He Belonged to Me

April 21, 2020 – Let’s Go Crazy: The Grammy Salute to Prince (2020) CBS

Prince Rogers Nelson died 4 years ago today. He was the first music superstar my age that I followed and loved. I discovered Prince in 1981, six months or so after the release of Dirty Mind, his third album. I loved Dirty Mind — it is still probably my favorite Prince album — it was vital, rocking, soulful, funky and very, very sexy. He played all the instruments on the album. I became a devoted fan, buying his next album Controversy the day it came out and sitting 12th row at Hill Auditorium in Ann Arbor. The intimate auditorium was electric — everyone thrilled to the concert, and it still is one of the best shows I have ever seen. The Time opened for Prince, and they may have been even better that night than Prince and his band. I also skipped class to go alone to the first showing of Prince’s first and best movie Purple Rain, a 10:00 am matinee.

I have followed Prince through the years, buying his records and seeing him when a could, at venues large — sitting in the last row of the Worcester Centrum for the Lovesexy tour — and small — standing behind Ron Wood and his 25-year-old girlfriend, 8 feet from Prince and his Jimi-Hendrix-syle power rock trio in the Conga Room, a small club in Los Angeles. Prince was my age — or so I thought when I discovered him, it turned out his publicists shaved a couple of years off his age. My other favorite musicians are all substantially older than me. I always felt Prince belonged to me in a way that other favorites didn’t because we grew up together, because I watched him become a star.

This concert tribute special was filmed in January. The weakest performances in this concert are the ones that most closely mimicked the original Prince songs — and even these performances are not bad. H.E.R. was a revelation — trading guitar licks with Gary Clark Jr. on Let’s Go Crazy and playing piano and singing her heart out on The Beautiful Ones. Other strong performances included Clark doing The Cross, Beck doing Raspberry Beret, St. Vincent doing Controversy, and Miguel doing I Will Die 4 U. Sheila E. presided over the whole thing. My favorite moment of the night was the reunion of the original members of The Time, including Jimmy Jam and Terry Lewis, doing a medley of their hits. They were a great band then, and they are a great band now.

The Prince tribute special airs again, this Saturday night, April 25th. Don’t miss it.

Comfort Watch

April 19, 2020 – What Men Can’t Jump (1992) VH1

I loved this movie when it came out, I loved it every time I saw it on television, and I love it now. White Men Can’t Jump is funny and sweet and just a little bit sour. Ron Shelton is another under-rated director for this movie and the all-time classic Bull Durham. There is a great bit about how men and women communicate, where Rosie Perez gets mad at Woody Harrelson because he gets her a drink of water rather than empathizing with her thirst. I love the banter between Harrelson and Wesley Snipes, and I love the hustles they pull on unsuspecting basketball players. And then there is the whole jeopardy thing. This is a very satisfying movie.

Defiant Humor in the Face of My Worst Fears

April 18 2020 – The Tin Drum (1979) Criterion Channel

I read the novel The Tin Drum by Gunter Grass in the very early 1980s and then saw the movie The Tin Drum not long afterwards. I loved both. They are part of the black comedy genre: social satire that takes on dark subjects with a bitter but often very funny sense of humor. In general, I don’t want to read books or watch movies about death and destruction – life is depressing enough. But I love the novels Slaughterhouse Five by Kurt Vonnegut and Catch-22 by Joseph Heller even though they are about war. I love the movies Brazil by Terry Gilliam, Parasite by Bong Joon Ho, and the Death of Stalin by Armando Iannucci, even though they are about dark subjects. Defiant humor in the face of death and adversity is somehow comforting to me. The laughter is a release, but beyond that defiant humor gives me the feeling of control in the face of my worst fears. I guess it is no surprise I am turning to black humor at this time.

