It seems a local mailman has written a book. Check it; Vincent Wyckoff reads from Beware of the Cat: And Other Encounters of a Letter Carrier tonight at Lyndale United Church of Christ. Of course, the job of a mailman hasn’t exactly been romanticized to the point of, say, a truck driver. (I chalk it up to the regular hours and cushy benefit packages.) But a mailman’s workday does afford the opportunity for exercise and to walk about the world, which automatically makes the profession seem more attractive. Can country western letter-carrier ditties be that far off?
Category: Blog Post
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The Three-Pointer: Breakthrough on the Road
Game #67, Road Game #35, Minnesota 95, Sacramento 89
1. Fine Points
There probably was a game way back in the Casey-coaching days of ’06 when both Randy Foye and Mike James played with confidence, aggression, and efficiency, but it sure felt like a revelation in a water-for-the-parched win over Sacramento last night. It matters only a little that the Kings’ Mike Bibby may be the most overrated point guard in the league and has never played decent defense–there have been literally dozens of games when James and/or Foye haven’t bothered to look for penetration off the dribble, or even a quick crossover or two that would free them up from outside. Instead, “better safe than sorry” seemed to be the mantra in their heads, instilled either by overcoaching or their own memory demons. Not so last night, as the pair (who never played together) combined for 36 points, 6 assists and just 2 turnovers in 48 minutes.
Two-thirds of those point and assist totals were Foye’s, registered in barely more than half the minutes-played. Foye was also a +9 to James’s -3. But this is not the time to denigrate James just because, for a boatload of reasons, he has no business starting at this juncture of the season. For the third straight game he stopped playing like a deer in the headlights, even anticipating a lazy inbounds pass for a steal and layup midway through the third quarter, one of three layups he converted in the period en route to a team-high 10 points that helped the Wolves hang around until Foye could take over the game with 14 points in the 4th quarter.
Where has that Randy Foye been lately? “Learning” the point guard position, apparently. Whether it was Foye or Wittman or whoever who decided it was time to take the shackles off and “let Foye be Foye,” it certainly helps put some juice back in the rook’s self-regard, right in sync with three upcoming games against Seattle’s Luke Ridenour (twice) and Portland’s Jarrett Jack, a pair of foes over which a flourishing Foye enjoys a distinct advantage.
Two more things. We all know that ex-coach Dwane Casey is looking smarter all the time in absentia, and it is interesting to note that Wittman reverted back to Casey’s old substitution pattern with Foye last night, playing him almost exclusively in the second and fourth periods. On that note, the ever helpful Wolves stat guru, Paul Swanson, sent along this interesting bit of info in the wee hours of the night/morn.
Inspired by Randy Foye’s game-clinching jumper with :16.8 remaining at Sacramento:2006-07 Minnesota Timberwolves
Scoring in Last 24 Seconds of 4th Quarters & Overtime Periods
(through Mar. 21)Player FGM-A 3FG-A FTM-A Pts
Foye 11-21 2- 4 10-10 34
Garnett 6-20 3-10 13-16 28
Davis 9-23 3- 7 6- 8 27
James 3- 7 2- 3 8- 9 16
Blount 4- 6 2- 2 0- 2 10
McCants 2- 2 1- 1 2- 2 7
Hassell 1- 3 0- 0 4- 4 6
Hudson 1- 4 1- 2 2- 2 5
Smith 1- 2 0- 1 2- 2 4
Reed 1- 4 0- 0 0- 0 2
Wright 1- 3 0- 1 0- 0 2
Jaric 0- 2 0- 1 1- 2 1
Madsen 0- 2 0- 0 0- 0 0
Griffin 0- 1 0- 1 0- 0 0Now Swanny’s list doesn’t include minutes played or assists, but it is pretty clear that Foye is the go-to guy, the Cassell replacement this team envisioned as James’s role heading into the season (and it should be noted that James’s numbers aren’t that shabby here).
The other thing Wittman did well last night was realize the synergy that occurs when Foye and Marko Jaric play together. All but 43 seconds of Jaric’s 21:52 came alongside Foye last night, and it is no coincidence that he was a team-high +15. In fact it bears noting that the Wolves staged their 4th quarter comeback with 4/5 of the same lineup that earned the comeback over Indiana: KG/Smith/Foye/Jaric, with Ricky Davis subbing in for Rashad McCants this time as the 5th man.
2. The Big Banger Theory
With Brad Miller and Kenny Thomas both waylaid with injuries, the Kings went with a frontcourt of Sharif Abdur-Rahim and Corliss Williamson. Since Garnett lunches on Ab-Ra every time they play, Sac coach Eric Musselman wisely decided to matchup with Sharif on Blount and Williamson on KG.Unfortunately, Williamson had his way with Garnett in the first period, going off for 10 points and 6 rebounds to propel Sacramento to a 28-22 margin. Williamson would only get 7 points and 4 boards the rest of the game while playing 37:07, and KG hauled in a game-high 18 rebounds, so everything was all right in the end. But it once again drove home the point that the biggest need for this ballclub by a wide wide margin is acquiring a big banger who can patrol and intimidate in the paint, allowing Garnett to avoid the wear-and-tear that his injury-resistant body continually absorbs.
This isn’t solely for Garnett’s sake (although easing life and maximizing production for your superstar is Priority One for most ballclubs that have one); it would dramatically improve Minnesota’s competitiveness. Don’t forget that the most successful season in team history was accomplished with the hydra-headed trio of Erv Johnson, Mark Madsen and Michael Olowokandi rotating in at center. Of those three, an already aging Erv started because he set the tone on the court as well as in the locker room: Stay at home down low. Box out. Communicate on defense. Don’t worry about how many points you score; just anchor the defense and allow no easy points in the paint. This is a lesson that undersized Craig Smith (+10 last night, second only to Jaric) understands. Players like this really aren’t *that* hard to find for a million or two a year. Instead, we have Blount for more than 6 million.
