Reviews - And I'll Try To Be Quick About It

Ever since I heard about Francis Ford Coppola's new movie "Megalopolis", I knew that I wanted to see it, and from what I had read about it, I also knew that there was a good chance that I wouldn't like it.  And I was right.

The movie is striking visually, and Coppola used everything in his Auteur Bag of Tricks, so that is kind of fun, but what exactly is this movie about?  A guy wants to design, build, and control a futuristic city?  The evils of big money men when it comes to who exactly controls whom when someone wants to achieve something?  An allegory on the 45th President and all that he has wrought over the last ten years?  

"Megalopolis" also has in supporting roles Dustin Hoffman and Jon Voight, together again fifty-five years after "Midnight Cowboy".  If only Coppola could have thrown in an Easter egg of Hoffman yelling "I'm walking' here."

The most fun part of the movie was Aubrey Plaza chewing the scenery in her role as, and what terrific name for a character, Wow Platinum.

I figure that guy like Francis Ford Coppola has earned the right to do just about anything he wants to do when making  a movie, but "Megalopolis" ain't the second coming of "The Godfather " trilogy.  Trust me on that.

Word is that Coppola financed this movie himself using proceeds from his wine business.  I enjoy and buy Coppola's wines, so I guess that I am partially responsible for this one.

One and one-half Stars from The Grandstander.

British mystery novelist Richard Osman decided to take a break from his Thursday Murder Club series, which I wrote about HERE a few months back, and introduce a new series starring two new central characters, father-in-law and daughter-in-law Steve and Amy Wheeler.

Steve is a retired police detective and widower and, much like Osman's Thursday Murder Club characters, he likes to relax in his retirement, hang with his mates at the local pub, and play pub trivia every Wednesday night.

Amy is a "private security/protection specialist" who travels all over the world and is somewhat of a killing machine.  

In this one, clients of Amy's firm keep getting killed, and Amy is being framed for the murders.  To get out of this mess, Amy recruits a reluctant Steve to help her out.  There is also  horny female best selling mystery novelist (a sex-crazed Agatha Christie?) who is involved here and helps out Amy and Steve.  There are professional high level hit men involved, an elaborate money laundering scheme, and travels all over the world (in addition to England, action takes place in South Carolina, St Lucia, Dublin, Hawaii, and Dubai).  I found the whole thing to me a big mish-mash of a story, I practically forced myself to slog through it until the end.  Had I not enjoyed the author's other books, I would probably have given up on it at the hundred page mark.

I might - might - give the next installment of the Steve and Amy series a chance now that Osman has established the characters, but, mostly, I will anxiously await his return to the fictional community of Cooper's Chase and his Thursday Murder Club folks.

One and three-quarters Stars from The Grandstander.

The 2024 Pittsburgh Pirates - Requiem For A Season

I made the following post on Facebook last week.  I thought that it was a perfect encapsulation of the Pirates season, and I saw no reason to reinvent the wheel when writing this post, so here goes.

"So we took ourselves down to PNC Park on Thursday to catch the Pirates final home game of the season, a 5-2 loss to the Brewers (for the record, the Pirates were 5-5 in the ten games that I attended this year). The really sad part was that when the Bucs fell behind 3-0 in the fourth inning, you just knew that there was no chance, zero, that they would be able to overcome that deficit and win the game. In his always riveting post game presser, Sheltie said of his team that "we just have to get better." Sheltie has been saying that for five years now , and the team has not gotten better.

"In a perfect symbol of the season, the bottom of the eighth inning ended when the Brewers recorded the third out as a result of an Oneil Cruz boneheaded base running blunder.

"The hot dogs were good though."

Since I wrote those words, the Pirates have ensured further enmity from their fan base by announcing that both GM Ben Cherington and field manager Derek "Sheltie" Shelton will be back in those same roles in 2025.  Over the five years of this regime, the team has finished last in the NL Central four times, and next to last once.  Their record in 2024 was 76-86, the exact same as in 2023.

So what else can you say about the Pirates and this recently completed season?  I think I will defer to a discussion that took place at our Cranky Old Guys breakfast a few weeks ago.   What were three positive things, and what were three negative things (only three?) about the Pirates in 2024?

Not sure if I'll limit it to three, but here are some thoughts from this seat in the Grandstand.

