Some Viewing Recommendations

 Let me recommend two selections for your viewing pleasure.

"Pressure"

This movie focuses on the days leading up to D-Day in June, 1944.  Brendan Fraser plays Dwight Eisenhower and Andrew Scott play Captain James Stagg, a British officer who is assigned to be the chief meteorologist as the Allied command makes plans for the invasion of Normandy, upon which the fate of the war hinges.  He's there because, according to Ike, "Churchill says he's brilliant", but he immediately butts heads with the weather guys who are already on Ike's staff when he tells everyone that there is no way that the invasion can take place as scheduled on June 5, but that maybe, just maybe, there might be a slight window of opportunity on June 6.

Hey, we all know how it turned out in Normandy eight-two years ago, but that doesn't take away from the drama and suspense that this movie delivers.  Both Fraser and Scott are terrific as is an Irish actress named Kerry Condon who played Kay Summersby.  She was Ike's driver, the movie shows her as a key member of the staff, and we all know that she was also Ike's, ahem, special pal during those days.

Three and One-Half Stars from The Grandstander.

"Life, Larry, and the Pursuit of Unhappiness"

This is a seven episode streaming HBO series in which Larry David puts his unique and neurotic spin on different episodes in American History.  Each episode is a half hour long and contains two or three different sketches.  Like any sketch comedy show, there are hits and misses, but when the sketches click, they more than make up for David's incomplete passes.  Three in particular:

• David played Alexander Graham Bell as he displays his new invention, the telephone, and realizes that after he makes the connection to his associate, Mr. Watson, they don't really have anything to talk about.
• A sketch where David plays an advisor to Abraham Lincoln and convinces Abe that he should attend this funny play at Ford's Theater to take his mind off of things.  He then spends the night mediating arguments between Abe, played by Bill Hadar, and Mary Lincoln, played by the wonderful Kathryn Hahn.  He then has to deal with a batshit crazy Marry who refuses to leave the White House after her husband's death.
• Larry is an advisor to President Obama who convinces him that he should wear a tan suit to a Presidential event, a real life incident that sparked amazing criticism of the President at the time.  Barack and Michelle Obama were Executive Producers of this series, and Obama plays himself to great effect in the skit.  They've even reproduced the Oval Office as it was before its gold leaf tackification by the current occupant.

Like I say, not all of the skits are great, but enough of them are to make this an enjoyable and entertaining series.  The sketches are also peppered with cameos and performances by folks like Jerry Seinfeld, Lin-Manuel Miranda, Paul Rudd, Rita Wilson, Kaley Cuoco, Jimmy Kimmel, and Rob Reiner.  I watched all seven episodes in one day.  Hey, there was nothing else going on that day!

Three Stars from The Grandstander.

To Absent Friends - Tommy John

 

Former major league pitcher Tommy John died over this past weekend at the age of 83.  We all should think of Tommy John like this:

However, John will most be remembered for this, 

the revolutionary surgery performed on him by  Dr. Frank Jobe in 1974 , a surgery that now bears his name.

This is what I wrote in part in The Grandstander on March 7, 2014, when I commemorated the death of Dr. Jobe:

It is a sad irony that Tommy John himself is better known today for the surgery that bears his name than for his career as a pitcher.  Too bad, considering that his career spanned 26 seasons and totaled a record of 288-231 with a 3.34 ERA.  He pitched in three World Series. Fourteen of those seasons and 164 of those wins came after he had Jobe's surgical procedure performed.  He retired in 1988 at the age of 46.

Was Tommy John a great pitcher?  Well, he was a very, very good pitcher, and when you look up the "Similarity Scores" for Tommy John on baseball-reference.com, nine of the ten pitchers listed are in the Baseball Hall of Fame.  For the record, those nine are Jim Kaat, Robin Roberts, Bert Blyleven, Fergie Jenkins, Early Wynn, Tom Glavine, Burleigh Grimes, Don Sutton, and Eppa Rixey, so you be the Judge.