On that note, here is another part of the Paul Swanson package from late last night:
2006-07 Minnesota Timberwolves
Offensive Fouls Drawn
(through Mar. 21)Smith 21
Davis 17
Blount 13
Garnett 11
Foye 10
Madsen 10
Hassell 7
Reed 7
Jaric 6
James 5
Hudson 3
Griffin 2
McCants 2
Wright 12006-07 Minnesota Timberwolves
Plus/Minus by Month
(through Mar. 21)Player G Nov Dec Jan Feb Mar Tot
Blount 67 + 3 -21 -37 -62 -80 -197
Davis 66 -24 +38 +34 -35 -98 – 85
Foye 67 +17 -45 -12 -24 -25 – 89
Garnett 66 +18 +48 +40 -16 -54 + 36
Hassell 62 -16 +14 +22 -73 -18 – 71
Hudson 34 + 8 +21 -43 – 7 -45 – 66
James 67 -33 – 6 -25 -42 -24 -130
Jaric 60 +17 -26 -60 +15 -53 -107
Madsen 45 + 7 -16 +40 -20 – 3 + 8
McCants 23 DNP DNP + 1 – 7 +27 + 21
Reed 33 + 2 – 7 -28 – 5 + 7 – 31
Smith 67 + 6 +15 -44 -20 -21 – 64
Wright 14 + 6 – 4 +27 – 4 + 2 + 27
x-Griffin 13 -46 -26 DNP DNP DNP – 72
Wolves 67 – 7 – 3 -17 -60 -77 -164You’ll note that despite low minutes and the fact that we gets robbed by the refs at least half the time on these borderline charging-or-blocking calls, Smith has made taking charges something of a specialty (second only to Joe Smith in Wolves’s history; it must be the mundane last name that compels such unsung behavior). To be fair, Blount also takes more than his share (ditto RD). But move on to the plus/minus totals. Blount’s plus/minus is the worst on the squad by a wide margin, and the worst over the past two months as the Wolves have swooned. Davis is second, and the worst in the month of March.
Of all the confounding things about this franchise, their inability to secure and nurture at least one decent banger throughout their history–Felton Spencer comes closest, and they traded him after three years–is the most inexplicable, and Exhibit A in the mishandling of KG’s career.
3. Quick Takes
I think I’ll stop bashing Ricky Davis long enough to note that he had another really good game last night, helping Jaric (and to a lesser extent, Trenton Hassell) put the clamps on Kevin Martin and Ron Artest (although Martin missed a bevy of open j’s and Artest was the “bad” Artest in terms of shot selection and overall team corrosion). Ricky even guarded Bibby a little bit to throw him off at the start of the game. He was a dishing maestro, with his 7 assists not doing his passing justice because of the would-be dimes that prompted fouls or easy misses, and the pass-before-the-assist-pass momentum that he stoked. To cap it off, he nailed a pair of crucial treys in crunchtime. Much as I wanted McCants on the floor for that final comeback (for the good of the future, which should be the point right now), to win this game on this night, Davis was the right choice.
Since the ankle sprain (and actually a bit before then), Hassell has had trouble finding his niche. Right now the ballclub clearly performs better with Jaric in the lineup. It really is a contrast of styles: Jaric runs around like the absent-minded professor, making all sorts of good and terrible things happen. Hassell is steady as Grandpa Molasses, making sure no opponent gets an easy look at the hoop and kind of ensuring the same for his teammates with his current inability to hit an open J or force the opposing D to respond to him in any other meaningful fashion.
IMHO: The less said about the playoffs, the better. One, it isn’t going to happen. Two, if it does, the Wolves will lose a draft pick and suffer enormous embarrassment on a national stage in the first round, goading KG in the direction of bolting. Anyone who remembers my rant over the Madsen’s clownfest in last year’s finale knows my take on tanking. You honor the game and your karma by putting forth your best effort. Fortunately, in this case it means playing a young lineup–something Coach Wittman (who needs to go 12-3 to match Casey’s .500 mark) either doesn’t understand, or, as has been speculated by others, knows full well as he conducts a guerrilla campaign to get that draft pick.
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Oh Good God, We're Talking Garrison Keillor.
You can only shake your head in dismayed amazement at the over-the-top-and-into-the-stratosphere reaction to Garrison Keillor’s March 14 Salon column. I only read the thing today, a week after the fact and a week after the eruption of anger from … and lets be careful here … a certain portion of the gay community, abetted and egged on, ironically enough by a smattering of gleeful righties always eager to push the “liberals do it too” hypocrisy argument.
In what was CLEARLY a standard issue, garden variety piece of Keillor satire basically riffing on the diminished roles of adults/parents in modern America’s child-oriented culture he spends a couple graphs batting around the cliched image of “flamboyant” gay parents adding to the increasingly complex family trees of 21st century families. Not only was it a friggin’ joke, but it was a variation on a thoroughly familiar joke I at least have seen thousands of times in movies and on TV. Flamboyant gays. Sardonic. Amusing … apparently not.
Of all people, Dan Savage, the normally very funny gay columnist/blogger jumped on the Keillor-is-a-bigot train, mugged the engineer, tore out of the station and has been driving it across the country all week blowing the whistle and flashing the lights. Check out the venom in his “comments” section for an object lesson in grim vituperation. One word that comes to mind as I scroll through it is, “Astonishing.”
