For No Good Reason

Lethem and Theft

"The Ecstasy of Influence," by Jonathan Lethem, has just been posted online and must be read by you on the nonce lest it be quits between us, Shanaynay.  It's an utterly breathtaking essay, yet I was left wondering if it might've been prompted by this minor revelation in Nick Hornby's The Polysyllabic Spree:

"And then, at the beginning of The Fortress of Solitude, I came across the following, describing a street ball game: 'A shot... which cleared the gates on the opposite side of the street was a home run.  Henry seemed to be able to do this at will, and the fact that he didn't each time was mysterious.'  Compare that to this, from Seymour: An Introduction: 'A home run was scored only when the ball sailed just high and hard enough to strike the wall of the building on the opposite street... Seymour scored a home run nearly every time he was up.  When other boys on the block scored one, it was generally regarded as a fluke... but Seymour's failures to get home runs looked like flukes.'  Weird, huh?  (And that's all it is, by the way - there's nothing sinister going on here.  Lethem's book is probably over a hundred thousand words long, and bears no resemblance to anything Salinger wrote, aside from this one tiny echo.)"

Interestingly, Salinger turns up in Lethem's piece near the end.  How it figures in, though, is part of the fun.  Carve a half-hour out of your day and give it a read.

A Commentary on My Mental State

I am actively looking forward to watching The Marine at some point today, while I have not bothered with The Conformist since picking it up over a month ago.  Judge me.

Cause of Death: Kung-Fu Moves

I'm sure the IMDB plot outline is the best part of Don Edmond's 1977 action thriller, Bare Knuckles.

"A bounty hunter in Los Angeles sets out to track down and stop a masked serial killer who murders women by using kung-fu moves."

But, on the strength of this trailer, I'm willing to consider that it's a thoughtlessly discarded masterwork on the order of Richard Benjamin's now-celebrated Downtown (about which A.O. Scott recently raved, "Greatness discharges from every frame; as filmgoers, we still aren't ready for it - though I sure am ready for a bath!"):

That brief Gloria Hendry appearance reminds me I just watched Live and Let Die for the first time since Diff'rent Strokes got cancelled.  I know Guy Hamilton is held in very high regards by his peers (mostly because he's a mensch, though he did direct Goldfinger), but how in the hell did his successive combination of Diamonds Are Forever, Live and Let Die and The Man with the Golden Gun not do a Robert Viharo on the franchise?  Those are undoubtedly the three... maybe not worst, but certainly least watchable Bond movies ever made (please mount your Sheriff Pepper defenses in the comments, and know that, regardless, Clifton James did the whole redneck lawman bit better in Superman II, even though he'll always be Sy Orlansky to me). 

As for Bare Knuckles, it's my fervent hope that the movie is wall-to-wall people getting punched in the face by Robert Viharo.  And by "people", I mean everyone:  enemies, friends, children, animals, theater standees, etc.  Should it come up short, that's a script I need to write.  In fact, I want to make a film that sets the world record for most people getting punched in the face period, not just by Robert Viharo, though that'd be a swell benchmark, too.

And, yeah, this all came about because I was looking for a Great White trailer.

Thomas Hardy: Optimist

"To be candid, I think the death of a child is never really to be regretted, when one reflects on what he has escaped."

An excerpt from Tom "Chuckles" Hardy's letter of condolence to Henry Rider Haggard following the death of the latter's ten-year-old son, as cited in the biography Thomas Hardy, by Claire Tomalin.

Before Basketball Went Hip-Hop...

... it was all about Pat Benatar.  At least it was in Northwest Ohio whenever JJ took the court.

I was actually at the Savage Hall game (along with Bravo and Davon) against the team in the blue jerseys where he threw down that sick dunk off the steal at halfcourt. Didn't make it to the game at Anderson Arena, though. JJ seem poised for a hall-of-fame career coming out of Ohio State, but that ankle injury in, I think, his third season w/ the Mavs kinda sapped his explosiveness. And I'm through being nostalgic for the day.

Dargis Can't Review 'Em All!

But when it's a movie I dearly love, I wish she could.  Here's A.O. Scott presumably padding the ol' word count in his ill-considered review of Breaking and Entering:

"It seems to be an axiom of Mr. Minghella’s practice as a filmmaker that, in each of his movies, exactly one person is allowed to be funny. (Rueful irony, of the sort practiced by both Will and his partner, Sandy, played by Martin Freeman, doesn’t count.) In “The Talented Mr. Ripley,” the job fell to the lucky Mr. Law; in “Cold Mountain,” Renée Zellweger got the assignment. (“The English Patient” would appear to be an exception to the rule.) Here, happily, the task belongs to Vera Farmiga, playing a Russian prostitute who shows up in Will’s car to drink coffee, squirm to some loud music and discuss the themes of the movie."

So Freeman is being ruefully ironic when ineptly flirting with the cute girl from the building's cleaning crew?  And Philip Seymour Hoffman wasn't funny at all in The Talented Mr. Ripley?  And we'll just leave out Truly, Madly, Deeply, in which several people are funny, because... Scott either hasn't seen it, or, most likely, it invalidates the entire silly paragraph, which is just a snide and unwarranted swipe at a filmmaker too often dismissed by critics putting on airs?

