To Two Absent Friends

Will these be the final Absent Friends posts of 2025?

Brigitte Bardot

1934-2025

French actress Brigitte Bardot died at the age of 91 this past week.  In the1950's Bardot was the epitome of the term "Sex Symbol".  Her 1956 feature film "And God Created Woman" created quite the stir when it was released in Europe, and was quite controversial when it was released on the United States because of the depiction of sexuality that Bardot presented.  I have never seen the movie, but I wonder just how "raw" and "sexual" it would seem if seen today. 

Bardot had 60 film credits in IMDB, almost all of them in France.  She retired from the screen in 1972 and went on to come an outspoken animal rights activist.  She also became somewhat of a right wing political crank in her native France.

I have never seen a Brigitte Bardot movie.   Perhaps I will seek out "And God Created Woman" and prepare myself to be scandalized.

Masashi "Jumbo" Ozaki

1947-2025

The greatest golfer to ever come from Japan, Jumbo Ozaki, died earlier this month at the age of 78.  Ozaki, who has been called the "Arnold Palmer of Japan", won 113 times on various professional golf tours, including the PGA Tour, but he chose to spend most of his career in Japan, bringing the game to the people there.  Ninety-four of his professional victories came on the Japanese Tour.   He was also known for his stylish appearance while playing, often wearing fancy silk golf shirts.

I remember Ozaki from his occasional American appearances back in the Eighties and Nineties, and to his being competitive in events such as the Masters and the US Open.  What really amazed me when reading his obituaries, though, was learning that his first love was baseball, and that he he had a three year career, 1965-67, as a professional baseball player, a pitcher, in Japan.

RIP Brigitte Bardot and Jumbo Ozaki.

The Debacle in Cleveland

Christian McCaffrey leads the 49'ers

 to 42-38 win over Bears

Why, you may ask, am I leading with a photo of Christian McCaffrey of San Francisco if I am going to be writing about the Steelers God-awful, and there is no other word for it, 13-6 loss to the Browns yesterday?

Well after watching that road apple that the Steelers dumped upon the field in Cleveland and then watching  the 49'ers and Bears stage that terrific game on Sunday night, sandwiched around  watching Josh Allen in his Superman cape (albeit in a losing effort), made me come to three conclusions:

• Despite the fact that they can still make the playoffs, the Steelers are just not a very good team.  If you watched Chicago and San Francisco last night, do you believe that this 2025 Steelers team is anywhere close to being able to compete with them?  If the Steelers played each of those teams ten times, they would be lucky to win twice against either of them.
• The Steelers desperately need a quarterback.  Brock Purdy and Caleb Williams were playing a different game than anything that I have seen from the Steelers since Ben Roethlisberger retired.  Maybe that guy is Will Howard, who was derailed in training camp this year by a hand injury, but it sure isn't Mason Rudolph or a 42 year old Aaron Rodgers, and I say that with all due respect to Rodgers, who has played heroically at times this season.  The team took a shot to go all in with Rodgers for the season, and at times it looked like it was going to work, but in the end, it just isn't going to work out as everybody had hoped.
• Again, watching that SF-Chicago game last night, it is obvious that the Steelers....game planning?...coaching?....just isn't cutting it.  Watching the offenses that are being produced by guys like Ben Johnson, Kyle Shanahan, John McVey and others makes you want to just scream at what Arthur Smith (and Matt Canada before him) are sending out there week after week.  I love Mike Tomlin, but if he and the Steelers decided to part ways after this season, I'm not sure how upset I would be about it.  Some hard decisions are going to need to be made at season's end.

For all that, the Steelers could still win the AFC North and make the playoffs, if they beat Baltmore on Sunday night.  This is the same Ravens team that beat Green Bay this weekend 41-24, with Derrick Henry rushing for 216 yards and 4 touchdowns.  If Henry has a game half as good as that on Sunday, I can't see the Steelers winning that one.  It could be a real ugly scene at Acrisure Stadium come around ten o'clock Sunday night.

Anything can happen when the Steelers and Ravens play each other, but I'm sure not feeling positive this morning about this meeting.

 

The GPR Is Back! - And Other Football Thoughts

 

I know that all of you have been clamoring with the question "Where have the Grandstander Power Rankings (GPR) been in 2025?"  Well, clamor no more.  Through fifteen weeks, and with only three games left to play for each team, here are The Grandstander Power Rankings.  I have come up with these after rigorously studying reams of analytical data and having spent countless hours watching game films for all 32 NFL teams.  You can take these to the bank!

1. Rams 11-3
2. Bills 10-4
3. Broncos 12-2
4. Seahawks 11-3
5. 49'ers 10-4
6. Patriots 11-3
7. Texans 9-5
8. Bears 10-4
9. Chargers 10-4
10. Eagles 9-5

In other football news....