A couple days later Keillor issued an apology in which he explained that in his world of literati and artists the type of satire he employed in Salon is well understood and accepted. I know very little about Keillor’s real world salon mates, but based on the show biz types I’ve met and hung around over the years that seems entirely accurate. Show biz is always trading in stereotypes for drama and comedy. The trick is in the tone and the performer, and Keillor long ago proved himself adept at both, if you care to actually read or listen.
In Keillor’s case I’m here to argue that as much as any public figure in the state he should be indemnified against charges of “bigotry” and homophobia. I don’t consider myself a big fan. I don’t make appointments with the radio show, but somehow I hear it fairly often. (How often does MPR re-run that thing?) We’re certainly not close. (Last time I checked I think Keillor was pissed at me for calling around checking about some minor personnel flap at Prairie Home Companion.) But, come on, people, over his career, through the guiding sensibility of his radio show, novels and columns and his outside work on behalf of hundreds of progressive candidates and causes the guy has demonstrated as full a commitment to building fair-mindedness into government and public institutions as any local celebrity I can think of. Put another way, he has walked the walk. Have you?
The newest theme in Keillor-ripping, post-apology, is the charge that he explained his satire on the basis that, “some of his best friends are gay”, which I’m willing to bet in his case is actually true. But the real point of cultural curiosity here … in this blog … isn’t Keillor at all, but the hair-trigger on the knee-jerk of his critics.
From my time in the media I can tell you there is a compulsive quality in the need of some people … of all races, persuasions, ideologies and genders … to achieve and display maximum indignation and pity-worthy personal offense in the shortest possible period of time, which is to say usually before they read something twice or stop and ask themselves, “Is this a joke?”
We see the commercial pay-off to instantaneous public indignation every day on cable TV and talk radio. Get angry! Get the viewers angry! Its an expression of passion! Do it well every day and make millions! Believe me, this exhausting bit has seeped into the citizen/consumer culture. But no matter what the level of commerce, the 0-to-60 indignation shtick requires a steady supply of enemies, old and new. In this case Garrison Keillor gets the casting call. Too bad about that. But to feed the indignation beast you occasionally have to vilify people who not only are fundamentally sympathetic to the cause you’re so incensed over, but very likely have devoted a higher percentage of their free hours to advancing that cause than you have.
Another theme running through comments to Keillor on the Prairie Home website is that he doesn’t fully understand the pain of being gay. And that too is indisputably true. Not to go totally Oprah here, but which of us ever fully appreciates another person’s pain? My folks taught me the best you can hope for is a friend who is there to help when you really need him/her, and with whom you’ve achieved enough comfort to trade back and forth the real work of buffering the bullshit and real dipshits of life with, you know, a little humor.
Bottom line: Your friends aren’t you, exactly, but know the difference between them and your real problems.
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06-07
Random thoughts on the Guthrie’s 07-08 season announcement: After seeing that so-so production of Peer Gynt at Orchestra Hall last weekend (thank God for the band and the St. Olaf Choir), I was quite interested to find that Minnesota’s own Robert Bly–famous for Iron John, the Men’s Movement, and other comments on wounded masculinity–will turn his pen to a Guthrie-commissioned adaptation of Peer Gynt, that boys-will-be-boys (or rapists, depending upon the adaptation) of a character.
They’re doing The Seagull, and God bless ’em for it. It’s a beautiful, beautiful play, and a particularly heart-wrenching one, in my humble perspective, and with all my baggage after having had many bad relationships with artists… Nina: “No, that’s not it” is my favorite moment, my favorite line. And I’ll never forget the exceptionally lovely (and tortured) Constantine I came across several moons ago. Only The Guthrie can draw popular audiences to such a downer, I suppose.
I noticed, happily, that Casey Stangl, formerly of the local and now defunct Eye of the Storm theater company, is returning to direct Third, a play I don’t know very well, by Wendy Wasserstein. And they’re lugging in a production of Beckett’s Happy Days (last staged around these parts at The Jungle in 2000) to the Dowling Studio, which means there’ll probably be shit load of dirt, mud, and a buried actress to go along with it. All in all, this strikes me as being a bit more adventurous than their 06-07 season.
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The Three-Pointer: Sunburned
Game #66, Road Game #34, Phoenix 108, Minnesota 90
1. The Last To Know
Do the Minnesota Timberwolves have any idea how silly they are appearing to fans who have watched them play this entire season? Right now this team has a choice: Give the young group of players you have been touting for the last two or three weeks meaningful minutes beside your superstar in preparation for next year, or try to come up with something so special, so lightning-in-a-bottle-like, that you not only surmount the four teams ahead of you in the playoff race for the 8th seed, but will be playing well enough so that such a first round matchup with either Dallas or Phoenix isn’t so pathetic that every columnist from coast to coast is wailing either about how badly the Wolves braintrust has failed Garnett, or how KG isn’t enough of a superstar to elevate his team. That’s the choice: Build for the future or take such a dramatic step forward that you aren’t cutting off your nose to spite your face by prolonging the season.
The Timberwolves are going for it, making the leap, all the while proving the absolute absurdity of that decision. They are shunning their young talent, giving them mop-up minutes, which have been plentiful only because the supposedly mature veterans playing ahead of them waste so little time leaving the game in tatters, in creating mop-up garbage time. The coach and the VP of Basketball Operations and the owner are screwing with the mindset of Randy Foye and Rashad McCants in particular–even as they sell their promise in an effort to secure next year’s season ticket sales! They have lost 22 of their past 30 games. They have no, repeat, no identity because they appear to be a different team, with different starters, strengths, and weaknesses, from game to game. They are sacrificing key development time for Foye, McCants, and Craig Smith on the assumption that they have the talent and the know-how to dramatically improve. And with every loss–their last win on the road was January 27!–the folks in charge seem more and more like they are in some collective fever dream, strategizing on the basis of mirages.