John was in the news only a week ago when the Yankees posted this letter that John had written to them when he had to decline an invitation to appear at the Yankees' annual Old Timers Day.

RIP Tommy John.

The NFL Is Back! Steelers 28 - Packers 9

 

Yes, it was only the first Pre-Season exhibition game of the season, and yes, most of the guys you saw playing last night will be starting their life's work as butchers, bakers, or candlestick makers in about three more months, but wasn't it nice to see an NFL  football game again last night?  Even if the score doesn't mean anything, it's nice when your team wins, so I really enjoyed watching the Steelers beat the Packers last night in the first game of the "Mike McCarthy Era".

Some "quick hit" thoughts from the cranium of The Grandstander on last night's game....

• Steelers fans cannot be anything less than ecstatic over the quarterback play of Mason Rudolph, Will Howard, and Drew Allar.  The three combined to go 27-for-33 for 313 yards, 2 TD, and 0 INT.  Howard looked really good in leading a drive downfield for a touchdown with under a minute to play in the first half.

• And how impressive was rookie WR Germi Bernard?  Five catches for 51 yards which included lots of YAK yardage as well.  The word from training camp was that Bernard wasn't looking that great, and that he wasn't jelling with Aaron Rodgers.  Well, he looked pretty damn good in actual game action last night.  Maybe he just isn't a good "practice player".  Franco Harris was never especially good in practice either, as I recall.  If Bernard become half that player that Harris was, I'll take it!
• I'm not as smart as all the people who call sports talk shows, so I am not going to comment on things like offensive and defensive line play.  I know that in the telecast last night, ex-Steeler Merril Hoge was raving about the play of the Steelers defense, so I'll take his word for it.  It was a defense that didn't yield a touchdown last night.
• Back to the quarterbacks, it sure was great to see an offensive scheme that called for throwing downfield and across the middle last night.  Looks like the remnants of the Matt Canada and Arthur Smith offenses have been swept into the dustbin.  Sure hope that that continues.
• Aaron Rodgers, along with a whole bunch of other first stringers, didn't even suit up last night.  Pre-season football is not "real football" according to A-a-ron.  He did get the chance to have chat with his successor in Green Bay during warm-ups though.  

• Did you play the "Bob Pompeani Drinking Game" last night during the telecast?  This is where you take a shot of your favorite adult libation whenever Pomp states that this-or-that Steelers player has either "looked good in training camp", "has been having a great training camp", or "has been outstanding in camp" or some variation on that theme.  If you did, you would have been plastered by halftime. I stopped counting after five such references.  He made two such references to Asante Samuel Jr. alone!  No Steeler player is a bad one in Pomp's world.
• On the ugly side, how about all those penalties?  That was not good, although the team did seem to clean that up in the second half.

We all know that these games are meaningless, but, like I said, it's always nice when your team wins!

To Absent Friends - Vincent Pastore

 

Actor Vincent Pastore died last week at the age of 80.  His acting career spanned almost forty years and included over 270 credits in IMBD.  As a character actor he mostly played mobsters and wise guys in movies such as "Goodfellas", "Manhattan Murder Mystery", "Mickey Blue Eyes", and "Carlito's Way".  However, he was most known and will be forever remembered for playing the role of Sal "Big Pussy" Bonpensiero on one of television's all-time great series, "The Sopranos".  He was one of Tony Soprano's capos, but when facing a federal narcotics charge, he was turned by the FBI and wore a wire to assist in the feds' ongoing investigation of the Soprano family.  The scenes of Sal going over the top in an effort to aid his FBI handlers was a bit of a comic touch in the series, but it didn't end well for Big Pussy when he went on a fishing trip with Tony, Paulie, and Silvio at the end of Season Two.  

Sal on Tony's boat

Right before being sent to sleep with the fishes

Like I always say, when you are associated with one of the greatest shows ever, you deserve recognition when you leave this world.

RIP Vincent Pastore.