The Steelers laid down a 28-15 beatdown on the Miami Dolphins last night, and no play exemplified the nature of said beatdown more than the Aaron Rodgers-to-DK Metcalf 28 yard touchdown pass.  Metcalf tossed Dolph's safety Minkah Fitzpatrick off of him in the same manner that you would  brush a mosquito off of your arm as he made his way to the end zone for the score that made it 21-3 and essentially pounded the nail into the Dolphins for the night.

Rodgers had his best game of the season: 23/27, 224 yards, 2 TD, 0 INT.  I am not sure how this season is going to go.  I have said in this space that the Steelers aren't an especially good team, but they are in first place in the AFC North at 8-6, hold the tie-breaker with the Ravens, and will probably make the playoffs.  Regardless of what happens and how it all ends up, the shot in the dark that the team took in signing Aaron Rodgers has proven to be a positive one.  At times this season, he has looked every bit the 42 year old guy with his best days behind him, but he has also showed, as he did last night, that he still has greatness in him, and that he can call upon it and put on a performance that shows just why he is one of the all-time greats. He will make the Hall of Fame on the first ballot, and no, it won't be because what he did as a Steeler, but as a Steelers fan, I will be glad to be able to say that we got to see Rodgers do his thing in Black and Gold for a season.

The College Football Playoffs for 2025-26  will begin in a little more that 48 hours with two games each on Friday and Saturday.  As I recall, the four opening round games in last season's CFP were all pretty much routs and had no suspense to them at all.  Two of those games this weekend, James Madison @ Oregon and Tulane @ Mississippi could fall into that same pattern, but the other two games look to be good match-ups that could produce exciting and competitive contests: Alabama @ Oklahoma and Miami @ Texas A&M.

I will go with the four home teams and predict wins for the Ducks, Sooners, Rebels, and Aggies.  Not sure how I will actually bet real money on any of these as yet.

There is a lot wrong with college athletics, football in particular, these days, but the advent of the twelve team playoff, the endless realignment of conferences, the transfer portal, and NIL has served to produce some great matchups on an almost weekly basis, and the Playoff last year was an exciting event and promises to be the same this year.  I look forward to following the bracket right up to the Championship Game on January 19.  

For what it's worth, my bracket has Georgia defeating Indiana for the title in Miami next month.

To Absent Friends - Rob Reiner and Michele Reiner

 

Rob Reiner, 78, and Michele Reiner, 75

What incredibly sad and tragic news from Los Angeles broke last night when we learned of the stabbing deaths of Rob Reiner, 78, and his wife, Michele, 75.   Rob was the son of comedy legend Carl Reiner and was a talented actor and director himself.  Michele was a professional photographer and a creative associate of her husband.  The Reiners had been married for 36 years and had three children.  This event is made doubly tragic with the news today that their son, Nick, has been arrested and booked (not "formally charged" as of this writing) in their deaths.

As the son of one of America's great comic talents, Rob Reiner spent his life in and around show business, but came to be known prominently in 1971 when he was cast as Mike Stivic, the liberal hippie-type son-in-law of the bigoted Archie Bunker on the landmark television sitcom, "All In The Family".  He won two Emmys for that role over the years.  As an actor, he accumulated 90 acting credits, but he will no doubt be best remembered for directing some of the very best movies of the Eighties, Nineties, and into the 21st century.  Here is just a partial list of those:

• This Is Spinal Tap, 1981
• Stand By Me, 1986
• The Princess Bride, 1987
• Misery, 1990
• A Few Good Men, 1992
• The American President, 1995
• The Ghosts of Mississippi, 1996
• The Bucket List, 2007

Left off of the list above is perhaps the greatest romantic comedy ever, "When Harry Met Sally" (1989) written by Nora Ehpron and directed by Rob Reiner.  I even used a line from that movie in my wedding vows when Linda and I got married in 2022, and, no, it was not the line from the scene in the delicatessen.

With  Billy Crystal and Meg Ryan

 on set for "When Harry Met Sally"

And in 2025, we are all anxiously awaiting the release of Reiner's latest movie, "Spinal Tap II: The End Continues", a sequel to that fabulous 1981 "mockumentary".

Tragic and untimely deaths are always sad, and the deaths of some people are especially sad.  Such is the case with Rob and Michele Reiner. 

RIP Rob and Michele.

Father and Son

Comic Legends

Rob Reiner

1947 - 2025

A Christmas Tree Story

As it happens, this post is the 100th post that I am writing for The Grandstander in calendar year 2025.  While I didn't plan it this way, it turns out that I will use this occasion to practice a little personal self-therapy.  Feel free to skip it if you so choose.

