greek" Demitriou (Dennis Farina, star of Mann's Crime Story) as a front, acting as the thoroughbred's owner. One of Luck's strongest assets proves to be that chemistry between Hoffman and Farina, especially in the duo's late-night bull sessions in the hotel suite that Bernstein calls home. They board the horse, named Pint of Plain, at Santa Anita, the race track located in Arcadia, Calif., about 14 miles northeast of downtown L.A. Bernstein's motivation for picking Santa Anita turns out to have two purposes. The first figures in with long-term plans he's had to purchase the track and add casino gambling while getting even with some of his shady business associates, played by guest star Alan Rosenberg in the premiere who's joined in later episodes by Ted Levine and Sir Michael Gambon, returning to a character closer to his Thief in The Cook, the Thief, His Wife & Her Lover than Dumbledore in the Harry Potter films. The second reason resides closer to Ace's heart. Santa Anita serves as the home track for a talented and temperamental Peruvian-born trainer, Turo Escalante (John Ortiz).

In my eyes, Escalante — and Ortiz — could prove to be the breakout character and actor on Luck. Ortiz's name may not be as recognizable as Hoffman, Nolte or even Farina, but he's worked with some big name American directors since making his film debut in Brian De Palma's Carlito's Way in 1993. He also appeared in Ron Howard's Ransom, Steven Spielberg's Amistad and Ridley Scott's American Gangster. Luck's premiere doesn't mark Ortiz's first time being directed by Mann either — he acted in the 2006 film adaptation of Miami Vice as well as Public Enemies. Ortiz also executive produced and repeated his stage role in Philip Seymour Hoffman's directing debut, Jack Goes Boating. The play originated as an off-Broadway production by the theater troupe LAByrinth, where Ortiz served as co-artistic director. It's impressive, but if Luck succeeds, Turo Escalante will be the vehicle that launches Ortiz's career to the next level. Not only does Ortiz give a phenomenal performance, but Escalante, by far, shows himself to be the most fascinating part of the series as well as the character that interacts with more of the other players than anyone else, including the track's head veterinarian Jo Carter (Jill Hennessy), who turns out to be Turo's secret girlfriend. As with everything created and written by David Milch, he implies key things as much as he verbalizes them. Viewers will get the distinct impression that Escalante may be covered in infinite layers that could be peeled and examined in future seasons. In the meantime, Turo will be there, lashing out at jockeys for not following his instructions on how to run a horse during a race — even if the horse won anyway or acting as if he's a polite servant to a new horse's owner. Ortiz, as the best performers on a Milch show must know how to do, is as adept at making Escalante funny as frightening and even touching when needed.

Nick Nolte, whose stardom took flight on television in the 1976 miniseries Rich Man, Poor Man, returns to the medium for the first time since for Luck — just days after receiving his third Oscar nomination (his first as a supporting actor) in Warrior. As Walter Smith, the grizzled veteran horse trainer-turned-owner from Kentucky, Nolte's role on Luck plays as a supporting one as well. In fact, he's absent from one of the nine episodes. Called "The Old Man" by many at the track, Smith shares something in common with Ace Bernstein: the first episode plants seeds of a mystery surrounding his story. In Walter's case, it has nothing to do with a prison sentence, but questions concerning the origin of his "big horse," Gettn'up Morning, that will be resolved rather quickly though the issue will hover over Smith and Gettn'up Morning through the show's short season. Walter also has an important decision to make about the horse — picking the jockey who will ride Gettn'up Morning once he's ready. The two main contenders are his exercise girl, Irish lass Rosie Shanahan (Kerry Condon), who longs to be a jockey, and Ronnie Jenkins (real-life National Museum of Racing and Hall of Fame jockey Gary Stevens), who used to be a great but has moved into a universe of drink and drugs. Condon should be familiar to longtime viewers of HBO dramas from her role as Octavia on Rome or to moviegoers as Tolstoy's daughter in The Last Station. While acting isn't Stevens' first career, Luck isn't his first role. He played the famous 1930s and '40s jockey George Woolf (who happened to be based out of Santa Anita) in Seabiscuit.