Positive  

• Number One on the positive side was the arrival, less than a year after he was taken as the first pick in the first round of the Draft, of pitcher Paul Skenes.  He started in the All-Star Game, finished 11-3 with a 1.96 ERA, and 170 strike outs (11.5 per 9 IP) in 23 starts and 133 IP.  When he pitched, he was must see, and he attracted huge crowds, not only at PNC Park, but on the road as well.   He was taken out of games (got to watch those innings limits) not once, but twice, after pitching no hitters through six innings.  He received a standing ovation in a game he pitched against the Cardinals in St. Louis.  He had a dominating presence on the mound, and he appears to be a genuine Ace #1 starter for years and years to come.  We in Pittsburgh will fully enjoy watching and cheering for him for the next four to six seasons before he becomes unaffordable for our penny pinching home team.
• Before the arrival of Skenes in June, another rookie, Jared Jones, showed the signs of being an ace pitchers.  He can throw 99 mph routinely and accumulates strike outs in bunches.  A mid-season trip to the injured list slowed him down a bit, but he did have some strong appearances in September.  Then throw in flashes of greatness from Mitch Keller, and positive seasons for Luis Ortiz and Bailey Falter.  The Pirates problems are many going forward, but starting pitching does not appear to be among them.
• Brian Reynolds had another good season.  .275 BA, 24 HR, 88 RBI, leading the team in all three categories.
• Andrew McCutchen had 20 HR and 50 RBI as a 37 year old DH, and he's, well, ANDREW MCCUTCHEN.
• Joey Bart hit .265 with 13 HR and 45 RBI and established himself as the guy to beat out at Catcher come 2025.
• Former first round pick Nick Gonzalez hit .265 with 49 RBI in 94 games while playing well in the field at 2B, SS, and 3B.  He appears to be a solid player.
• Oneil Cruz has 21 HR and 76 RBIand was moved from SS to CF in mid-August.  He has a lot of raw talent, but continues to make some head scratching mental errors, as well as the physical ones.  

Negative

Where to begin?   And I'm not going to give any details here; it'll be too painful.

• The Bullpen, led by two time All-Star David Bednar, that crashed and burned as the summer wore on.
• Henry Davis.
• Jack Suwinski
• Ke'Bryan Hayes
• Too many games with starting line-ups with multiple guys hitting below .200
• Knowing that when the team fell behind by three runs or more, there was a seemingly 99% probability that the game was effectively over.
• Blown leads (see Bullpen).  How many leads did the Pirates have and then give up during that horrid stretch after the trade deadline, including that infamous ten game losing streak that effective ended the season?
• Using Rowdy Tellez as a relief pitcher three times in eleven games during blow out losses.  Using a position player once to mop up in a blow out loss is funny.  Doing it three times in eleven games is an embarrassment.  I would have fired Shelton on the spot after that.

The cherry on the sundae, though, was the Pirates decision to DFA Tellez with four games remaining in the season when he was four plate appearances short of earning a $250,000 performance bonus.   I shed no tears for Tellez, who made $3.2 million this season, and was, for the most part, not very good, but he seemed to be a decent guy and the proverbial "good guy to have in the locker room."  The Pirates were within their right to screw him out of those 250 G's, I suppose, but it was a cheesy and chintzy move, and when GMBC compounded the issue by saying that the bonus played "no role, zero" in the decision to DFA Tellez, well, that represented an new low for Bob Nutting and the front office minions who do his bidding.

We are now into the second week of the MLB Post-Season.  I haven't watched a much thus far, although I did enjoy seeing Shohei Ohtani blast one into outer space against the Padres last night.   I am sure that my viewing will pick up as teams advance to the LCS's and World Series, even though I know that the team for which I root, have rooted for since 1959, has slipped so deep into irrelevancy in the great scheme of things in Major League Baseball.

What a shame.

To Absent _________ - Pete Rose

If you follow sports in America, and even if you don't, you are undoubtedly aware that Pete Rose, baseball's all-time hits leader, died this past Monday at the age of 83.  News of his death was front page news all across the country.  There was probably no more polarizing figure in all of professional sports than Pete Rose.  So much so that you will notice that I left a blank spot in the headline of the post.  Is Rose an Absent Friend or an Absent Scoundrel?

