January 2013 - Page 4 of 7 - Ramblin' with Roger

Movie Review: Silver Linings Playbook

Silver Lings Playbook tells an ultimately orthodox story in such an unorthodox manner.

It’s a rom dramedy! It’s a sports movie! It’s about anger management! It’s a floor wax! It’s a dessert topping!

I read all sorts of things about the new movie Silver Linings Playbook (except those last two, which are from an old Saturday Night Live skit). Still, I didn’t get much of a clear sense of the film beforehand, except who starred in it.

The Wife and I went to see the movie at the Spectrum 8 in Albany, our favorite cinematic haunt, Saturday past. Pat, Jr. (Bradley Cooper, who I had previously seen in absolutely nothing; never caught The Hangover movies) is getting out of a mental institution, after eight and a half months, following a violent incident. He moves back in with his parents (Jacki Weaver, previously nominated for Animal Kingdom; I hadn’t seen her in anything; and Robert DiNiro – HAVE seen him a few times, most recently in New Year’s Eve on TV). Pat wants to woo back his estranged wife, which is complicated by a restraining order.

He seems to have found an ally in his endeavor the friend of a friend (Jennifer Lawrence, who I didn’t see in Hunger Games or anything else) who has issues of her own.

The Wife and I liked the film, though it traveled from this character study – Pat dealing with a Stevie Wonder song that triggers untoward behavior – to an almost conventional film about winning the big game, of a sort.

Sidebar: we spent much of the conversation on the way home talking about what is “crazy” in this society and what is not. Pat Jr. may have been a bit disconnected from reality. But was it much worse than Pat Sr. being banned from the Philadelphia Eagles’ stadium, or his various superstitions concerning sports?

I think it’s getting so many positive reviews and so many Oscar nominations (Best Picture, Best Director, four acting categories, screenplay, plus) because it tells an ultimately orthodox story in such an unorthodox manner. Cooper is better than expected, and Lawrence has more range. Weaver and DeNiro may have gotten their nominations in no small part for one scene, which I won’t describe except that the Led Zeppelin song What Is And What Should Never Be was playing.

I liked the film, but I was surprised by the change in tone. Still, I think it is that turn that made it work for me. Yet, I’m not sure yet whether it was Best Picture material; I’ll have to see some more movies this winter.

WWMD: What Would Martin Do?

If Martin Luther King were still alive, he would be concerned about the inequity of income that has developed regardless of race, especially over the past thirty years.

“A lot of people are waiting for Martin Luther King or Mahatma Gandhi to come back – but they are gone. It is up to us. It is up to you.” – Marian Wright Edelman
I saw this quote on Facebook a couple days after the shootings in Newtown, Connecticut. The quote made me think about what would MLK, Jr. be doing and saying about current events. I have read and/or listened to many of Martin’s writings and speeches, so I could (I hope) reasonably extrapolate his views.

Of course, it’s difficult to ascertain what his impact on society and the culture would be had he survived. Maybe progress in some areas would have happened sooner; maybe he would have been rendered largely irrelevant. That’s the thing about those who die, especially those who die relatively young; they are frozen in time.

Maybe, instead of him dying in 1968, I should imagine that he was traveling to another planet and finally made it back, this century.

The overriding issue for Martin Luther King was always justice. He would fret over the continuing divide of wealth between white Americans and those who are black and Hispanic. At the end of his life, MLK was increasingly aware of class distinctions. He would be equally concerned about the inequity of income that has developed regardless of race, especially over the past thirty years; he would be challenging the 1% for sure. He would be a proponent of equal pay for women.

Obviously, heinous acts of brutality are distressing to him. But he would also address the culture of violence that leads to such unthinkable acts. He would surely talk about the awful tumult that takes place every day in the United States that DOESN’T make the headlines.

He would oppose the death penalty. Not only did he not believe in “an eye for an eye,” but he would despair of the imbalance of people of color incarcerated and on death row across the country, disproportionate to the number of crimes committed.

MLK came to oppose the Vietnam war by 1967. Surely, he would have opposed the Iraq war as unjustified, even before it actually started in 2003. The current wars, particularly the use of drones, would break his heart.

Martin would undoubtedly be pleased, and possibly surprised, that an African-American had been elected President, but would suggest that we have not yet reached “the promised land.”

A is for Albany

Albany had the same mayor, Erastus Corning 2nd, for over 40 years, from 1941 until his death in 1983.

Albany, New York has a long history, going back to at least 1624, when it was called Fort Orange, then later Beverwyck, under Dutch rule. From the city’s webpage: “In 1664 when the Dutch surrendered to the British without a battle, King Charles II granted territory… to his royal brother James, the Duke of both York and Albany. Thus Beverwyck became Albany and New Amsterdam became New York… It was on July 22, 1686, that Governor Thomas Dongan representing the British crown granted a charter recognizing Albany as a city.” It became the permanent capital of New York State in 1797.