This has been the rather overt subtext of my last three or four treys, and I claim no great wisdom–I am only stating the obvious. And yet, for the third straight game the Wolves started a different point guard, with none of the changes related to injury. These are games 64, 65, and 66 of an 82 game season and the squad is still shuffling the deck on who sets up and runs the offense.
Here’s a little exercise for Glen Taylor and Kevin McHale. Imagine trying to sell season tickets on the premise that Mike James will return as the starting point guard next season. Or Troy Hudson. If sooner or later it isn’t Foye, and preferably sooner, then questions abound: Why have you jerked Mike James’s chain the past six weeks? Who is the odd man out at shooting guard, Davis, McCants or Foye?
Yes, Foye has taken a step backward lately, but that’s because the coaches are simultaneously trying to change his intuitive habits and instinct for the game *and* screw with his minutes and role in the rotation. Two months ago, the kid seemed so mentally tough and inwardly confident that he projected a sense of safety and stability about him–not even Marbury had that his rookie year. Remember, the night he went into the starting lineup, he got arrested by the cops because his cousins were fighting, and he handled it perfectly with both the media and the authorities. Now watch Randy Foye play ball and tell me he’s having fun. He went 2-10 FG tonight, with one assists and zero rebounds and zero free throws in 20:26 of play. All so Troy Hudson and Mike James can keep pounding it into the heads of the honchos who run this squad that they aren’t leading them to the playoffs in this or any other year they have the keys to the offense.
To wrap things up on this point, the lineup that pulled out the Indiana game and provided a glimmer of hope that the braintrust actually had stumbled upon a young, complementary, cohesive unit–KG-McCants-Foye-Smith-Jaric–got nada playing time together tonight. The closest was a stretch of 7:10 in the 4th quarter when Davis was the fifth man instead of Jaric. During that time, the Wolves went -1. In the other 40:50, they went -17.
2. For Whom The Bell Tolls
There has been some discussion in this forum recently about, for lack of a better terse explanation, the difference between narcissim and selfishness when it comes to Ricky Davis. Can a guy who leads the team in assists really be a selfish player? And why do people keep hating on a guy who obviously exhibits a decent amount of hustle on numerous occasions and goes off every now and then for huge numbers, leading his team to victory?Two plays in the third quarter offered a clear distinction of what bothers me about Davis’s game. With 7:35 left to go in the quarter and the Wolves actually down only two, 58-60, Davis and another player almost succeeded in poke-checking the ball away from Raja Bell. A split second after Bell regained possession, Davis was on the floor with him, his arm bending Bell’s head back a bit as he tried to portray it as a jump ball situation. Instead, it was ruled a Davis foul. Nevertheless, everyone watching saw Davis successfully separtate Bell from the ball briefly, and then dive on the floor in an attempt to either get the steal of salvage a jump ball out of it. Just 41 seconds later with the score the same, the Wolves had actually managed to play good enough defense to put the Suns in danger of a 24-second violation. With two seconds on the clock, Bell caught the ball just outside the free throw line, facing up on Davis. He noticed how little time he had, did a simple crossover dribble, blew by Davis and tossed up an 8-foot running, with the shot clock horn sounded as the ball was in the air. The basket was good and the shot was deflating for the Wolves, kicking off a 22-5 Suns run that essentially decided the outcome.
The point is, if Davis can almost make the steal and then dive on the floor, why can’t he also realize how little time is left on the clock and simply move his feet and deny Bell any penetration for two seconds? Bell went on to score 16 points in the third period, en route to a team-high 22 points, 7 more than his average. All 16 were scored with Davis in the game and usually guarding him.
Comments were also made about Rashad McCants being somewhat lackluster thus far this season. Tonight there was certainly evidence that McCants is nowhere near back to full maneuverability, especially when it comes to springing off his legs. His lone basket in six attempts was a lefty slam dunk after his man bit on a baseline feint, but two other shots were blocked, his long-range treys hit front iron, and Leandro Barbosa was simply too quick for him to contain.
But McCants had three steals and a couple other deflections that almost turned into steals tonight. He was merely a -3 in 21:12 of play, and while some of that was garbage time, it still was a significantly better ratio than most anyone else on the team. The point being that when it comes to Pretty Ricky and Ugly Shaddy, appearances aren’t always reality.
3. Praiseworthy Stats
Thirty points and 16 rebounds for Garnett tonight, including 8 trips to the free throw line. Unfortunately, all those charity stripe tosses occurred in the first half, when KG was at 20 points and a dozen boards. Trying to defend the Suns’ ball movement can wear you out, and Garnett once again looked spent in the fourth quarter, finishing with a team high 38:07 of playing time that was actually truncated from his norm because of the blowout.
Marko Jaric erupted for 9 assists versus only 2 turnovers but continues to have trouble with his shot, going 2-7 FG, a trend that has him below 34% over the last 13 games.
Craig Smith finished with 14 points (second only to KG on the team) and 5 rebounds and got to the line 9 times in 19:23, but also committed four turnovers and was a team-worst -14.
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The Curmudgeon Presents: The Ten Most Overrated Films of All Time
Being grouchy from both the inanity of the Oscars and the fact that Zodiac continues to fare poorly against 300 and Wild Hogs, I found myself playing the list game, hopefully releasing some of the bile that’s accumulated over the years. A caveat: some of these movies listed below are actually decent. In fact, a couple of these films I’ve enjoyed very much, just not as much as the majority of the world. And time is of the essence, as there is not one film from this year, as it is a film’s staying power that makes it overrated. For instance, Little Miss Sunshine is horribly overrated, as is The Departed, both films faring better at the box office than Children of Men and Cache, to name but two. However, time may heal those very public wounds. If they’re still being regaled in fifteen years, then I’ll amend my list. Dogs are left out–everyone knows that Congo is hideous, therefore it’s not overrated.