The year marks the fifth Christmas since Marilyn died, and her loss in my life seems to be particularly acute at this time of the year.  Five Christmases and it hasn't gotten any easier.  This year, the thing that seemed to really jump out at me were Christmas Tree ornaments.

Let me take a time out here to be very clear about one thing.  For these past three plus years, I have been moving on in my New Life with Linda.  We have been making our own Life Memories and Christmas Memories.  I am at a wonderful stage in my life, and I couldn't be happier.  That doesn't mean that my life before October, 2021 leaves my personal history, nor does it erase all of the memories that were made up until that date.  It is an example, maybe the best example, of "two things can be true at the same time."  

Okay, back to the ornaments.  For the first couple of years that we were together, Linda and I tried to mix-and-match each of our collections of Christmas Tree ornaments, and we came to the conclusion that that just didn't work.  Last year, 2024, we decided to start anew.  We bought a beautiful new tree, and went with a whole new theme with the ornaments.  This is our second year for this arrangement, and trust me, both the tree and house look festive and beautiful.  We love it.

Still, something stirred in me this year that made me think...What do you do with tree ornaments that you had accumulated through 47 years of marriage, many of them bought during memorable vacations or were gifted to you over the years or on some other meaningful occasion in your life?  Conversations between Linda and I, as well as a conversation with a good friend of mine who, like me, lost his wife some years ago, and a session with my own therapist led to an idea:  Have your own tree.  A smaller one and set it up in a different room of the house, and decorate it with those ornaments that were special to me in the First Chapter of my life.

I wasn't sure that this was something that I wanted to do, that I would be able to do.  Then Linda came home on Friday with a small table top tree.  A real tree, like Marilyn loved.  "If you don't feel you can do this, that's okay, and we can just put it out with the trash" she said.  Frankly, it took me by surprise, and my first inclination was to not do this, but then I decided that I would do it.  

On Friday night, Linda sat with me as I went through the box of "Bob and Marilyn ornaments", and listened to me tell stories about many of them.  I actually was able to separate some of them out of the collection and literally get rid of them.  That still left a box with a significant number of ornaments, and on Saturday, while I was home alone, I decorated this tree that now sits in our home office.

Decorating this tree certainly had its emotional moments.  I shed some tears, but mostly I smiled at all the memories associated with those ornaments, and memories of wonderful Christmases from 1974 through 2020 came flooding back to me.  

I will keep all of those Bob and Marilyn Ornaments going forward in a special box, and my plan now is to do this separate, special small tree in the Christmas seasons that lie ahead for me.  However, beginning next year, it won't be a real tree.  Marilyn won't approve, but I think she will understand.  I also think it likely that Linda will probably side with Marilyn and make me get a real one anyway.  Or maybe, having done it this year, I'll discover that I won't need to do it again.  We'll see.

I close by sending special thanks to Roger and Denise and Ronda, to Wendy, and especially to Linda, who is making this Second Chapter of my life so, so wonderful.

If you have read your way through all of this, I appreciate it.

Merry Christmas.

What A Sports Weekend It Was!

The lead photo of the post is, of course, the Steelers 27-22 win over the Ravens yesterday, and more on that a bit later, but first, let's take this past weekend's sports happenings in order.

Robert Morris Basketball

The RMU Colonials went on the road to open their Horizon League season and went 1-1.  A late 15-3 run to end the game earned RMU a 80-78 win against UW-Green Bay on Thursday, and an are-you-kidding-me buzzer beater by UW-Milwaukee resulted in a 74-72 loss.  Both were highly entertaining and competitive games.  The Colonials appear to have a pretty good team this season.  They play excellent defense, but are streaky when it comes to shooting from beyond the three point arc.  I think it's going to be a good season for the Colonial Cagers.  (And when was the last time you saw someone refer to basketball players as "cagers"?)

Inter Miami Wins MLS Cup

Miami defeated Vancouver 3-1 to win the Major League Soccer championship.  While he didn't score a goal, Lionel Messi assisted on two of the three goals (the other goal was an Own Goal that bounced off of a Vancouver player into the goal).  Ever since we saw Miami defeat Nashville and saw Messi score a hat trick that night, we have been following Messi and Miami as they have advanced through the MLS playoffs, right up to their ultimate victory on Saturday.

It has been an enjoyable ride.

College Football

It was Conference Championship Saturday, and I focused on two of those games.

Georgia defeated Alabama handily, 28-7, and the game was never really in doubt.  The Bulldogs are my pick to go all the way in the CFP.

Then there was the Big Ten Championship, Indiana 13 - Ohio State 10.