Trying to keep Ronnie Jenkins sober and secure him the mount on Gettn'up Morning is his stuttering agent Joey Rathburn (Richard Kind) who also represents an apprentice jockey at the track, Leon Micheaux (Tom Payne), also known as Bug, the name given to most beginning jockeys because the asterisk by their names in racing forms resembles an insect. Joey's career as an agent isn't going well and we get hints that his personal life has crumbled into disarray as well. Leon hails from Louisiana and has problems maintaining the weight he needs to qualify for races. He also doesn't know when to keep his mouth shut — so he manages to keep pissing off Escalante, much to Joey's annoyance. Leon also has a mutual attraction with a certain red-haired girl — who may become a professional competitor down the road. Kind's a familiar face from film and television including his regular role on Spin City, his recurring role as Larry's cousin Andy on Curb Your Enthusiasm and as troubled Uncle Arthur in the Coens' great A Serious Man. Leon may be from Louisiana but Payne hails from England and most of his credits so far come from British TV. Payne's best-known work in the U.S. may be the film Miss Pettigrew Lives for a Day.

The final quartet of regulars belongs to a syndicate, but it's not the kind of syndicate that's crossing your mind. It's just the name given to a group of serious gamblers who pool their money so they can make bigger bets that cover more options and, hopefully, reap big benefits such as the more than $2 million payout that would go to someone lucky enough to correctly handicap the races involved in the Pick Six contest in Luck's premiere. The four men make for a colorful group, to say the least. The unofficial ringleader, Marcus Becker (Kevin Dunn), suffers from a variety of health conditions that force him to use a wheelchair and take frequent hits of oxygen from the tank attached to it. He's rude to everyone and seems as if he were born in a cranky mood. The true brain of the group belongs to Jerry Boyle (Jason Gedrick), who possesses a true gift for picking the right horses. Unfortunately, he likes to gamble all the time so anything he wins at the track he's liable to lose that night playing poker at a casino — and when Jerry gets tapped out, he becomes easy prey for a track security guard (Peter Appel), who works as a loan shark on the side. Marcus calls Jerry a degenerate, but the two of them have a special relationship that's almost like a father and son or two close brothers. The other two members of the group truly are misfits and you have to wonder how Marcus has let them hang around. The first is Renzo Calagari (Ritchie Coster), who lives on disability checks that he takes straight to the track. The newest member that Renzo has recruited is Lonnie McHinery (Ian Hart), a man who never gets the point of what's going on and has stumbled upon a bankroll supposedly from two women who are paying him to be their personal gigolo. Dunn has been a familiar face in lots of movies and TV shows since the mid-1980s. Even though he didn't have any scenes with Nolte, he also appeared in Warrior. Gedrick has appeared in a lot of television series either as a guest or in shows that didn't last long. He was the murder defendant in the first season of Murder One and one of the police officers in Boomtown, the NBC series that started out great until they mucked with its premise and destroyed it. Coster and Hart, like Payne, are Englishmen playing Americans. Name any crime procedural on TV and Coster has more than likely played a role on it. On the big screen, his films include Let Me In, The Dark Knight and American Gangster. Early in his career, Hart took on the role of John Lennon in two films in a row: The Hours and the Times and Backbeat. He's also made four films with director Neil Jordan including The End of the Affair, where Hart was especially good as a private detective with problems of his own.

Even with such a short season, Luck — already full of award winners and nominees in front of and behind the camera — attracted even more for recurring guest roles including Oscar nominees Joan Allen and Bruce Davison and Oscar winner Mercedes Ruehl. There's also guest appearances by Barry Shabaka Henley, Jurgen Prochnow and W. Earl Brown (Deadwood's Dan Dority).