Furthermore, the Academy has no bearing on this list. Gandhi and Titanic took the brass ring, but so what? They’re not overrated by anyone but the Academy.
Of course, I also haven’t seen everything that’s ever been released. Great are the gaps in my history: there’s a dearth of Chaplin, Cassavetes, Hal Hartley, and others whose works I’ve caught glimpses of, were unimpressed, and therefore resisted future screenings. If you see something here you dislike, complain. If you want to post a grumble about my leaving David Lynch off the list, fine, but I love Lynch, and that’s how it goes. Keep that in mind… and post your own complaints, or the movies you think are overpraised hoo-hah. Maybe next week I’ll post an under-rated list.
10. Psycho, 1960. My father saw Psycho recently, and said, “I forgot that I was bored by it the last time”. So true: Psycho has not dated well. The film’s not necessarily bad, it’s just not that great (though it gets worse when placed beside Hitchcock’s other classics, including and especially Rear Window, a much better examination of voyeurism and its trappings). Watch it again, however, and it starts to get a bit creaky. Gone are the rich characterizations of Hitch’s past films, and really, the central conceit, which everyone knows by now, isn’t enough to float an oddly tension-less film. Not to mention the fact that Perkins has been much better doing nearly the same shtick, including Orson Welles’ The Trial and the underrated Pretty Poison.
9. Fargo, 1996. I like Fargo. Despite this, I still don’t believe it belongs in the Coen Brothers’ top five (Miller’s Crossing, Raising Arizona, The Big Lebowski, Blood Simple, and Barton Fink are all better). Fargo is well made, but empty. Is it a crime caper, a comedy, a meaningful examination of life on the frozen prairie or the wages of greed? Who knows? Too often, emotional connections are never fulfilled, characters killed or tossed aside cruelly. What, for instance, is the point of the scene in which the rotten father (played by William H. Macy) comforts his son… who is never seen again? Or the father-in-law who gets blown away? The movie reaches for moments of intense emotional clarity, only to devolve into jokes like the shredding of an accomplice in a wood chipper, which has had tongues wagging now for over ten years (please stop–it’s not that incredible). And then there’s Marge, a character who no one really seems to know. Can anyone truly relate to her? What are her goals, ambitions, sorrows, frustrations?
8. To Kill A Mockingbird, 1962. Perhaps it’s the source novel that should bear the blame, but this classic has always grated on my nerves. Maybe it’s the endless preaching, the lessons that are hammered on your skull every fifteen minutes, or perhaps it’s that the true story is not about little Scout learning her lesson, but poor, crippled Tom Robinson having to defend himself, unsuccessfully, from the charge of rape. He dies, of course, but the little white girl sure grew up fast! And consider the names: Atticus, Scout, Dill, Boo Radley, Heck Tate, Robert E. Lee Ewell, and… Tom Robinson, the black prop with the dull moniker (why bother to give him any character?). Here, African Americans are there for white folks to earn salvation, to learn lessons, or reveal their dark side. And Gregory Peck has been so much better in stronger films (Duel in the Sun, Cape Fear, and Roman Holiday to name three). Why, you might forget the guy has range…
7. American Beauty, 1999. A rotten, hateful, misogynist film. Apparently, ladies, you can only find beauty by paying attention to the guys in your life who film garbage blowing in the wind. Annette Bening is light years better than Kevin Spacey, and her role is thankless, the shallow woman for whom Spacey gets to bounce his lines off. See, Spacey’s character knows that red convertibles and underage girls are transcendent, but Bening’s love of fine clothes and SUVs is a reflection of her shallow nature. Go figure. Unfunny, un provocative, and deeply insulting, I am at a complete loss as to why anyone likes this film.
6. The George A. Romero Zombie Flicks. Night of the Living Dead (1968) isn’t bad, with its political message shoved on at the very end, and quite potent. But then Romero got it into his brain that these were going to be serious films. Dawn of the Dead (1978) with its goofy blue-faced zombies (yes, makeup wasn’t that bad then, even in cheap films) is dull; Day of the Dead (1985) is worse, claustrophobic without tension, mean-spirited and lacking wit; and Land of the Dead (2005) wowed critics because it took on the Bush Administration! That’s a bold move in 2005. Interesting to see that the underclass of Romero’s Land are the Irish, and that his cities, and his undead, don’t contain Muslims or Asians. This is important because Romero seems to think of himself as a social critic, and yet he seems more a man who is the product of his times than someone who thinks outside of the box. Without that, his films had better be interesting. And they’re not.
5. Nashville, 1975. A perfect summary of Robert Altman’s erratic career. At times brilliant, with some magnificent performances, like the always splendid Lily Tomlin. But mix that in with the self-indulgent crap Robert Carradine calls acting, and then fold in all the songs that were written by Hollywood stars who don’t seem to have a clue what a country-western song should sound like, and this is one flat cake. Nashville’s ending is insulting, as is Altman’s need to browbeat you with obvious clues as to the identity of the assassin (“Are you a musician?” asked over and over, to which we eventually shout “no, he’s going to shoot someone!”) Altman cares little about his audience, with his gratuitous celebrity shots (a common occurrence in his movies), and his lack of understanding the eponymous city or its music. No, he’s better than those rubes, and his arrogance comes through. Technically interesting (especially the sound), it’s still baffling that his so-called ‘command’ of all his characters is what is praised, as so many are forgettable. Considering Altman’s made McCabe and Mrs. Miller and Gosford Park, that Nashville is considered his masterpiece is confounding.