The game was as close and as hard fought as the score indicated, and it ended an amazing season for the Hoosiers, who finished 13-0 and won their first Big Ten Championship since Lyndon Johnson resided in the White House.  It probably secured the Heisman Trophy for their QB Fernando Mendoza, and it earned them the Number One seed in the College Football Playoff tournament that begins next week.

And in spite of all of this, no one was able to catch a glimpse of IU head coach Curt Cignetti cracking a smile.   I was cheering for Indiana, but like so many in his profession, Cignetti is a hard guy to like.

I was going to write about the machinations of the CFP committee, their selections and seedings, their selecting Miami over Notre Dame, and Notre Dame's subsequent decision to take their ball and go home, but in the end I decided that there has been more than enough navel gazing on that topic.  Instead, I decided that I am just going to enjoy all of the games as the CFP unfolds.

I will conclude, though, with this:  I have absolutely loved Fox's Gus Johnson on the play-by-play calls of these B1G games all season long.  He's the best.

Steelers 27 - Ravens 22

After back-to-back terrible losses to the Bears and the Bills, I came to the conclusion that the Steelers are a middling if not downright mediocre team, and that at this point, it would probably the best for the long term future of the team that they not make the playoffs; that they, in fact, would probably be better off losing games so as to better their position in the draft and begin reshaping the team for the long haul, especially at the quarterback position, and, possibly, in the position of the Head Coach.

Yes, intellectually, I can understand all of that, but when it comes to sitting down and watching a game, especially a game against the Ravens, well, you want your team to, you know, WIN THE DAMN GAME!

And that the Steelers did yesterday, and this version of this Rivalry lived up to all of the excitement of the games that have preceded it over the last 15 to 20 years.  We even got to see Aaron Rodgers, five days after his 42nd birthday, bootleg around left end and score  a touchdown, and even give it his "discount double check" schtick.

The whole thing was great to watch, and I enjoyed it immensely.

Oh, the Ravens' touchdown catch that wasn't a catch.  When I watched in real time my thought was "Aw shit, touchdown, there goes the game."  Then the ruling.  Later that night, I texted my friend Jerry who is a retired NFL official, and asked him what that was all about.  His reply:  "By rule, it was an incomplete pass, but it sure looked like a catch to me as I watched it."

Ravens fans are pissed, and rightfully so.  Steelers fans are invoking the phrase "Jesse James against the Patriots" and saying that Karma owed us one.  The Suits from the NFL offices are once again having to go into lengthy dissertations on what exactly is and is not a "catch".  The rule was correctly enforced, but it's a crummy rule.

So the Steelers are now in first place in the AFC North and "control their own destiny" in regard to the division and a path to the Playoffs.  I'm going to sit back and enjoy these last four weeks of the season, and will worry about the long range implications of them once they are all over.

The Pirates and The Password 

The Password

Even the Pirates were in the news this weekend when they made a trade that could actually be of significance for the team.  They sent pitcher Johan Oviedo to the Red Sox for outfielder Jhostynxon Garcia.  Garcia is 23 years old and a highly regarded prospect who was blocked in the Boston system (he had only 7 AB's for the Sox last year). If he can play like everyone says he has the potential to play, he will fill an immediate void that currently exists in left field for the Pirates.

Best of all, though, is his nickname.  Yes, JHOSTYNXON is his first name, and no, I have no idea how to pronounce it, but teammates in the Sox system christened him with the nickname of "Password", and while it isn't as good a nickname as "The Big Dumper", it's pretty good.  Or at least it will remain a cool nickname until Greg Brown thoroughly beats it to death.

Critical Commentary: A Movie and a Book

 "Wicked For Good"

We took ourselves out to the local cineplex two weeks ago to see the long awaited, much hyped conclusion to the film adaptation of the hit Broadway musical "Wicked".  I will state right off the bat that I liked the movie and will give it a high rating.  It is beautiful and colorful to look at, and the performances of the leads, Ariana Gande and Cynthia Erivo, are both terrific.  

Oh, and Jeff Goldblum plays the Wizard.  I love Goldblum, but he has reached the point in his career where he pretty much plays "Jeff Goldblum" in every movie, TV show, commercial, or talk show guest appearance that he makes, and he'll never top his performance as Michael in "The Big Chill".

To watch this one has two prerequisites.  One, you had to  see "Wicked Part One" when it came out last year, or stream it before you go see this one.  It is not a stand alone movie.  Two, you have to have seen, or at least know all about the 1939 classic movie, "The Wizard of Oz".  How "Wicked For Good" ties together the tale of Dorothy Gale from Kansas is a great part of the story of "Wicked".

So "Wicked For Good" gets Three Stars from The Grandstander, but....