A great ballplayer - and there is no other adjective to use to describe Rose the player - he played in more games, had more plate appearances, more at bats, and the Crown Jewel of his achievements, more hits, 4,256, than any other player in history. He was a 17 time All-Star, an MVP, a World Series MVP, a three time batting champion, a two time Gold Glove winner, and the owner of the NL record hitting streak of 44 games.  If you were around during that 1978 season, following Rose during that streak was positively riveting.   He played on six pennant winners and three World Series champions.  He was the driving force of one on baseball's most colorful and great teams ever, The Big Red Machine Cincinnati Reds of the 1970's.

He was one of the greatest ballplayers ever and a surefire first ballot Hall of Famer, if not a unanimous choice to make the HOF.  However, it all came crashing down around him in 1989 when a thorough investigation by MLB showed that not only was Pete an inveterate gambler, he was guilty of violating Baseball's cardinal rule: he gambled on Major League Baseball, be bet on games in which he played and on games of a team that he managed, the Reds.  That brought a lifetime ban from baseball that included him being deemed ineligible to enter the Baseball Hall of Fame.  

Thus began the polarization.  

The argument began that should or should not Rose be allowed to enter the Hall of Fame?  First off, let me state that Rose is not a "non-person" as far as the National Baseball Museum and Hall of Fame goes.  If you have ever visited this fabulous place in Cooperstown, NY, as I have on many occasions, you will find Pete Rose all over the place.  There are numerous statistical exhibits where Rose's accomplishments are duly recognized, including his place at the top of the Hits List.  The last time that I was there on the mid-2010's, there was an exhibit on Baseball's Greatest Teams that included The Big Red Machine, and Pete's recognizable mug was front and center in all of the pictures commemorating that team.   It is the "Hall" part of that institution, the place where all the plaques are, that Rose cannot be found.  My own position on this, and hey, I'm just an ordinary baseball fan, is that Rose should not be allowed as a member of the HOF.  Yes, I know that the Hall is populated by its share of womanizers, drunks, druggies, and other assorted bad guys, but betting on baseball?  Like I said earlier, that is the one thing that you simply cannot do, and Rose did it.

Over the years, as these arguments raged on, Pete Rose became his own worst enemy.  In the early 2000's commissioner Bud Selig offered him a lifeline.  He would fully reinstate him, but there were conditions.  Admit that he gambled on baseball (it wasn't until a few years after that that that Rose finally admitted this, and that was in a book where he could make money off of the admission), cease gambling, and cease all relationships with casinos.  Rose wouldn't, or couldn't, do it.

There were other transgressions.  He did time in a federal penitentiary for tax evasion.  A lawsuit revealed that he once had a sexual relationship with in underage girl.  He became estranged from his kids.  And there were the numerous stories about Pete willing to do anything for money.  I mentioned the book that he wrote.  (A former teammate said that Pete was the only guy who ever wrote a book who had never actually read one.)  Once, the Reds obtained permission from MLB to allow Rose to appear at a Reds game where members of the Big Red Machine teams were being honored.  Rose almost didn't show up because he wanted to be paid to be there.  And there were always the distasteful appearances in Cooperstown during HOF induction weekend where Rose would set up shop down the street to sell autographs and his schlocky "Hit King" merchandise.  

Still, I loved reading stories about Rose the ballplayer.  He knew everything about the game.  Not only his stats, but the stats of all the other players, too.  In a book  about Joe DiMaggio's 56 game hitting streak in 1941 that I read several years ago, Rose was frequently quoted throughout.  As I said when I read it, I may dislike Pete Rose the person, but when it comes to talking about the game and hitting, I will sure as hell listen to him.

Speculation now looms that Rose will finally be admitted to the Hall of Fame posthumously, a final way for MLB to screw him over when he's not alive to realize his greatest ambition.  MLB has stated that such bans continue after a person's death (see Jackson, Shoeless Joe).  We shall see how all of that unfolds, but it assures us that Pete Rose, both his glorious on-field accomplishments and his personal habits that led to his ignominy, will always be with us, and somehow, I think that will be exactly how Pete Rose would want it to play out.  

RIP Pete Rose.

"The Perfect Couple"

This post contains no spoilers.