4. An American in Paris, 1951. Easily the most difficult entry on this list, as American isn’t a bad movie, and in fact is downright fun the first time around. But it’s widely acclaimed as one of the greatest musicals ever, and it isn’t. In fact, it really isn’t close, for you’d have to forget Singin’ in the Rain, Fred Astaire, and many, many others. As a vehicle for both Gene Kelly and Oscar Levant it’s wonderful, but the plot is creaky, nonsensical, and its ballet goes on and on and on, and only emphasizes that there’s no plot to keep you occupied. The film also lacks wit. Singin’ in the Rain, for instance, is an abundant pleasure even without the singing and dancing. An American in Paris is not so good in its quiet moments, actually quite a forgettable experience outside of a few great songs (and how could you go wrong with Gershwin). A film whose potential was never realized.
3. All About Eve, 1950. Considered the apex of sharp wit, All About Eve should also be regarded as the nadir of story-telling technique. A film that begins with so much narration you feel as if you’re watching a book on tape. When it finally gets rolling, well, then the action stops while another character sits down and tells a story, with cuts to the actors shocked faces at the words coming out of her mouth. It only gets worse. You could rightly criticize My Dinner With Andre as dull, but Eve is roughly the same film, all yakity-yak. Does anybody actually do anything in this movie? The answer’s a resounding no, and the performances are sterile and hackneyed to boot. This film walked off with an armload of Oscars and has been widely regarded as one of the few films to deserve them. Horribly dated, lacking insight, not even fun by bitchy standards, All About Eve is instead a wretched bore.
2. Schindler’s List, 1993. The greatest Holocaust film ever made. We know that because Spielberg and his minions have made sure to tell us, over and over (even going so far as to distribute the thing to schools). True, Schindler’s List has about 90 minutes of great filmmaking. Too bad, then, that it’s still got another 100 minutes to account for. Included in its crimes are the creepy shots of the doomed blonde girl in the red coat, apparently heading off to die, and, we learn, one of the secret motivations for Oskar Schindler’s kindness. A girl in a red coat in a black and white film? Why, it’s just another way for the master of schmaltz to drive home a point. Of course, Spielberg has a dozen moppets flung about (he could quite possibly be the worst director of children), including one cute little boy in a toilet, who, like the rest of them, has no personality or character. Spielberg’s camera zooms around like he’s chasing giant sharks again, and the whole thing looks like Nazi Germany from an Indiana Jones perspective. Then there’s the patronizing attitude toward the victims, culminating in Schindler’s reminding a rabbi that it’s the Sabbath, so why doesn’t the old fellow go ahead and pray. News to Spielberg: you can bet that the rabbis knew exactly what fucking day the Sabbath was on, and did what they could to praise their God, without Schindler’s little grin to egg them on. Or the fact that the director didn’t trust us to have a film with an enigma at its center, and Schindler, in the last ten minutes, becomes a weepy and sentimental guy, thus sparing an unintelligent audience difficult questions about the nature of selflessness. The problem with Schindler’s List is that its failures are so great and resound so loudly that they upend its strengths. Furthermore, I’m convinced that Polanski saw this too, and that The Pianist, flawed though it is, is a no-holds-barred response to many of Spielberg’s soft-centered conflicts (most notably the scene with a Nazi officer’s gun jamming–there’s one in each film, and Polanski’s is truly disturbing.)
1. Every Kubrick film since Spartacus. What happened to Stanley Kubrick? The Killing is very good, Spartacus is fun, and Paths of Glory could be the greatest anti-war film ever made. All three are masterful, moving, with rich characters carrying plots that are both supremely entertaining and challenging. You can’t walk away from Paths of Glory and not be moved.
Then he made Lolita, which to this day makes you wonder if he read the damn book. Nabokov wrote a screenplay that wasn’t used, and what Kubrick did was take a curiously touching (and disturbing) story and make it into a collection of cheap double entendres and empty performances, including an indulged Peter Sellers and a wasted Shelley Winters. That film was the beginning of Kubrick’s removal from the world of people–only George Lucas’ second Star Wars trilogy is colder and less human than the Kubrick oeuvre. Dr. Strangelove is fun, but it doesn’t withstand repeated viewings, its jokes echoing through empty rooms, as if delivered by robots. 2001 is itself a joke, a vision of the future and the dawn of man whose depth has been eclipsed in imagination by any number of Star Trek episodes (and that is not to praise Star Trek). It is overlong, obsessed with its special effects, a story that could have been told in a twenty minute short and with an ending calculated to take advantage of an audience of stoners. A Clockwork Orange is a loud, boorish insult, poorly acted (Kubrick was never an actor’s director), and cannot be said to have influenced anything of quality, though it’s look can be seen most notably in the idiotic Pink Floyd’s The Wall (that’s a legacy for you). Orange has so little to say about the nature of violence, and there’s tons of other movies (Peter Weir’s Witness comes to mind) that speak with much clearer insight on this subject. These four films alone make you wonder if Kubrick has actually ever known people who have been in love or victims of violence.
Of course, after Clockwork Kubrick was pretty much through: I haven’t seen Barry Lyndon or Eyes Wide Shut, though perhaps someday a cruel judge will sentence me to endure both. Stanley’s movies since that time have all been flops, barely resonating with society in general and Hollywood in particular. The Shining was easily the most popular, though it ushered in the age of Screamin’ Jack, and Kubrick couldn’t get over his new toy (the Steadicam use was gratuitous and called attention to itself). Again, what could have been a decent horror film is bogged down with Kubrick’s usual ponderousness and his inability to relate to his characters.