That's some dynamite criticism, A.O.!  Remarkably thorough.  Then again, he's one o' them dullards what thought Little Miss Sunshine was a real hoot, so what's the use in fulminatin'?

On the Oscar Snub of the Decade

Though many will feign prescience in the wake of Dreamgirls' shocking Best Picture and Director shutout (like, say, Hollywood Elsewhere's Jeff Wells, who's passing off his dubious reaction to the film's status as a front-runner as incontrovertible proof that he knew all along it was a non-starter - which is bullshit given its heavyweight presence all through the awards season), there's not a soul in the prognosticating pool that saw it coming.  It is a snub without precedent.  Off the top of my head, only Amistad missing Picture and Director comes close, but no one really loved Spielberg's uneven history lesson.  A lot of people loved Dreamgirls.  Academy audiences responded to it warmly.  Unlike Amistad, Cold Mountain, The Producers, Ali, Road to Perdition, Black Hawk Down, Vanilla Sky, Primary Colors, Evita, The Crucible and so many other woulda-beens, it delivered on the studio hype.  (To be clear, I love Ali, Black Hawk Down, Primary Colors and most of The Crucible, but they were in one sense or another beyond the grasp of the rank-and-file Academy member.)  And it was racking up nominations from every guild save for the WGA, which was expected since Dreamworks never made a case for the subtle structural brilliance of Condon's adaptation.  For a film that did deliver in a way that Academy voters should've been able to appreciate, maybe The Talented Mr. Ripley is an appropriate comparison, but its awards hopes were dashed by Harvey's not-a-heart-attack; no one could ever accuse Dreamworks of not pushing the hell out of Dreamgirls.

So this is definitely a first.  Looking over the last decade as awards campaigns have evolved, I suppose the lesson is that it's never good to enter the season - which now absurdly begins in fucking August - as the consensus front-runner.  It didn't work for Munich, The Aviator, Mystic River, Gangs of New York, Traffic and The Green Mile, and it may very well have worn down voters' enthusiasm for Dreamgirls by the time January rolled around.

The Anti-Kazaam

From Brian Windhorst's 1/22/07 Akron Beacon-Journal article (in which he also discusses rookie Shannon Brown's bizarre, it-could-only-happen-in-Cleveland ankle injury):

Two major business publications have reported the sports representation agency of Leon Rose, who is James' agent, will be acquired by Hollywood talent giant Creative Artists Agency. If it comes to pass, it will be interesting to see if it paves the wave for James to someday get involved in a major motion picture. James has maintained such an interest for several years and had informal talks with Spike Lee several years ago.

One idea already being bandied about is a movie featuring his popular Nike commercial characters, ``The LeBrons.''

``If it is the right opportunity, if it is the right fit for my personality, then I'll be open-minded about it,'' James said. ``If we could do a movie with `The LeBrons' that would be cool. It is something that could happen. It would take a lot of time and dedication, if the right thing comes along maybe it could happen.''

Though I've long envisioned LeBron as Ignatius J. Reilly in my never-to-happen big screen adaptation of A Confederacy of Dunces, this'll work.  As long as The LeBrons: The Motion Picture kicks the crap out of Space Jam (and two hours of color bars would accomplish that exceedingly simple task), it'll be worth it.

Worked with Kevin Millwood

After several ho-hum offseasons, Cleveland Indians GM Mark Shapiro has finally made a kinda-sorta free agent splash by signing Keith Foulke to a one-year, $5 million deal, which will solve the team's closer issues provided he's healthy.  Just keep him away from the Berea Training Facility of Doom (and Staph).

Though it's still mildly frustrating that the Indians are routinely out of the running for major free agent studs thanks to Larry Dolan's refusal/inability to inflate the payroll (which he can get away with now that attendance at the Jake has plummeted from top five in the majors to nearly the bottom five in 2006 as the city of Cleveland has once again become a football town), the lone difference between the very good 2005 team that collapsed in the last week of the season and the 2006 squad that finished six games below .500 in a brutally competitive Central Division was an effective bullpen.  With Foulke, Joe Borowski, Roberto Hernandez and Aaron Fultz coming into the fold, this failing has been adequately addressed.  While this goes against my hardened Cleveland sports fan cynicism, even if one of these signings is a bust, I think the Indians are a legitimate contender again.  Sizemore's due for a monster year, Pronk will be Pronk and Andy Marte should begin to improve (hopefully rapidly) as he competes for a very attainable starting 3B slot.

And I hereby consign The Tribe to another year of .500 ball by clicking "post".

Addendum:  Shapiro claims that Mark Mulder is still a possibility.  Bring on the damaged goods!

Why I No Longer Watch Cable News...

... or television news in general, with an occasional Olbermann viewing being the lone exception.  Laugharn linked to this, and it worked my despair reflex but good.  Then he linked to this.  The long walk is upon us.

Happy 2007, by the way.  Let's remember simpler times, like when The Moody Blues were content to be a hook-happy British Invasion outfit.

.