There's always a "but", isn't there?

From the time the "Wicked Part One" was released last year, one question nagged at me:  Why take a musical play that lasts for about two-and-a-half hours and make a movie version that lasts over five hours, and then tell us that the movie will be in two parts that will be released a year apart from each other?  The fact that that audiences were only made aware of this fact about a week before the release of Part One in 2024 makes the burr under the saddle particularly irritating.  Or maybe it's just me, and no one else cares about something that just screams that "this is a shameless money grab".

Yet, here I was, at the theater box office two Novembers in a row getting sucked right into the whole deal:

"The Only One Left" by Riley Sager

In 1983, Kit McDeere, age 31 and a registered caregiver, takes a position at an isolated  cliffside mansion in Maine called Hope's End.  She will be in charge of seeing to the needs of Lenora Hope, a mute and paralyzed 71 year old woman who has been confined in this gloomy mansion for 54 years and has not been seen in public since 1929.   It was at that time, just a month before the great Stock Market Cash, that Lenora' parents and sister, Virginia, were brutally murdered.  Lenora was the chief suspect, "the only one left", but evidence was insufficient to ever bring her to trial, and she has been seen as "the killer" in the court of public opinion, and a Lizzie Borden-type legend has sprung up about her in the past fifty-four years among the local residents of the area.  The fact that she is confined to a gothic mansion only adds to her notorious legend.

Kit, who has some sketchy baggage of her own to lug around, enters a gloomy home that consists of Mrs. Baker, a stern woman who runs the household, Jessie, a young girl who serves as the cleaning woman of the house, Archie, the cook who has been at Hope's End since the before the murders took place, Carter, the hunk of a groundkeeper, and, of course, Lenora, who can only communicate by answering yes-and-no questions by tapping her left hand.  However, Kit discovers that Lenora CAN communicate if she, Kit, places Lenora's left  hand on the keyboard of an ancient typewriter, and she soon discovers that Lenora DOES want to tell her story.   Thus begins an odd and somewhat symbiotic relationship between Kit and Lenora.  Along the way, another murder takes place and soon the whole story unravels

I really liked this book.  I could sit down and and start reading and gobble up fifty, seventy-five, or a hundred pages at a time in a seeming blink of an eye.  I never saw the "twist" in the story that Sager springs upon us, and when putting any thought into it, it really is kind of implausible, but I guess this is why they call it "fiction", and he did give us a very satisfying coda to the book that takes place thirty years after the events in the story take place.

I give it Three Grandstander Stars, and I will be checking out some of Sager's other novels for my future reading pleasure.

Futbol and Football In The Burgh

 First, the Positive...

Pittsburgh Riverhounds Win United Soccer League Championship

A fun conversation starter among Pittsburgh sports fans is to ask "Which Pittsburgh sports teams will be the next one to win a championship in its sport?"   Had we asked 100 Pittsburghers that question back in January, I am willing to bet the number of people who said "The Riverhounds" would have numbered in the low single digits, if, indeed, anyone would have given that answer.

Lo and behold, however, on Saturday evening, the Riverhounds held FC Tulsa to a 0-0 draw in regulation and overtime, and then defeated Tulsa 5-3 in penalty kicks to claim their first USL championship in their twenty-six year history.

All hail the Champions, Pittsburgh's first professional team champions since the Penguins won the Stanley Cup in 2017, the Steelers won the Super Bowl in 2008, and the Pirates won the World Series in 1979 (that was eight Presidential Administrations ago, but who's counting?).

Unlike a celebration for a Stanley Cup or a Lombardi Trophy, the City isn't going to shut down and hold a parade for what is essentially a minor league soccer team in North America, but the Riverhounds accomplishment certainly deserves to be celebrated.

I admit to being a shameless bandwagon jumper here, but I did start watching the Riverhounds games on TV beginning with their final regular season game when the Hounds secured their USL Playoffs seeding status and their three Playoff games, culminating in Saturday's Championship victory.  I found myself getting caught up in the hunt for the title and enjoyed seeing the atmosphere created by the sellout crowds at Highmark Stadium.  And how could you not be excited in watching those games and seeing the Rivrhounds shut out each of their four opponents?   That's right. In over 500 minutes of game time, no opponent scored a single goal against Pittsburgh. Of course, and not to nitpick, in that same length of time, Pittsburgh managed to score only ONE goal, and three of those games had to be decided by penalty kicks, but hey, that's soccer for you.

Easily the most impressive performer of these games has been Hounds goalkeeper Eric Dick.

During the course of my following of the team, I learned that Dick was the USL's Most Outstanding Keeper of the 2024 season, and he was deservedly named the MVP of these just completed playoffs.  His performance on Saturday night was spectacular.