Finally, Full Metal Jacket utterly ruins a magnificent little novel (The Short-Timers by Gustav Hasford) that was absurd and could have been Kubrick’s second anti-war masterpiece after Paths of Glory. But look at those two films: in Paths there is a perfect balance between beautifully executed shots and the actors within them. It boasts a tight script, intelligent and emotional performances, and comes in at a brisk 87 minutes. With Full Metal Jacket (and who knows where that title came from, as the Hasford loathed it), Kubrick again treats the examination of war and violence as mere intellectual exercise, as opposed to being something that actually affects people. The casting of Matthew Modine as Private Joker is a reflection of Kubrick’s inability to see his characters as people–Modine was never a great actor, had virtually no range, and is as full of himself as Kubrick (he once claimed he’d never made a bad movie… you’re asking for it, kid). Hasford’s Joker is loud, rude, fighting against what the military and Vietnam does to him, a sort of Randle Patrick McMurphy in fatigues, while the Joker of Full Metal Jacket has as much to do with a human being as, well, as HAL did in 2001.
David Thomson wrote that Kubrick “was a ‘master’ who knew too much about film and too little about life–and it shows.” Indeed.
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Fear the Slaughter
“Spot” questions the fanged female …
“Brian,
I do enjoy your blog; you obviously know a lot about the media scene in the Twins. However, Spot has to question your choice of a female lion as your avatar for the blog.”
Spot my man/(gal?). Ask yourself the fundamental question I ask myself every day. Is there anything more fearsome than a female intent on bloody vengeance? Then, by extension, is there any creature you’d rather model yourself on if you aspired to the status of supreme predator?
I am wondering if I should call The Rake graphics department and request more blood.
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The F Word
Have you been watching Gordon Ramsey’s show on BBC America, The F Word?
It’s fucking great.
Some may think right away “I hate Gordon Ramsey, he’s such an asshole.” Well yes, but if you’ve only watched Hell’s Kitchen, don’t be so quick to judge. It should be clear to anyone who has even a little kitchen savvy that the FOX cooking competition is stacked with losers specifically meant to fail and frustrate the head chef.
He does have a rough manner, an old-school kitchen charm, a loud and spicy vocabulary. But he’s all about the food and the guest, what more can you ask for in a chef, let alone a TV chef.
All the Rachel Rays and Tyler Florences and Paula Deens who primp and play to the camera are there for themselves and the audience. Even Bobby Flay, the “bad boy” of the Food Network is rather simpy and concerned for his best side.
Let’s face it, Ramsey doesn’t have a best side. The show is part survival competition, part cooking lesson, part food magazine. It opens with a bunch of cocky home-cooks who think they can handle working in a professional kitchen, with Ramsey. He quickly deflates all ego with his demand for perfection. The rate of success is judged by real diners who decide whether or not they would pay for the food. REAL RESTAURANT STUFF: Not a panel of snobby judges, but people with money in their pockets, the only people that truly matter to a real chef.
In another segment, Ramsey goes head-to-head with someone on similar dishes, last night saw different versions of Beef Wellington. If a table of diners likes the guest cook’s dish best, Rasmey has to put it on his menu. It’s great when he loses, if only for the stream of cuss the comes from his grinning face.
He’s my new Sunday night habit, that fucking banana.
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'90s Nostalgia
Another band that takes me back to my personal indie heydays of, oh, 1992 to 1999–Sebadoh. And they happen to be playing the 400 Bar tonight. Of course, my achin’ back keeps me from the affair. But I’m glad to find Sebadoh making a go at a comeback.
And since we’re feeling nostalgic, I might as well mention The Roots concert at First Ave tomorrow evening. One of my all-time fondest memories is of seeing The Roots perform at The Rave in Milwaukee. On a kick, one member of the troupe (I don’t remember which, as this concert was my introduction to The Roots) accidentally lost his shoe into the audience. He demanded it back from the abyss, and even stopped the show for a few minutes, threatening not to go on until he had his shoe back on foot. But when that failed, he just started freestyling all sorts of crazy rhymes about his lost shoe. It was a tantrum, sure, but the freestyling was sharp and hilarious.
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The Three-Pointer: Always Enough To Lose
Game #65, Road Game #33, Lakers 109, Minnesota 102
1. Point Guard Roulette
Mike James was the best Timberwolves point guard tonight and it wasn’t even close. James had his best game in a Wolves uniform in at least 6 weeks, going off for 18 points (6-14 FG) and 11 assists versus one turnover and ringing up a gaudy, team-best +15 (sez popcornmachine.net). Meanwhile, starter Randy Foye–taking over for Troy Hudson, back to obvilion with a DNP-CD–had one basket in 4 attempts, one assist and 3 turnovers while going -22 in just 15:03 of play.
Foye should have received the majority of the minutes.
Look, the Wolves started the night needing to leapfrog *4* teams in order to bag the final playoff spot, including the club that whupped them by 20 just 48 hours ago. One reason they are in this position is because Mike James spit the bit during the first two months and a half months of the season. Back in early December when people were grumbling for James’s scalp, I said it was way too early to punt a three-year $24 million investment. But by the time James was finally removed from the starting job in favor of Foye, it was almost a mercy move, legitimately spun that maybe James would get back on track being more of a shoot-first player coming in with the second unit and playing against opposing scrubs. That worked for maybe a game or two and then James was back to clanging wide open three pointers and playing abysmal defense.
The past week or two, James has been almost an afterthought on this squad, demoted to third string point guard with the recent Hudson flirtation. Tonight, Foye gets the starting nod and frankly stinks up the joint, bringing James into the game with 3 minutes left in the first and the Wolves already down 17. In other words, James has absolutely nothing to lose, and he plays like it, going to the hole more consistently and as hard as he has all year–and, as a new wrinkle, looking for people to dish to off the dribble. James still doesn’t play defense very well, but let’s give him his due; he arguably was the best Timberwolf on the floor tonight.