The Sopranos Crew

Paulie, Silvio, Tony, Christopher, and Big Pussy

Unforgettable

Sal and Tony in better days

"Cleopatra" (1963)

One afternoon this past week I spent over four and one-half hours watching this epic - and trust me, "epic" is the only word that can reused to discuss this one - 1963 movie that was written and directed by Joseph L. Mankiewicz and starred Elizabeth Taylor, Rex Harrison, and Richard Burton.  What prompted me to seek out and watch this sixty-three year old movie, you may ask?  Well, earlier in this year, I listed to the most recent season of TCM's The Plot Thickens podcast entitled simply "Cleopatra".

This is a terrific series of podcasts hosted by Ben Mankiewicz, and if you love movies, I highly recommend that you seek it out and listen to all six seasons.  The six episodes centered around the making of this movie, and the effect that it had on Joe Mankiewicz, a noted screenwriter and director who had garnered four Oscars in his career, including writing and directing Oscars for 1950's "All About Eve", one of the all time great movies ever.  Ben Mankiewicz is Joe's great uncle, which gave this podcast a little more personal touch.

The idea for this movie first came to 20th Century Fox producer Walter Wanger sometime in late 1959/early 1960. From the very beginning, the movie was beset with budgetary and artistic problems.  No one was able to come up with a coherent  script and the original director, Reuben Mamoulian, resigned from the project.  Elizabeth Taylor was 29 years old at the time and already a huge star.  She didn't really want to do it.  She told Wanger that she would do it if they paid her $1 million in salary and ten percent of the gross..  She figured that there is no way the studio would agree to her demands and that would put an end to it.  However, Fox said "yes", and Taylor became the first actor ever to sign for a million dollars for one picture.

Joe Mankiewicz was brought in to both save the script and direct the movie.  He didn't really want to do it.  Epic pictures weren't his thing.  He was reported to have said "I wouldn't go to see "Cleopatra" so why would I want to direct it?"  If that quote is accurate, you can see why he won two Oscars as a screenwriter.  So why did he end up doing it?  As you might suspect, the answer was money.  In addition to a large salary, Fox agreed to buy Mankiewicz' production company for $3 million, a sale that netted Joe $1.5 million.  Doing "Cleopatra" was, he said, "an act of whoredom".  Another great line.

As they say in Hollywood, complications ensued.  Taylor developed some serious illnesses that delayed the start of filming.  Costs were skyrocketing. Locations for filming changed from Hollywood to Egypt to London before finally settling on Italy.  Each location change required rebuilding of the elaborate sets, the likes of which had never been seen before.  Tens of thousands of  dollars were spent on wigs for actors, many of which were never seen because of the helmets that the actors wore. One line item in the budget was "$100,000 for paper cups".  Paper Cups!!  "Cleopatra" would go on to be the most expensive movie ever made up to that time.  It cost $44 million to make.  Its eventual gross receipts, according to IMDB, were $57.8 million.  It virtually bankrupted 20th Century Fox.

But the biggest brouhaha of all was the love affair that began between Taylor and Richard Burton, each of whom were married to other people at the time.  People may shrug at such goings on in 2026, but in the world of 1960-63, this was a scandalous act and a HUGE news item.  Even an eleven year old Grandstander was aware that events surrounding the making of this movie was a really big deal, even if he did not fully understand the making of movies and the marital status of Hollywood big shots.

Anyway, listening to the podcast made me want to see this movie that I had never before seen, which, as I said at the beginning, I finally did the past week.  

So how was it?

Well, it was way too long.  Mankiewicz shot a movie that was over six hours long.  He actually had the idea that the Fox should actually package "Cleopatra" as two separate movies, "Cleopatra and Caesar" and "Cleopatra and Antony", and release them separately a year apart.  This was revolutionary at the time, and Fox said no, it had to be one picture.  This necessitated drastic editing on Mankiewicz' part and the result was a somewhat disjointed and choppy picture, that still had a running time in excess of five hours.