Last night Linda and I decided to eschew the Pirates-Yankees game, a game, inconceivably, won by the Pirates, and have a Movie Night instead.  The movie we chose was "The Perfect Couple", based upon the best selling beach read book by Elin Hilderbrand, and a movie about which we had heard good things.  When we tuned into our Netflix app, we found out that it wasn't a movie, but, rather, a six part mini-series.  

Okay, we said, we'll watch two episodes and see where it takes us.  We started at 7:00, and after two episodes, we said let's watch another one, and, well, you can guess where we went from there.  Five hours later, shortly after midnight, we wrapped up Episode Six and the entire series.  That alone should tell you that we liked this one and found it to be quite entertaining.

The story takes place in Nantucket Island.  A wedding is about to take place among the monied beautiful people of the Island.  The groom-to-be is Benji Winbury, the middle of three sons of Tag and Greer Winbury.  Tag is the heir to a family fortune that had been largely squandered and is now tied up in a trust fund that will fall to and be split among the three sons when the youngest reaches age 18.  Tag doesn't do much of anything except smoke weed, drink a lot, cheat on Greer, and hit golf balls into the Nantucket Sound.  Greer is a best selling mystery novelist who churns out a book a year, the proceeds of which is what keeps the Winbury family fortune humming.  The bride-to-be is Amelia Sachs, a lovely young woman, who is from the mid-west and does not come from a family with generational wealth.  She clearly does not fit in with the Winburys and their entitled circle.

On the night before the wedding, after an extremely ostentatious rehearsal dinner on the Winbury Estate, a death is discovered.  Was it an accident?  Well, of course it wasn't. It turns out to have been a murder, otherwise, we wouldn't have a six part mini-series.  The story unfolds and is told in flashbacks throughout as the local police chief and a state police detective wend their way through all of the hinky doings that have led up to and surround the death of maid-of-honor Meredith.   There are sexual betrayals galore, and, of course, money and entitlement play a huge part of the story.

The cast is terrific, but standing out among the ensemble are Nicole Kidman and Liev Schreiber as  Greer and Tag, 

and Dakota Fanning, who plays Abby, the pregnant wife of the eldest Winbury son and whom I just finished watching in "Ripley", and Eve Hewson, daughter of U2 lead singer Bono, who plays bride-to-be Amelia.

Hewson's Amelia is sympathetic and likable; Fanning's Abby, not so much.  In fact, most of the characters are not very likable.  As I said at one point as we watched,  this is the kind of a show where you sort of hope that everyone in it either gets arrested or dies.  Chief among them is Jack Reynor who plays Tom Winbury, the eldest son and Abby's husband.  THAT character is a jagoff supreme.

Anyway, we really liked the series and highly recommend it.  Maybe you won't do it all in one sitting as we did, but if you like seeing a a good murder mystery, with beautiful scenery and beautiful costumes on beautiful people, this show is for you. 

Three and One-Half Stars from The Grandstander.

Oh, I promised no spoilers, and I didn't give any, but I did drop one big clue in this write-up.  Maybe you'll pick up on it once you start watching.

What I've Been Watching

Movie podcaster and raconteur Arch Campbell always asks the question "What are you watching these days?", so let me tell him - and you.

"Ripley" (Netflix)

This is an eight part series that is based upon the 1999 feature film, "The talented Mr. Ripley", which I have never seen.  Set in the 1950's, Andrew Scott, with whom I was not familiar, plays Tom Ripley, small time con artist in New York City.  For reasons I won't spell out, a wealthy businessman and his wife asks him to travel to Italy and try to convince their wastrel so to return home to them.

What follows is a case of stolen identity, a missing persons investigation, and murder. More importantly, the story is told in such beautiful cinematic detail: artfully shot and filmed in beautiful black and white.  It is also a suspense story that would have made Alfred Hitchcock himself proud to have made.

It should also be noted that "Ripley" was written by Steve Zailian, who has written a few other films of which you may have heard:  Moneybag, The Girl with the Dragon Tattoo, The Irishman, and Schindler's List.  Not a bad resume.

Three and One-half Stars from The Grandstander.

"Wicked Little Letters" (Netflix)

This is a 2023 feature film set in Britain in the years shortly following World War I.  A spinster lady, played by Olivia Colman, begins to receive anonymous letters that make horrid - and, I might add, positively filthy - accusations about her.  No one knows who sent them, but suspicion soon falls upon a young single mother, recently immigrated from Ireland, who lives next door.  She, of course, denies it, but is arrested anyway.  Soon more and even filthier letters begin arriving in the mailboxes of other village residents.  Calamity ensues.