When the credits roll for the first time on Luck, in case you don't recognize the song playing beneath the images and artists' names, it's a trimmed version of "Splitting the Atom" by Massive Attack. Below are the lyrics, the show uses. Click here and you can see the video on YouTube for the complete song. Every listing of the lyrics (including the captions) insists that the band sings "eternited leave." I find no evidence of such a word as "eternited" and almost changed it automatically to eternal, assuming it was a misprint but apparently songwriters Robert Del Naja and Damon Albarn invented a word for their song.

The baby was born, nettles and ferns
The evening it chokes, the candle, it burns
This disguise covers bitter lies
Repeating the joke, the meaning it dies

It's easy, don't let it go
Don't lose it

The bankers have bailed, the mighty retreat
The pleasure it fails at the end of the week
You take it or leave or what you receive
To what you receive is eternited leave

It's easy, don't let it go
It's easy, don't let it go
It's easy, don't let it go
Don't lose it
As readers who have followed any of my previous series recaps know, my format has evolved. The first show I covered was the great fourth season of The Wire, but I basically just regurgitated what happened with a little criticism tossed in. I didn't go crazy and learn all I could about Baltimore.

My recaps for the first seasons of Treme and Boardwalk Empire pretty much followed the same pattern until I noted historical moments on Boardwalk Empire I suspected casual viewers wouldn't get, so I added explanatory links. For the second season of Treme, I started seeking explanations to references that I didn't get and each recap became like a puzzle, adding the context of real New Orleans events, info on the music — I even began to learn the geography of that city without ever having been there. When the second season of Boardwalk Empire premiered, I beefed up those recaps as well, not only on historical points and characters but even the origins of words and phrases.

Now, I start the nine-episode run of Luck. The recaps will evolve as I write them, but I suspect that if you didn't know the ins and outs of horse racing and betting before the show premiered and parts of the series leave you in the dark, I'll do my best to help fill in those gaps as I learn as well. The first recap ended up in two parts, but that had to do with exposition I believe. I do have to say it's probably a good thing that AMC didn't think me worthy enough to receive Breaking Bad screeners or I probably would know how to make crystal meth.

Luck premieres on HBO Sunday at 9 p.m. EST/PST, 8 p.m. CST with each of the subsequent eight episodes in the nine-episode first season airing at the same time.

Most freeborn things would submit to anything for a salary

noreply@blogger.com (Edward Copeland) — Thu, 26 Jan 2012 13:00:00 +0000

By Edward Copeland
Sometimes I feel like Burgess Meredith at the end of the classic Twilight Zone episode "Time Enough at Last" when he decides being the last man on earth is a small price to pay if that means he'll finally get to catch up on his reading — then he drops his glasses, breaking the spectacles while trying to find them. Fortunately, I'm neither the last man on earth nor, despite my many health problems, do I have bad sight. However, I've never allowed myself enough time to read every book or writer that I've wanted to or should have. One author on that list happens to be Charlotte Brontë. Amazingly, I've never even seen any of the more than two dozen adaptations of Jane Eyre that have been made for movies or TV dating back to 1910 until the 2011 version. Directed by Cary Joji Fukunaga and starring Mia Wasikowska in the title role and the busy Michael Fassbender as Rochester, I can't possibly speak with authority about how it compares with previous incarnations but I can say that this Jane Eyre had me engrossed from the start and wishing I'd read that novel at some point.

What I find funny is that though I've never read Jane Eyre or seen a depiction of the novel, I did see John Duigan's 1993 film of Wide Sargasso Sea, based on Jean Rhys' 1966 novel that imagined the story of Rochester's first wife in the West Indies. At the time I saw it, when the movie finished an audience member commented, "Now it leads to Jane Eyre" so though I really didn't know the story of Jane Eyre, I knew who was in the attic and started that fire.