The film of The Tin Drum is a great example of this genre and just a great overall film. There are images that have stayed with me since I first saw the movie almost 40 years ago. I still remember the POV shot narrated by young Oskar as he travels through his mother’s birth canal into the world. I still remember the conception of Oskar’s mother as an escaped Polish nationalist gets busy while hiding from soldiers under Oskar’s grandmother’s ample skirts. And I remember the toddler Oskar, disrupting a Nazi march, turning it into a waltz, with nothing but his tin drum. I guess it is not so surprising that I didn’t remember as well the more disturbing parts of the movie: the horsehead filled with eels and the brutality of the Nazis.

The Tin Drum the movie is really well made: beautifully written, beautifully shot, and beautifully acted. It is so easy to get the tone wrong in a black humor film. Mike Nichol’s film of Catch 22 never got the tone right – the visual depiction of violence in the movie overwhelms the humor. The Tin Drum the film avoids that problem. Volker Schlondorff, the film’s director and co-writer, turns a sprawling novel spanning decades into a funny, moving, and relatively focused film. OK, the film is a little sprawling too, but it only covers a third of the time period of the novel and omits much even from that period it does cover. The film is about a child that decides to stop growing because the adult world is so unappealing, not just because of Nazi violence which mostly comes later but because of the sexual hypocrisy and compulsion he sees. If it is not clear yet, I highly recommend this film.

I loved the film so much, that I went back to reread the novel. I am still in the early chapters of The Tin Drum the novel – Oskar’s mom has not yet been conceived in the potato field – but I am liking it a lot. I take it a good omen that the I was able to buy the book at a steep discount because it was on sale as a Kindle Daily Deal while I was still reading the free download of the opening chapters.

Observer Effect

April 17 2020 – Futureman, Season 3 (2020) Hulu

When deciding what to watch these days, I feel pressure because I am going to share my choice with the handful of people who are reading this blog. I would rather be seen as someone who watches stylish foreign films or edgy indie pictures or obscure classic movies, not someone who watches mindless trash. I am trying to resist this pressure. For one thing, I sometimes like to watch mindless trash. That is who I am: I have always been proud of having high/low tastes, liking both high art and very popular entertainments. But mostly, I want this blog to be an accurate account of what I am watching and going through during this strange time and not an idealized account of what I think I should be watching and going through.

Today, I watched mindless trash. The TV show Futureman is a raunchy time-travel comedy produced by Seth Rogen. It is exactly what you would expect from that description, so if you watch it, you have been warned. After another long, stressful week, Futureman is exactly what I needed: fast-paced, silly and fun, not requiring much concentration to watch. I started watching the show a couple of years ago because Wendey directed a couple of the episodes, but I keep watching even though Wendey has moved on to other projects. I am still an adolescent boy at heart. My favorite part of Futureman is the TV-MA warning at the beginning of each episode, saying the show is for “mature viewers only.” Of course, the warning should read: this show is for “immature viewers only.” I enthusiastically qualify.

Triumphing Over Danger and Winning in the End

March 14, 2020 – The Spy Who Came In From the Cold (1965) Amazon Prime

I find my self wanting to watch and read detective stories these days. I just read and loved Harlen Coben’s new book The Boy From the Woods and Lee Child’s old book One Shot, and I watched the Netflix show The Stranger based on a different Harlen Coben book. It is easy to see why detective stories are so comforting in this dangerous time. The detective is a figure who holds onto his moral certainty while triumphing over danger. Sam Spade starts off unsure who killed his partner, but he is always able to disarm the gunsel and uncover the truth, all the while holding fast to his determination that “I won’t play the sap for you.” Jack Reacher beats the odds again and again, defeating a half dozen or so armed Russian gangsters with only a knife and taking out the “puppet master” because “ he had a girl killed…so he deserves to have something come out at him.” The detectives in these stories are exceptionally competent at a time when we feel anxious and insecure; they overcome violent threats at a time when we feel overwhelmed by danger; they have a clear moral code when we are living in murky unclarity; they uncover the truth when we are unsure about what comes next. While there is usually loss in these stories, the detective triumphs over danger and wins in the end. I think at this difficult moment, we would all like to triumph over danger and win in the end.