It doesn't take much to figure out what is really going on here but the efforts of a spunky young Woman Police Officer (a new phenomenon at the time) soon gets to the bottom of things and justice prevails.

Two and One-Half Stars from The Grandstander, but worth watching if only to see Oscar winner Colman, whom many of us know only as the middle aged Queen Elizabeth from The Crown, spewing out such incredible strings of profanity.

Two and One-Half Stars from The Grandstander.

Things you I when researching the writing of these monographs.  "Wicked Little Letters" was based on a true story.  HERE are the details.

And special thanks to the aforementioned Arch Campbell for tipping me off to both Ripley and Wicked Little Letters on his podcast.

"Only Murders In The Building" (Hulu)

The amateur crime solving podcasters Steve Martin, Martin Short, and Selena Gomez are back for a fourth season of this great series.   We are five episodes in as the gang tries to figure out who killed Sazz Pataki, why was she killed, and was she really the intended victim.  All of this is going on while a crew from Hollywood is planning on making a movie based on the first season of the OMITB podcast.  The actors cast to play our heroes, Eugene Levy, Zach Galifinakis, and Eve Longoria play themselves and are great as they assimilate themselves into the Martin, Short, and Gomez characters.  Much of the humor is subtle, much of it is outright hilarious.  For example, a cameo appearance by tennis star John McEnroe in episode five was terrific.  And as in the first three seasons, Martin Short steals the show.

I'm not sure that a fourth season of this show was really necessary, but who wants to kill a cash cow, and the show is still fun to watch.  Word is that it has already been renewed for a fifth season as well.  How many people can get killed at the Arconia before the City just condemns the place?

Three Stars from The Grandstander.

Monsters (Netflix)

This one is a nine part series on Netflix based on the story of Lyle and Eric Menendez, brothers convicted of and now serving life sentences for brutally murdering their parents in 1989.  If you were around back in the early 1990's you surely remember this sensational crime and subsequent trial.

Anyway, I hadn't had a lot of interest in this until I heard an item on The Today Show earlier in the week that stated that Eric Menendez, from his prison cell, was objecting to how the brothers were being portrayed the series.  Really?  Is there a good way to portray two guys who killed their parents in cold blood?

So, in a weak moment, I watched the first two episodes earlier this week.  It was about what you would expect....sensational, overwrought, cheesy, but also strangely compelling as well.   I'll check in on episode three, but not sure if I'll be up for all nine episodes.

No Star rating unless and until I see the entire series.

********

We have also seen two theatrical productions here in Pittsburgh this month.

Of course, I don't really need to spell out "Hamilton", do I?  This touring production is the initial offering of the 2024-25 Broadway In Pittsburgh series.  It was the sixth time I've seen it, the second time for Linda.  It was terrific.  Again.

Four Stars from The Grandstander.  Again.

Most people remember the 1954 Hitchcock movie that starred Ray Milland and Grace Kelly.  That movie was based on a play by Frederick Knott, and a production of that play is now being presented by the Pittsburgh Public Theater at the O'Reilly Theater.  It was a very good production, as are all PPT shows, of a good mystery, and there is no better place in The Burgh to see a stage play than the O'Reilly. 

Three Stars from The Grandstander.

Sheltie's Future - What Should It Be?

As we all anxiously await the start of an NFL Sunday, let me take a few paragraphs to contemplate the fate of the woeful (is there any other word for them?) Pittsburgh Pirates and, more specifically, their field manager, Derek Shelton, aka, "Sheltie".

"What, me worry?"

A season that held such hope for a post season berth - right up until a dreadful ten game losing streak in at the beginning of August and has spiraled down ever since - will end one week from today with the twenty-eighth losing season over the last thirty-two years.  The management team of GM Ben Cherington and his hand-picked manager has yet to put together anything even resembling a winning season, and one could argue that this five year rebuild has resulted in nothing but the team running in place and with little hope for turning things around come 2025.