Enough of that. We should be discussing this sumptuous movie itself, which landed a single Oscar nomination yesterday for Michael O'Connor's costumes. Quite deserving but cases could have been made for the art direction by Will Hughes-Jones, Karl Probert and Tina Jones; the cinematography of Adriano Goldman; and, most especially, Dario Marianelli's luscious and magnificent score.

That only takes into account the tech categories. This marks Fukunaga's fifth film as a director, but I haven't even heard of the other four, let alone seen them, but he does a helluva job with a great cast, particularly Jamie Bell as St. John Rivers, Amelia Clarkson as the young Jane, Sally Hawkins as the spiteful Mrs. Reed, Imogen Poots as Miss Ingram and Dame Judi Dench as Mrs. Fairfax.

Then there are the two leads. I haven't seen Shame or A Dangerous Method yet, but based on Jane Eyre and even X-Men: First-Class, Michael Fassbender probably deserved an Oscar nomination for best actor just for his body of work in 2011. He fills Rochester with the requisite amounts of mystery and romance, longing and guilt.

Finally and best of all we have Mia Wasikowska's work as Jane. This actress seldom disappoints even if her movies do (such as The Kids Are All Right and Alice in Wonderland) or get little notice (That Evening Sun). Jane Eyre provides her finest role yet. She's smart and willful, yet understandably guarded. Wasikowska deserved consideration, but I can't imagine that nominations aren't coming her way eventually.

Jane Eyre might seem to most people like territory that has been plowed before and often. I know that's true by the numbers but I also recognize a very good film when I see one and this Jane Eyre qualifies.

"There will either be dialogue or there will be a coup"

noreply@blogger.com (Edward Copeland) — Wed, 25 Jan 2012 13:00:00 +0000

By Edward Copeland
One year ago today, answering the call put out by fellow fed-up Egyptians on social media, thousands of that country's citizens from a broad spectrum of classes and jobs descended on Cairo's Tahrir Square to demonstrate against the 30-year reign of President Hosni Mubarak. Young Egyptian-American journalist Sharif Abdel Kouddous, who attended Duke University in the U.S. and came from a family of famous Egyptian journalists, felt he had to return to his homeland to cover what promised to be a momentous event. The documentary team that followed Kouddous produced In Tahrir Square: 18 Days of Egypt's Unfinished Revolution, which premieres tonight on HBO2.

The short documentary opens by contrasting images of videos of brutal interrogations by Egyptian police with a television interview with Mubarak where he claims that the Egyptian people have the freedom to speak as well as newspapers at the same time he admits he employs harsh punishment as the law allows.

Kouddous, who lives in the U.S., works as a correspondent and producer for the American radio and TV program Democracy Now!, which airs on more than 800 radio and TV stations. The Kouddous name carries real caché in Egyptian journalism going back several generations. Sharif's grandfather's videotaped arrest in January 2011 is considered one of the key events that precipitated the uprising. It was his grandfather's 11th arrest during Mubarak's rule. So much for free speech and newspapers.

The documentary, directed by multiple Emmy winners Jon Alpert and Matthew O'Neill whose most recent project for HBO was Wartorn: 1861-2010, incorporates footage from other sources as well the original material filmed following Kouddous.

The first night of the Tahrir Square protests, Mubarak's forces cracked down hard, even using rifles with green laser sights at night to shoot demonstrators. In all 848 Egyptians were killed, but they couldn't be driven from the square. Some scenes amaze as they break up streets and sidewalks to create rocks to throw back at police and military.

What In Tahrir Square brings out the regular news coverage in 2011 didn't was the access that Kouddous could gain just by his name and the facts that he'd report that led to the breaking point such as the fact that the average Egyptian lives on less than $2 a day while being fully aware of the government corruption and how most of the foreign aid Egypt received ended up in Mubarak's personal coffers.

Because of the Kouddous' prominence. Sharif wasn't part of a family living on $2 a day when he lived in Egypt. The young reporter describes Egypt as a "stratified society" where class plays a large role so he's fascinated when he's in the middle of the Tahrir Square protests to be mingling with people he never would have met while growing up — something he saw a positive vision for a future Egypt.