Again, CONGRATULATIONS to Pittsburgh's newest Sports Champions.

Now, the bad news....

Steelers lose to Bears, 31-28, and Fall to 6-5

It is hard to put a bow on the Steelers loss to the Bears yesterday. Once upon a time in this season, the Steelers were 4-1 and the Ravens were 1-5.  Both teams now sit at 6-5 and as of today, the Ravens hold the tie-breaks, and the Steelers would be out of the Playoffs.  All of that could change over the next six weeks, but let's be real here.  The Steelers just aren't a very good team.  They are mediocre at best, and they may stumble their way to a 9-7 record and find a spot in the playoffs, but they will certainly not be able to advance far, if at all, when playing a higher seeded Playoff team.

I'll not go over the details of the Bears game yesterday.  If your are interested enough to be reading this post, you know what happened.  Here are a couple of thoughts of mine, however.

• The coaching staff obviously has no faith in Mason Rudolph, who was playing in place of an injured Aaron Rodgers, to throw the ball downfield or over the middle.  The offensive game plan consisted of lots and lots of swing passes that gained less than ten yards.   And this was against a Bears defense that was riddled with injuries.  What's next for OC Arthur Smith?  Bringing back the single wing?
• The talk of the town all week was the devastation that tight end Darnell Washington visited upon the Cincy Bengals last week, but where was he yesterday? By my recollection, and I could be wrong, he was targeted only two times yesterday.  Why was that?
• Speaking of tight ends, Pat Freiermuth was targeted only three times yesterday.  He caught all three passes, one of them a touchdown.  So, why only three targets?

With Rodgers turning 42 next week, and Rudolph showing all the signs of being just a competent back-up, it is obvious that Steelers need to find themselves a quarterback. How badly did that training camp injury to rookie Will Howard upset their plans?  Howard never saw any game action in the pre-season, so, understandably, the coaches are not going to use him in any game action unless disaster befalls both Rodgers and Rudolph.  How far has that lack of game action for Howard set back the team as they search for a long term replacement for Ben Roethlisberger?  Howard looked awfully good last year as he led Ohio State to the CFP Championship. He looked better than Drake Maye ever did at North Carolina, and in his second NFL Season with the Patriots, he, Maye, is a serious candidate for the MVP Award this year.  Having never seen Howard play, though, will this affect what the team does in terms of drafting a QB out of college in the upcoming NFL draft?

The Steelers next six games are as follows:

• Bills
• @ Ravens
• Dolphins
• @ Lions
• @ Browns
• Ravens

As it looks today, I would guess that the Steelers would be favored in three of those games, and that could change depending on Rodgers' availability.  So, I'd say that at best, we are looking at a 9-7 season.

Mediocre.

One More Futbol Note (Non-Pittsburgh)

Yesterday afternoon, we eschewed watching the Eagles-Cryboys game and instead watched the Major League Soccer Eastern Conference semi-final playoff game between Inter Miami and Cincinnati FC.  This, of course, was prompted by our seeing Miami and its great player, Lionel Messi, last month in Nashville.  (See HERE)  Neither Miami nor Messi let us down.  They defeated Cincinnati 4-0 and Messi had a goal and two assists.  The goal was amazing, but the passes that he made in assisting on the other two goals may have been even more remarkable.

Miami will play  at least one, and possibly two more games in these MLS playoffs.  Don't miss the chance to see him play.  I am no soccer expert .and you don't have to be one either to know that when you watch Messi play, you are seeing soccer's version of Willie Mays, Jim Brown, Michael Jordan, or Wayne Gretzky.

Lionel Messi

You gotta love the pink shirts!

 

An Old Movie...."Cactus Flower" (1969)

 

Linda and I happened to tune into TCM on Friday night just as Ben Mankiewicz was introducing "Cactus Flower".   This movie was released in 1969, the year that I graduated from high school, and it was Goldie Hawn's first featured role in a motion picture, and she won the Best Supporting Actress Academy Award for her performance.  I suppose that I did see this movie way back when, but I had no special memory of it, and I was glad to watch it on Friday as if it were the first time I was seeing it.

"Cactus Flower" was originally a Broadway stage play written by Abe Burrows.  The screenplay for the movie was written by I.A.L. Diamond (frequent collaborator of Billy Wilder).  It was directed by Gene Saks, who was fresh off of directing hits like "Barefoot In The Park" and "The Odd Couple".  Its stars, in addition to Hawn, were Walter Matthau and Ingrid Bergman.  All of that means that the structure was in place for a pretty good comedy film, and everyone delivered.