In almost any business, this would call for some significant, if not drastic, changes.  In sports, the obvious fall guy would be the manager or head coach.  We are looking at you, Sheltie.   One could make a case that in the analytics driven sport that MLB has become, the field manager makes very little difference.  His roster, his starting line-ups, and pitching rotation are dictated mainly by the Suits that sit at their laptops and tell the manager what the algorithms decree.  So, some say, Derek Shelton has very little to do with how the team is run, and even John McGraw, Miller Huggins, Leo Durocher, and Danny Murtaugh put together wouldn't be able to make chicken salad out of the chicken shit that the Pirates have put in uniforms over these past five seasons.  

I would agree with this up to a point.  Once the game starts, it is the manager who makes the in-game decisions, even though many may come from the binders that the analytics guys have given him.  It is on this point where I believe that Shelton has come up short.  Woefully short, in some instances.  Also, and I really think that this is the critical factor, at some point players just plain tune out and STOP LISTENING to whatever the manager (or head coach) is saying night after night.   That is what I believe has happened to the Pirates in 2024, and that is why a change needs to be made.  A fresh voce needs to be installed in the manager's office at PNC Park.

Of course, GMBC has already stated that Shelton will be the guy to manage the Pirates in 2025, so it would seem that the only way for Sheltie to go would be for Cherington to go as well.  Cherington's failures as a GM are also many, but that would require more paragraphs than I am willing to write as Steelers kickoff time nears.  The guy who would make that decision would be team owner Bob Nutting, aka, the worst owner in all of Pittsburgh Sports Franchises History.  Both Cherington and Shelton are in the midst of multi-year contracts, and the thought of Nutting firing them both and paying them multi-millions of dollars to not work  for him is, well, that just ain't gonna happen.

So we wait to see if the Pirates can go 4-3 over their last seven games (1 with the Reds, 3 with the Brewers, and 3 with the Yankees) just to see if that can EQUAL last season's dismal 76-86 record.  Then the season will end and we Buccos fans will have no real positive things to look forward to in 2025, other than the games that Paul Skenes starts.

The Katzenjammer Kids

 

To Absent Friends - Joe Schmidt

While out of town last week, the news arrived of the death of Pitt, College Football, and Pro Football Hall of Fame member Joe Schmidt at the age of 92.  A graduate of Brentwood High School in Pittsburgh, Schmidt became an All-American linebacker at Pitt.  In 1953, he was drafted by the Detroit Lions where he played for thirteen seasons,  During that time, the Lions were NFL champions twice, 1953 and 1957, and Schmidt played in 10 Pro Bowls and was a First Team all-pro eight times.  He was a member of the NFL's 1950's all-decade team, and was chosen a member of the NFL's 100th Anniversary All-Time Team in 2019.  He was voted into the Pro Football Hall of Fame in 1973 and the College Football Hall of Fame in 2000.  Joe Schmidt also was the head coach of the Lions from 1967-73.

Interestingly enough, as I was researching this post, I went through the back editions of the Pittsburgh Post-Gazette in the days following Schmidt's death of September 11, and could find no mention of his death, never mind a full scale obituary.  I admit that it was a cursory look on my iPhone, so perhaps I missed it, but if true, shame on the Post-Gazette for ignoring one of Pittsburgh's legendary athletes.

I have to say that Schmidt's salad days as one of the NFL's greatest middle linebackers, pretty much pre-date my days as a serious football fan.  He was mostly just a guy on a football card to me in my youth, but a couple of quotes of Joe Schmidt ring in my memory.

One tells of Schmidt's senior year at Pitt where he gave a pre-game talk prior to the Panthers game with Notre Dame.  "If you guys don't go out there and beat Notre Dame" Schmidt allegedly said, "so hep me, I'll come in here after the game and beat all of you."   Pitt won the game.

If that story isn't true, it should be.

In 1971, sportswriter Larry Merchant wrote a book about pro football called  "....And Every Day You Take Another Bite."  (I wrote about this book in this space back in 2011. Here is that write up.)  Schmidt was the HC for the Lions at the time and was quoted frequently throughout, and it can be said that Joe's use of the language could be described as both colorful and earthy.  In fact, the odd title of Merchant's book came from this philosophical tidbit from Joe Schmidt:

"Life is a shit sandwich, and every day you take another bite."

Even Mike Tomlin can't top that one.

RIP Joe Schmidt.