The Spy Who Came In From the Cold is a spy story, not a detective story. There are similarities: a murky situation, life and death stakes, and the hero-spy who must act in the face of danger and uncertainty. Despite the similarities, this spy story – and perhaps all spy stories – is the inverse of the detective story in one key aspect. The detective has a moral code, but the spy has no moral code: the spy does whatever is necessary to protect their country. This film explicitly says that there is no difference between the spies of the “free” world and those of Soviet Block. Alex Leamas, the British spy in this movie, says: “What the hell do you think spies are? Moral philosophers measuring everything they do against the word of God or Karl Marx? They’re not! They’re just a bunch of seedy, squalid bastards like me: little men, drunkards, queers [sic], hen-pecked husbands, civil servants playing cowboys and Indians to brighten their rotten little lives. Do you think they sit like monks in a cell, balancing right against wrong?” While the detective triumphs precisely because they hold fast to their moral code, the spy is defeated when they try to act from morals instead of expediency.

I really liked this film even though it deviated from what I like most about the detective story. It is well-acted by Richard Burton, Clair Bloom, and the other cast members, and it is well directed by Martin Ritt. I would like to say a word or two about the director Martin Ritt, who doesn’t get the attention and respect he deserves. There is a strong thread of politics – social criticism and morality – in his movies without them ever becoming didactic or preachy. I love his early movie Edge of the City (1957) which is an answer movie to On the Waterfront – a movie I love even if it is Elia Kazan’s justification for naming names. Edge of the City, featuring John Cassavetes, Sidney Poitier, and Jack Warden, is about a dock worker who confronts the corrupt gangsters directly, rather than cowardly naming names. After seeing this movie, it comes as no surprise that Ritt was blacklisted for his politics and was a former friend of Kazan. Ritt has made many other great movies: a partial list includes Hud, Sounder, The Front, and the beloved Norma Rae. Ritt is one of my favorite directors, and you can expect more of his movies to show up in this blog diary.

A Sip of Scotch to Marv Talan

April 12, 2020 – Marv Talan’s Funeral (2020) Ira Kaufman Funeral Home Website

Today, I watched the funeral of my cousin Marv. He passed away after a long illness. He was 93 years old. Marv was married to my mom’s first cousin Bev Talan (nee Steinman), so he was my first cousin once removed. The funeral was in Michigan, and it was attended in person by only a handful of people: Bev, his three daughters Wendy, Linda and Jody, and a few grandkids. I, like many other relatives and friends, watched the funeral live-streaming on the Ira Kaufman Funeral Home’s website.

Everyone who spoke at the funeral talked about how charming and kind Marv was and how he connected so easily with people of all ages. I can attest that the speakers spoke truthfully. I had meaningful and memorable conversations with Marv when I was a young adult — something I was not always able to do with people a generation older than me. Marv always seemed like he genuinely cared about me and could relate to what I was going through, despite our difference in ages. In their later years, Bev and Marv wintered in Scottsdale. My strongest memories of Marv are when I would see him and Bev when I was visiting my mother and her husband Dick in Scottsdale.

My mom and Dick were not big drinkers, but there was always a nice bottle of single malt scotch in their house. Eventually, I realized Marv bought them the bottle of scotch, knowing they would never drink any of it, so he would have something to nice to drink when he came over. Once I realized the scotch came from Marv, I made a point of sharing a drink with Marv when I visited in the winter. After Marv could no longer travel to Scottsdale, I would drink from Marv’s bottle and think of him. I still replace Marv’s bottle of scotch when it is empty, even though he is no longer there to drink it. I will always think of it as Marv’s bottle.

My understanding is that Marv didn’t die of COVID-19, though Bev and his three daughters all have had it (they are fine now). Marv is the first person I have known personally who has passed away during the pandemic. For me, his death is a marker of many more losses to come. His was the first, but definitely not the last, funeral that I will watch on video because I can’t attend in person. This brave new world we live in is increasingly full of loss. I am bracing myself for what is to come. Meanwhile, I drink a sip of single malt scotch from Marv’s bottle in memory of my cousin.