When Mubarak gives his third address during the protests, Egyptians anticipated that he was about to announce his resignation. Instead, he promised some vague reforms but didn't plan to go anywhere. The crowds went wild — holding their shoes in the air in protest and making plans to march on the presidential palace and the state-run television center. On the eighteenth day of the protests, the country's vice president went on TV to announce that Mubarak was stepping down and the military — which had earlier ceased following orders to fire on demonstrators — would rule a transition government until free elections could be set.

A funny moment comes after the announcement about Mubarak when a jubilant member of the Muslim Brotherhood cheers to Kouddous, "Allah by himself brought down Mubarak." When the man moves past, Kouddous shakes his head and says, "No. We did."

What In Tahrir Square lacks is anything to show that everything ended happily the moment Mubarak stepped down. They don't even include words on the screen at the short documentary's end indicating the recent troubles in Egypt as its citizens have grown impatient with the transition to a form of democracy and still live under military rule. The film also fails to set the scene of fall of the Tunisian leader that preceded Tahrir Square or mention the spread of the Arab Spring into other countries in the region.

Still, those faults don't sink In Tahrir Square as a whole. It premieres tonight on HBO2 at 8 p.m. Eastern and Pacific, 7 p.m. Central.

The Trier of strife

noreply@blogger.com (Edward Copeland) — Mon, 23 Jan 2012 13:00:00 +0000

By Edward Copeland
As Lars von Trier's Melancholia opens, I thought for a moment that the DVD I was watching wasn't his movie but some sort of mashup of images merging von Trier's film, Terrence Malick's more cosmological portions of The Tree of Life and perhaps a little Return of the Jedi thrown in for good measure. (How else do you explain scenes of Kirsten Dunst cavorting beneath a dark hood and sending lightning bolts from her fingers unless it's an homage to Emperor Palpatine?) As for Lars von Trier himself, Melancholia provides more evidence that this emperor has no clothes or, at best, covers his privates with a fig leaf occasionally.

I haven't seen the complete Lars von Trier filmography. I haven't even disliked all of his films I've seen (I did like Dancer in the Dark) and someday I actually would like to watch The Kingdom. I also admit that the idea behind The Five Obstructions intrigues me, since it's not a traditional remake and Martin Scorsese plans to take part in a new version of the experiment.

Now that I've said a few nice things about von Trier, let's get to my problems with the Danish director: Must he make most things such a chore? It's miraculous Emily Watson delivered such a good performance in the teeth-gnashing Breaking the Waves. I think the course for my cinematic relationship with von Trier was set the first time I saw a work by him — Zentropa. My good friend Matt Zoller Seitz summed up that film best when he said he kept expecting Max von Sydow's voicover to start intoning, "You are getting very sleepy" because that's the overriding way Zentropa affected me. It only lacked the image of a swaying pocket watch to put me in a hypnotic trance, but not in the good way some films can but like professional tricksters do where afterward you recall absolutely nothing that transpired.

Last year, von Trier gave us Melancholia, which has been on an awards and nominations spree since the 2011 Cannes Film Festival, hailed by those who confuse piss-poor screenplays lacking the depth of '80s TV perfume commercials as profound, and believe half-baked ideas and cookie-cutter metaphors are insightful. Melancholia reaps rewards from the type of critical reviews that drive me up the wall. While it's true that all opinions about movies are subjective, so no one's positive or negative take on a film can be wrong, these types of assessments put that truism to the test. When boiled down, these write-ups scream, "I have no idea what [insert film here] is about — it must be genius." When you read between those laudatory lines, you detect the whiff of people not being truthful for fear they'll be ridiculed by the intelligentsia if they don't lionize movies such as Melancholia.

Melancholia revolves around two sisters — Justine (Kirsten Dunst) and Claire (Charlotte Gainsbourg). The film divides itself in two halves, one devoted to each sibling. Part I is titled "Justine" and details the reception being thrown for her and new husband Michael (Alexander Skarsgård) at the mansion belonging to Claire and her husband John (Kiefer Sutherland).