As a city on the Hudson River, the city was important in trade. That song The Erie Canal has a line about it running “from Albany to Buffalo.”

One of the more controversial situations in 20th century Albany history was the razing of dozens of buildings to build the South Mall. It changed the skyline but cut off one side of the city from the other.

My own history in Albany, I believe, started in 1970. I was selected to participate in something called The Governor’s Conference on Children and Youth. I flew with a half dozen other people from Binghamton to Albany, only 150 miles away, in a little plane, maybe a 12-seater, during a thunderstorm; I was terrified. I did, however, get to meet Governor Nelson Rockefeller.

I moved from New Paltz, my college town, to Schenectady, not far from Albany, at the end of 1977, and then to Albany in August 1979.

I must admit that sometimes Albany can be quite parochial. I blame it in part on a long series of one-party rule, the Republicans around the turn of the 20th century, but the Democrats since the early 1920s. Albany had the same mayor, Erastus Corning 2nd, for over 40 years, from 1941 until his death in 1983.

I noted here that most folks have to be here 30 years before one’s REALLY from Albany. One somewhat derisive term for the place is Smallbany, which basically means that folks you meet in one set of circumstances you’d likely run into another. There’s a certain snarkiness by Albanians about the city touting the fact that it is about equidistant to NYC and Boston, rather than discussing the city’s many virtues, including two universities, one of which I attended.

ABC Wednesday – Round 12

Maureen O’Hara and the National Film Registry

Dance, Girl, Dance (1940), directed by Dorothy Arzner, pretty much the ONLY woman director in the studio era of American film.

Until a couple of days before Christmas 2012, I had never seen the 1947 movie Miracle on 34th Street. It features Maureen O’Hara as Doris Walker, who hires a new store Santa at Macy’s, then becomes concerned that he calls himself Kris Kringle and claims to be the actual Santa Claus.

The next night, while assisting Saint Nick, I stumbled upon the Independent Lens rebroadcast of These Amazing Shadows. I agree that “it’s a delightful, engaging documentary about America’s most beloved films and their preservation by the Library of Congress.” It starts with media mogul Ted Turner touting the colorization of movies, and the testimony before Congress by Woody Allen and others desiring that cinema receive better treatment.

Most of the program was about the movies in the National Film Registry. One is Miracle on 34th Street. Another is Dance, Girl, Dance (1940), directed by Dorothy Arzner, pretty much the ONLY woman director in the studio era of American film. The film costars Maureen O’Hara, who gives a great speech about men’s expectations of women entertainers.

Back in the fall of 2012, I saw the Parent Trap (1961), ALSO with Maureen O’Hara, though not on the Register. I’d never seen her in anything prior that point.

Incidentally, here’s a list of Some Films Not Yet Named to the National Film Registry.

BOOK REVIEW: The Things They Carried, by Tim O’Brien

This is the narrative of a bunch of soldiers, including one named Tim O’Brien, who ended up fighting in the Vietnam war, not always clear on the motivation.

Each year, there is an event sponsored by the National Endowment for the Arts called The Big Read. The idea is that whole communities, generally through the local library, pick one of (this year) 21 books for people to read. The Albany Fund for Education, a “not-for-profit charitable organization that raises funds for innovative programs in support of the Albany City School District” picked Tim O’Brien’s The Things They Carried. Free copies were distributed through the branches of the Albany Public Library, of which I am an active and vocal supporter. I had never participated before, but this time, someone literally had a copy of the book, said, “You ought to read this, it’s good,” and put it in my hands.

It’s helpful that it reads on the title page, “a work of fiction” because I would have thought otherwise. Indeed, the book is true, even if a few of the circumstances have changed. There’s quite a bit of contemplation about what “truth” is in the book, including the chapter, “How to tell a true war story.”

This is the narrative of a bunch of soldiers, including one named Tim O’Brien, who ended up fighting in the Vietnam war, not always clear on the motivation. Some of the guys made it back home, others didn’t. Those who made it sometimes had a difficult time, and those who didn’t have a hard time felt some pangs of guilt over THAT.

The writing style is intentionally nonlinear. It does not start at the beginning and go to the end. Sometimes, one gets a bit of recapitulation, so that by the end of the story, one KNOWS these guys, and can relate to their travails.

During the war, going off to Canada was an option many men considered, and some actually did, to avoid the war. Other thought of this as an act of cowardice, but if you read “On the Rainy River,” you might think otherwise.

The book was published in 1990, and about half of the 20-odd stories had been previously published, five in Esquire magazine. The edition I have is from 2009, suggesting that, when it is well told, the experience of war is, unfortunately, timeless.

Here’s a study guide of this extremely positively reviewed book.