In Search of the Clark Sisters

April 11 2020 – The Clark Sisters: First Ladies of Gospel (2020) Lifetime

I didn’t expect a Lifetime movie to show up in this blog diary, but I have been looking forward to this movie for weeks. We pass a billboard for the Clark Sisters movie on San Vicente when I am out driving with Henry practicing for that eventual day when the DMV resumes giving out driving tests. Henry makes fun of me because I get so excited about the movie every time we pass the billboard. I have loved the Clark Sisters – a great Gospel music group from Detroit – for a long time, ever since 1983 when I first heard their crossover hit “You Brought the Sunshine” in a dance club in Ann Arbor. Pam Kisch and I once went on a search for the Clark Sisters in Detroit which brought us to an African-American church in Detroit because we were told incorrectly by a clerk in a Gospel record shop that they were going to sing there. Pam and I were ashamed to be in jeans and t-shirts when everyone else in the church was in fancy suits and dresses, but the people in the church couldn’t have been nicer or more welcoming. I did later see the Clark Sisters in concert with the Winans in Boston in the 1990s, and they did not disappoint — unlike the movie, which was truly awful, moving quickly through emotional confrontations between family members and wedding proposals without build-up, repercussions or any character development at all. The musical performances in the movie were great though, a nice recreation of the Clark Sisters sound. Still, if you want an introduction to the Clark Sisters, I suggest watching this live concert clip instead of the Lifetime movie.

A Very Good Day

April 11 2020 – Eyes of Laura Mars (1978) Criterion Channel

It was a very good day. I woke up after a good night’s sleep. I prepared my blog for launch. I got good news from my mom’s doctor and my accountant. Wendey, Henry, and I played a game of Settlers of Catan. And then to cap it off, I watched Eyes of Laura Mars, a stylish 1970s thriller about a fashion photographer who sees murders through the eyes of a serial killer. I doubt if I would have liked this move back when it came out, but now all the silly things about it – its attempt to critique art and fashion photography, some of the plot twists, the disco soundtrack – just seem charming. This is Tommy Lee Jones’ first major role, and Faye Dunaway is great as always. I was pleased to see Raul Julia – an actor I used to like a lot but had almost forgotten about. The cheesy Barbra Streisand theme song is a perfect example of the 1970s theme song archetype. And John Carpenter – director of Halloween and so many other movies – wrote the script. Watching this film was a very good ending to a very good day.

Counterpoint

April 9, 2020 – Snowpiercer (2013) Netflix

This was Henry’s pick – we were all fans of Bong Joon Ho’s Parasite.  But I don’t think Henry had any idea how weird and disturbing this movie would be. We lost Wendey right away at the first sign of violence.  Henry and I stuck it out to the end.  I think he regretted watching the movie all the way through, but I liked the movie’s combination of heavy-handed parable, humor, action sequences, and weird sets and scenarios.  Snowpiercer is no Parasite, but it is also not the same old thing – a fine counterpoint to this morning’s movie Remember the Titans. 

A Break From Subtlety and Nuance

April 9, 2020 – Remember the Titans (2000) Prime

Today was a day to recover from a tough work week, from planning and holding our Passover seder last night, and from a bit more than four cups of wine. Here is a recovery day movie that did not require a lot of concentration to watch. Remember the Titans announced its lack of subtlety and nuance from the start. There is no subtext in this film – everything is spelled out. The score is saccharine and manipulative. There is no “unconscious bias” in Titans – all the racism is overt, conscious and extreme.  But be assured that by the final act, people are brought together across racial lines by the redemptive power of Football. There was not a single thing that happened during this movie that we didn’t foresee, but despite this predictability, Titans is a pleasant, well-made movie.  The adult leads – Denzel Washington and Will Paton – are excellent, and the teen leads are good too. A highlight was a performance by a very young Hayden Panettiere. This movie was too long – it should not take two hours to tell this story – but entertaining in its obvious way.