Many consume too much liquor and say things they shouldn't. All sorts of strangeness seems to be transpiring. Justine's boss (Stellan Skarsgård) interrupts the beginning of the reception to try to get all the guests to think of a tagline for his ad campaign. Justine keeps making excuses to disappear and notices a bright star in the sky which John, a noted astronomer, identifies as Antares — only the star eventually vanishes. John explains it's because the "rogue planet" Melancholia has passed in front of it, but he doesn't get around to explaining that to Justine until Part II so her mood just gets worse. One of the many things that amuses me about the pomposity of Melancholia stems from the notion that a new planet would be discovered by astronomers on Earth and they'd name it Melancholia. That's simply because whenever people on Earth find new planets and label them, they always give them cheery names such as Melancholia. I assume it resides in the small Woeisme galaxy that also includes the planets Anhedonia, Fullofhimself and Onemoodysonofabitch.

At least the wedding reception half of the movie includes the two most welcome presences in the film: John Hurt as Justine's sloshed father Dexter and Charlotte Rampling as her bitter, divorced mother Gaby who makes a speech about why she didn't attend the wedding because of her opposition to the institution of marriage. Her character eventually locks herself in a bathroom (perhaps hoping that no one noticed she agreed to appear in the movie) alienating hosts John and Claire because the reception's strict scheduling requires cutting the cake at a certain time. John knocks on the door and pleads with Gaby to come downstairs to view the slicing of the dessert. "When Justine took her first crap on the potty, I wasn't there. When she had her first sexual intercourse, I wasn't there. So give me a break, please, with all your fucking rituals," Gaby tells John through the door.

All of the chaos, much of which Justine causes herself, prompts the wedding planner, played by director/iconoclast Udo Kier, to declare, "She ruined my wedding! I will not look at her!" Besides being badly written, this section reminded me of two vastly superior films. Toward the beginning, the sculpted trees arranged in rows in front of the mansion brought to mind Alain Resnais' incomparable classic Last Year at Marienbad, in which I've been immersed of late in preparation for an upcoming tribute. The second, and more generalized, similarity belongs to a very good work by one of von Trier's fellow Dogme 95 practitioners, Thomas Vinterberg's 1998 film The Celebration. What happened to Vinterberg anyway?

In Part II, titled "Claire," Justine has sunk deep into depression, presumably because she assumed that she was the sole lead of the movie and now her sister has taken over. Claire, who in Part I was annoying and a bit high maintenance about the details of a wedding reception (Justine didn't even throw the bouquet fast enough for her schedule, so Claire took it from her and tossed it herself), now has become obsessed with this rogue planet Melancholia. John assures her that while Melancholia now can be seen by the naked eye, it will pass Earth safely and she needn't fear collision. Claire isn't convinced and fears for the lives of John, Justine and her son Leo (Cameron Spurr). It's an interesting coincidence that two films released in 2011 — this and Another Earth — should both have Earth-like planets appear in the sky out of nowhere, except Another Earth, with a budget of less than $200,000 and no major stars versus Melancholia's $9 million budget and well-known cast, told a better, more moving story and grossed almost exactly half what Melancholia has in the U.S.

John keeps on a brave face for his wife, but he has his concerns as well. Justine thinks that the possibility of the end of the world sounds sort of cool. The two sisters have one exchange of dialogue so ridiculous that I actually laughed out loud at it because it reminded me of the scene in Woody Allen's Love and Death between Woody's Boris and Diane Keaton's Sonja the night before he's going to fight a duel. Boris confesses his love as they discuss death and God, but somehow the talk keeps coming back to closeups of Woody rambling about the harvest and various forms of wheat. "The crops, the grains. Fields of rippling wheat. Wheat. All there is in life is wheat.…Oh, wheat! Lots of wheat! Fields of wheat. A tremendous amount of wheat!…Yellow wheat. Red wheat. Wheat with feathers. Cream of wheat."