The story:  Matthau played a successful dentist in New York City.  Bergman was his straitlaced office nurse who kept everything in line in the good dentist's professional life.  Hawn was Matthau's much younger mistress.  Matthau kept things from getting complicated with his lady friends by telling them that he was married and had three children.  The kicker is that he is NOT married; he never has been. That kept them from pressuring him into marrying them.  Complications arise when.....

• A distraught Hawn attempts to kill herself in her crummy NYC walk-up apartment because she realizes that she will never be able to fully have the love of her life
• Her next door neighbor, a hunky young struggling playwright, played by Rick Lenz, smells gas in the hallway, breaks into her apartment and saves her life
• Matthau finds out about the suicide attempt (how he finds out is a part of this whole magilla), and realizing that he doesn't want to lose the beautiful Goldie, tells her that he will divorce his wife
• Hawn then starts asking a lot of complicated questions:   When did you decide to do this? When will you tell her? What about the children?  This all leads up to Goldie saying that she wants to meet Matthau's wife
• In an effort to quell this pending disaster, Matthau asks his ever loyal Nurse Dickenson, played by Bergman, to meet Hawn and pretend to be his soon to be ex-wife
• At first Bergman refuses to have any part of such a tawdry scheme, but then.....

Well, you'll have to watch the movie to see what happens next.  Hawn was charming in her role, and she no doubt earned her Oscar, and Matthau was great as the philandering dentist, but the real revelation in this movie, to me at least, was seeing Ingrid Bergman, the marvelous Ilsa Lund herself, playing a comic role.  One of the great dramatic actresses of her generation, she was 54 years old when this movie was made, absolutely nailed it playing this part. Scenes of her pretending to be someone she was not, which included her dancing in a 1960's era discotheque with Goldie Hawn, were simply delightful.  

She totally and completely nailed her role.  Just because you are used to seeing great actors in dramatic parts doesn't mean that they can't do comedy as well, and Ingrid Bergman proved that in spades in "Cactus Flower".

As the comic complications unfolded in the movie, you could pretty much see how the story was going to unfold, but that takes nothing away from what was a delightful movie.   If you've never seen it, try to find it somewhere - it is available on Prime Video and Tube - and watch it.  You won't be disappointed.

Three and One-Half Stars from The Grandstander.  

And a note on the Passage of Time.  Why was TCM showing "Cactus Flower" on Friday night?  Because Friday was Goldie Hawn's 80th birthday.  Yikes!

Critical Commentary - Three Streaming Series (All On Netflix)

"Death By Lightning"

This four part series tells the duel stories of James Garfield, our 20th President, and Charles Gaiteau, the assassin who shot and killed him in 1881.   We learn how Garfield, an obscure member of the House of Representatives from Ohio, came out of a deadlocked Republican convention and somehow got himself elected President.  We also learn the story of Gaiteau, a real certifiable loon, who somehow felt that he was destined for great things and that he was owed those things by Garfield.

Michael Shannon, so good in the movie "Nuremberg", played Garfield with a great deal of dignity, and Matthew Macfayden played Gaiteau with the manic intensity that he deserves.  Other historical characters like Roscoe Conkling, James Blaine, and Chester Arthur are also well played by Shea Whigham, Bradley Witford, and Nick Offerman, respectively.  However I especially liked the performance of Betty Gilpin who played Garfield's wife, Crete.  A scene wherein she confronts Gaiteau in his prison cell hours before he is taken to the gallows is really terrific.

However, we should all remember that this is a TV series we are watching, not a documentary.  I sincerely doubt that Mrs. Garfield ever had such a death row confrontation with her husband's killer, but that doesn't take anything from it being a terrific piece of theater. I am sure that similar liberties are taken with many of the other characterizations shown.  Was Chester Arthur really a drunken head-buster on the New York city docks prior to becoming Vice-President? Whatever the actual truth, it all makes for an entertaining and compelling four episodes of television viewing.

Three Stars from The Grandstander.

"Nobody Wants This"

We ended up binging two seasons worth of this RomCom series over the last two weeks.  (Ten episodes per season, each about 25 minutes long.  It was easy to do.)

The story is about Rabbi Noah Roklov, played by Adam Brody, who meets and falls instantly in love with hot shiksa podcaster, Joann, played by Kristen Bell.  Naturally, many, many complications arise from such a relationship.  Bell and Brody are charming in their roles, although I think that Bell tries too hard to be a reinvention of Sarah Jessica Parker's Carri Bradshaw, but it is the peripheral characters that really add to the comedy of the show.  They include Justine Lupe as Joann's sister and podcast partner, Morgan,  Timothy Simons and Jackie Tohn as Sasha and Esther, Noah's brother and his wife, and Stephanie Faracy and Tovah Feldshuh as Joann's and Noah's mothers.