But James has had plenty of chances to do this earlier in the season, and rarely came through. Due patience was exercised. As of now, Mike James ranks as the biggest disappointment in a disastrous season full of disappointments. Here’s what we don’t know: Has James somehow turned a corner, figured things out, settled down, made the transition–pick your own cliche–or does he have the kind of mental makeup that allows him to flourish after little or nothing is expected of him, which seems to have been the pattern his entire career? As I say, we don’t know.
We also don’t know how high Randy Foye’s upside as a point guard can be. Will Foye continue to yo-yo between confident, in-the-flow games and ones like tonight’s walk in the twilight zone? If he has the shot, why doesn’t he stroke it? If he prefers to drive, why doesn’t he penetrate? How does a guy who has 14 free throws coming off the bench Friday not get to the line in 15 minutes as a starter on Sunday?
Two players, two sets of questions. Which set does this organization most want answered? Taking it the way Wittman did tonight and going with the hot hand, the one that gave him the best chance to win, ultimately gives him and the team partial, less reliable answers about both players. Because, unless Wittman and Co. are planning on letting the best performing point guard get the lion’s share of time on a game by game basis over the next three years, it sets up a false construct.
Here’s why I think this team should play Randy Foye over Mike James for the rest of this season regardless of their performances from here on out. One, Foye has a much greater upside. Two, James has had a shot–50 starts at the point versus 9 (plus one at shooting guard) for Foye–and has more of a track record to judge already. Three, because salaries have to be within 15 percent of the person you are dealing for, James can bring a better player in a trade than Foye can if and when the Wolves decide to ease their logjam in the backcourt at the end of this season.
Look at it another way: Say James blossoms and Foye flounders in the remaining 17 games of the season. What are your plans for this ballclub in 2007-08? Now say Foye blossoms and James flounders–what are your plans for next year then?
Now let’s make it really simple. The bottom line is that the Timberwolves are not going to make the playoffs this season. The bottom line is that Foye is the one out of the two who looks like the raw material from which you can create a bright future–not guaranteed by any means, but better odds than James suddenly taking his game to a dramatic new level at age 32. So yeah, if James is going like he was tonight, bump his minutes for that game up to 15, maybe even 20. And if he keeps producing, keep him in that 15-20 minute range, with the promise that he’ll get a chance to compete again for a starting spot in next year’s training camp. But take a good, hard, honest look at Randy Foye, who, by the way, was never a point guard in college and is trying to make the jump as a rook in the pros, on the fly. His play this season deserves a solid 28-40 minutes per game from now until the end of the season, not the measley 15 he got tonight while James logged 33. All that did was further scramble and obscure an already unfocused, hodge-podge situation at arguably the most important position on the court. For those invested in silver linings, it looks like the great Huddy experiment is over.
2. Davis 41:45; McCants 6:15
Apparently Wittman has no doubts about who his shooting guard is. Ricky Davis, whose contract expires at the end of next year, got off for 33 points (11-21 FG) and supplemented it with 6 rebounds and 6 assists. Rashad McCants received a cursory 6:15 (-2), giving Mr. Davis (-5 in 41:45) enough time to catch his breath. Wittman obviously prefers to divvy up the small forward minutes between Trenton Hassell and Marko Jaric, leaving the 2-guard spot between Davis and McCants. Davis continues to leak out whenever possible, catching at least two court-length passes tonight, and making himself eligible for many more. Defense? Sometimes he plays it, sometimes he doesn’t. This is fine with Randy Wittman, as one of his assistant coaches should remind him every third or fourth time he wheels around and furrows his brow and stamps his foot during a game. Those invested in silver linings should note that Mark Madsen (+1 in 14:59) and Craig Smith (+9 in 12:51) combined to get more minutes than Mark Blount (-16 in 25:29).
3. Taking KG Off the Dribble
Kevin Garnett had a marvelous line: 26 points, 15 rebounds, 6 assists and 3 blocks. As J-Pete frequently pointed out, he was manhandled yet again without getting enough calls, a pattern that is only going to intensify if opponents can get away with it. I admire his selfless grit in that regard: One of the few abiding conceits in KG’s career was his constant need to be announced as 6-11 before the game when he is actually closer to 7-1. This, it was once explained a long time ago, was because Garnett did not want to be regarded as a center, or anything resembling a paint-centric pivot man. The dude is a large small forward at heart.
But small forwards have to stay with their man off the dribble, and that was something KG failed to do with a rather alarming consistency tonight. Granted, Lamar Odom is a tough matchup, a legit 6-10 and pretty quick. He also had a legit 16-9-8 tonight and seemed to operate pretty easily in penetration. On other occasions, Garnett seemed out of position in transition. Now, the standard cavaet to all this is I don’t know how the coaches were instructing the team to play pick-and-rolls and quick transition plays, and how they were instructed to play Kobe, who had 50 points tonight, by the way, when Kobe had the ball. On the play J-Pete correctly called the pivotal play of the game tonight, for example, late in the 4th quarter, Odom drove across the lane and KG was temporarily picked by Ricky Davis’s man. KG was fighting through the pick and had every intention of staying on Odom, but would have quickly adjusted if Davis had made the right play and done an immediate switch to block Odom’s path to the hoop. Instead, Davis stayed home, Odom was too quick turning the corner, and KG fruitlessly fouled as Odom laid the ball in. Other times, KG had Odom straight up and Lamar simply beat him to the hoop. Other times, KG jumped out on a man in transition and the man fed the ball by him to a teammate KG once was guarding for an easy hoop.
Put simply, not one of the superstar’s better games on D. But when you play Ricky Davis over 41 minutes, and Mike James 2 seconds shy of 33 minutes, you better anticipate an opponent shooting 52.5% and getting 36 assists (on 42 baskets) and half as many turnovers.