I couldn't believe that someone actually put down the Melancholia exchange between Kirsten Dunst and Charlotte Gainsbourg in IMDb's memorable quotes section.

JUSTINE: The earth is evil. We don't need to grieve for it.
CLAIRE: What?
JUSTINE: Nobody will miss it.
CLAIRE: But where would Leo grow?
JUSTINE: All I know is, life on earth is evil.
CLAIRE: Then maybe life somewhere else.
JUSTINE: But there isn't.
CLAIRE: How do you know?
JUSTINE: Because I know things.
CLAIRE: Oh yes, you always imagined you did.
JUSTINE: I know we're alone.
CLAIRE: I don't think you know that at all.
JUSTINE: 678. The bean lottery. Nobody guessed the amount of beans in the bottle.
CLAIRE: No, that's right.
JUSTINE: But I know. 678.
CLAIRE:Well, perhaps. But what does that prove?
JUSTINE: That I know things. And when I say we're alone, we're alone. Life is only on earth, and not for long.

What differentiates the sequence in Love and Death from the one in Melancholia though (besides the humor that is) is that Allen's 1975 spoof of Russian literature actually has more significant things to say on the big philosophical issues than Melancholia does. The comedy holds deeper thoughts in its hilarious head than the emptiness of the Melancholia vacuum. Trust me: Rent Love and Death instead of this von Trier time-waster. You'll be better off.

Idealism, disillusionment go hand in hand

noreply@blogger.com (Edward Copeland) — Fri, 20 Jan 2012 16:00:00 +0000

By Edward Copeland
After watching Ryan Gosling transform himself into one bundle of tics after another in torturous dramas such as Blue Valentine and lame attempts at quirky comedy such as Lars and the Real Girl, what a tremendous relief to see Gosling once again deliver a great, relaxed performance and do it in the best American political drama in years.

The Ides of March marks George Clooney's fourth time in the director's chair (Leatherheads slipped my mind and I never saw it). Clooney, as he did in the superior Good Night, and Good Luck., also takes a supporting role and co-wrote the screenplay with Grant Heslov. Beau Willmon, who wrote the play Farragut North, upon which The Ides of March is based, also contributed to the movie's script.

Gosling stars as Stephen Meyers, an idealistic 30-year-old campaign adviser to Gov. Mike Morris (Clooney) who is closing in on the Democratic presidential nomination. Stephen shows real talent for what he does, but he's still young enough that he'll only work for politicians in whom he really believes. Meyers hasn't worked in the game long enough to develop a pragmatic, cynical shell like Morris' campaign director Paul Zara (Philip Seymour Hoffman) or Tom Duffy (Paul Giamatti), the man running Morris' last real rival for the nomination, Sen. Pullman, ahead of the crucial Ohio primary.

Someone says to Stephen at one point something similar to a moment from the great fourth season of the HBO series The Wire. The chief of staff for Baltimore's recently defeated mayor has a drink with the campaign adviser of the man who won the office as they watch him go back on a pledge on the bar's TV. The ex-chief of staff tells the adviser, "They always disappoint you in the end."

For those who haven't seen The Ides of March yet, I'll let you learn on your own in what way Clooney's seemingly perfect candidate doesn't live up to Stephen's standards and what choices he makes as a result, though other twists complicate Stephen's decision.

I haven't had the chance to see Drive yet, but this film demonstrates a return to form by Gosling, who I feared would be lost forever in a realm that confused mechanized existential angst with actual acting. Gosling produces some terrific moments of perfect stillness where he doesn't even need dialogue to convey Stephen's thoughts as opposed to Blue Valentine where you wanted to strap his limbs to a table so he'd stop being so fidgety.

Of the four jobs that Clooney performs on The Ides of March, his efficient direction with some interesting shots (including a great closing one) probably ranks on top. He's good as the governor, but it's the type of role he can do in his sleep.