We really liked it and look forward to Season Three, whenever it comes.  Three Stars from The Grandstander.

"Man On The Inside"

A perusal of the Grandstander Archives tells me that I never wrote about this series when its first season ran earlier this year.  Brief summary:  Ted Danson plays a recent widower who is hired by a private detective to go under cover at a senior living community to see who might be behind a series of jewel robberies in the building.  Yeah, stuff like this can happen only in television, right?  Linda and I found the series to be both funny and touching in the way  it dealt with issues like spousal loss, aging, and the, shall we say, challenges of living in a closed community, challenges like HOA meetings.  Fun casting:  one of the residents of the community was Sally Struthers of  "All In The Family" fame.  

Like I said, we liked it, and had I written about it at the time, it would have rated Four Stars from The Grandstander.  So, go to Netflix right now and watch it.  

I bring this whole thing up now because on Thursday, November 21, Netflix will be dropping Season Two of this series.  I don't know what the "case" will be for the Man on the Inside this time, or if characters from the senior living center will be involved because after all, that case was closed, but I do know that one story line will be a developing romance between Danson's character, Charles, and a character played by Mary Steenbergen, who is Danson's real life wife of thirty years.

Looking forward to watching it and we will no doubt blow through it in a couple of days.

"Nuremberg"

 

"Nuremberg" is a movie that certainly can be classified as an "Oscar-bait" movie.  It is being released at the end of the year when the studios release their big gun films, it is about a serious and important subject, it has big stars in the lead roles and it gives each of them large swatches of dialog that they deliver in ways that only Big Stars can, and this is the important part, the movie delivers in every way.

On the day that the war in Europe ends, Allied soldiers stop a chauffeur driven car bearing a Nazi flag.  Its passengers:  Reichsmarschall Hermann Goering, the highest ranking Nazi official still alive and his family.  Upon his surrender, Goering calmly asks his captors to please get his luggage for him.   That is the first glimpse we get into the personality of Goering.

What follows is the story of a US Army psychiatrist, Douglas Kelley, played by Rami Malek, who is assigned to examine the captured Nazis as an international tribunal comprised of the Allied powers prepares to try them before the world during the War Crimes trials in Nuremberg, Germany.  The movie focuses on the relationship and the cat-and-mouse game that develops between Kelley and Goering, played brilliantly by Russell Crowe.  

The movie is filled with great performances by a number of other actors besides Crowe and Malek.   Foremost among them is Michael Shannon, playing US Supreme Court Justice Robert Jackson, who proposed that such war crimes trials be held, despite the fact that there was no legal precedent for them and huge questions about under whose jurisdiction the trails should take place.  He was terrific in this role.

The role of the US Army officer who is in charge of the prison in which the defendants are held is played by John Slattery, best known, to me at least, as the guy who played Roger Sterling in "Mad Men", and who always delivered the best lines of dialog in that series.  I couldn't help but see, and hear, "Roger Sterling" as he delivered his lines, particularly his farewell line to Kelley near the conclusion of the movie.  I loved it.

While the subject matter of the film is a hard and a gruesome one, the movie essentially becomes a courtroom drama and a character study between its two main players, Crowe as Goering and Malek as Kelley.  Be warned, though, that at one point during the trial, we are shown films taken by Allied troops as they liberated the Nazi concentration camps.  These films are brutal, horrible, and difficult  to watch, as they show man's inhumanity to man at its absolute worst.  Which is exactly why the world needs to see them and constantly be reminded of what happened, and know that it must be prevented from ever happening again because there exists in mankind people who can cause it to happen again.  This is the point that the prosecutors were making at the time of the trials, and largely speaking, that the filmmakers are making to the audiences of today.

Crowe, Shannon, Malek

I expect that there will be many Oscar nominations for this one.  Picture, Director (James Vanderbilt), and a Best Actor nomination for Crowe for certain and possibly Malek.  I would also be disappointed if Shannon did not receive a Supporting Actor nomination.

The Grandstander gives this movie the full Four Star rating.

An aside about my attendance yesterday,  While visiting the rest room after the movie, a guy in there, who also was at the showing, asked what I thought.  We both said that it was good movie with a powerful message, but then he said this:  "Yeah, it was good, but you wonder how much of it was true and how much was made up."  I wanted to scream.

Aside Number Two.  The 1961 movie "Judgement at Nuremberg" dealt with these same topics and was probably a better movie this one.  It was filled with great performances by stars like Spencer Tracey, Burt Lancaster, Montgomery Clift, Judy Garland, and Maximilian Schell, who won and Oscar for his performance.  Seeing "Nuremberg" yesterday is prompting me to watch this one once again.  If you have never seen it, I cannot recommend it highly enough.