The rest of the cast performs as well as you'd expect them to do. In fact, Hoffman and Giamatti could have swapped roles and the movie wouldn't have skipped a beat. Both actors play these types so often and brilliantly, it isn't as if either will spring surprises. Marisa Tomei gets some nice moments as a New York Times reporter. Evan Rachel Wood fits nicely as an intern on the campaign whose father happens to chair the DNC. Jeffrey Wright doesn't get enough to do as an ambitious senator dangling his delegates in front of both contenders and Jennifer Ehle gets completely wasted as the governor's wife.

The Ides of March belongs to Gosling, Clooney's direction and the screenplay in the end. We've had many good political satires in recent memory, but I can't recall the last time someone produced a good political drama as a feature. The Adjustment Bureau was good, but it had that Philip K. Dick element that took it out of the realm of the realistic, so I don't think it counts. The best recent one might have been about Italian politics, Il divo.

The Ides of March doesn't quite rise to the level of the greatest political dramas or thrillers such as The Candidate, the original Manchurian Candidate or The Last Hurrah, but it's the best in quite some time. If The Ides of March has no other legacy, at least it has returned Ryan Gosling to a career in acting,

That line blurs flurther

noreply@blogger.com (Edward Copeland) — Thu, 19 Jan 2012 13:00:00 +0000

By Edward Copeland
Each year brings documentaries that take an entirely new approach to nonfiction films. In recent years, we've seen that in films such as Waltz With Bashir and Chicago 10 or the questionable merging of fact and fiction in Exit Through the Gift Shop. In 2011, the documentary that takes a new approach to nonfiction filmmaking is The Arbor, which tells the story of the late British playwright Andrea Dunbar and her children. Director Clio Barnard takes a theatrical approach to a chronicle of a playwright and her family by interviewing the surviving figures of the story but then re-enacting the events and having performers lip-synch their words. The approach gives the viewer an odd, unsettling feeling, but it also captivates in its own strange way.

Born in 1961, Andrea Dunbar grew up in the bleak world of the housing project known as The Arbor in West Yorkshire, England, where she indulged in a life full of alcoholism, promiscuity and early creative success, penning the first of her semi-autobiographical plays set in that area at 15 as a school project. Titled The Arbor, the play didn't receive a staged production until 1980, by which time she'd completed a second play, perhaps her best known since it became a movie, Rita, Sue and Bob Too! That play was staged as part of The Young Artists Festival at the Royal Court in London in 1982. Film and television director Alan Clarke was taken by the play so much that he asked Dunbar to turn it into a screenplay, which she did, and Clarke's film version premiered in 1987. Dunbar's third and final play, Shirley, debuted the year prior to that. By 1990, Dunbar was dead, the victim of a brain hemorrhage.

Before Andrea Dunbar turned 23, she had completed three other productions — two daughters and a son by three different men — and it's the legacy of Dunbar's troubled life that she left on these children, particularly her oldest daughter, Lorraine. Lorraine's father is a Pakistani man and her mixed-raced heritage doesn't go over well in the largely racist housing project.

This story would be merely sad and tragic if not for the unique method of presentation that first-time director Barnard employs. Sometimes, it can be quite eyecatching as the actress mouthing Lorraine's story of fire that began in her and her sister Lisa's bedroom tells the story while the visuals re-creates the incident. In addition to having performers act out interview subjects' testimony, Barnard also includes scenes of actors reading sections from Dunbar's plays as well.

By the time The Arbor (the documentary, not Dunbar's play) ends though, the film feels as if it is little more than its gimmick. Outside of the U.K., Andrea Dunbar isn't a particularly well-known playwright and the story of her short life and what happens to her daughter Lorraine certainly is sad, but it isn't one that seems unique enough to warrant a documentary. If it weren't for Barnard's unusual approach to the material, I don't see much reason for The Arbor's existence.