For all of that, though, I actually liked the movie.  It was campy and fun. (Unlike the current "The Odyssey" another sword-and-sandal epic that I found to be dark and grim.)  The costumes and the sets were magnificent and beautiful to look at.  I thought that while Taylor was terrific and, although much of her performance consisted of chewing major portions of scenery, there were several moments of a very nuanced performance on her part.   Rex Harrison as Julius Caesar was nominated for an Oscar for his performance.  He was the only actor from the movie to receive a nomination. (Sidney Poitier won that year for "Lillies of The Field".)  Richard Burton was good as Antony.  Has any actor ever had as distinguished a voice as Richard Burton?  One actor at the time who received positive critics' reviews for his performance was Roddy McDowell, of all people. Roddy McDowell!!! Go figure.  Also interesting cast members to note were Martin Landau in his pre-Mission Impossible days. He had a rather large role as one of both Caesar's and Antony's military advisors. Oh, and nine years before he became television's Archie Bunker, Carroll O'Connor was one of the Roman senators who participated in the assassination of Julius Caesar.   Purportedly, he had called Caesar a "meathead" but that line was cut from the final version of the film.

The costumes and the make-up were fantastic.  I loved Taylor's eye make-up:

Liz supposedly did her own eyes for the movie and it took two hours to apply every time.

And then there were the gowns, and it seemed that Taylor had a different one in every scene.  This was one of the more spectacular ones.

In one contemporary review of the movie that I read, the critic was positively shocked at Liz's display of cleavage throughout the film and was appalled that in one scene Taylor was "obviously naked".  Get ready to be shocked and appalled, folks, because I am going to show you that scene right now:

Oh, the humanity, am I right?

I said that this movie was "epic".  There were at least four separate scenes that were simply amazing in scope but easily the most spectacular of all was the nine minute sequence showing Queen Cleopatra's entrance into Rome.  It was a spectacular parade featuring dancers, horseback riders, chariots, arrows shot into the air, and a release of thousands of doves over Rome, and it culminated in Liz/Cleo arriving atop a 36 foot replica of a Sphinx being pulled by hundreds, if not thousands of slaves while wearing a spectacular dress and crown of gold.

I have included the entire nine minute clip of that scene HERE, and trust me it is worth watching.  It is especially enjoyable when you listened to that portion of the Plot Thickens podcast that describes all that went into the filming of the scene.

As I mentioned, I did check the interweb to look up some reviews of "Cleopatra".  Reviews in both the New York Times and Variety at the time of its release were positive.  I was unable to find a review by critic Judith Christ of the New York Herald-Tribune that reportedly savaged the move and has become famous for Christ calling  Taylor a "fishwife" in her critique of her performance.  Retrospective reviews written upon the 50th and 60th anniversaries of the movie are less kind.  

As for me, despite its length and unevenness, I rather enjoyed it and assign it Three Grandstander Stars, if for no other reason than the sheer value of this movie in Hollywood history.  I am glad that I watched it on DVD where I could pause it from time to time as needed rather than sitting through it for five hours in a theater, even if there was an intermission in the film.

"Cleopatra" received nine Academy Award nominations, including Best Picture and Best Actor for Rex Harrison. It won four Oscars: Cinematography, Art-Set Decoration. Costume Design, and Special Effects.

Richard Burton and Elizabeth Taylor ended up divorcing their spouses and were married and divorced from each other twice in the years ahead.

"Cleopatra" pushed Joe Mankiewicz to his breaking point.  He never talked about in interviews over the years, and according to his children, it is the one movie that was never discussed in the Mankiewicz household.  In 1949, he won Screenwriter and Director Oscars for "A Letter To Three Wives" and in 1950, he did the same thing with "All About Eve", a back-to-back achievement that had never been done before nor since, and probably will never be done again.  He was nominated for nine director and/or screenplay Oscars in his career.  He directed only four more films after "Cleopatra", the last of which "Sleuth" in 1973 earned him a Best Director Oscar nomination.  He died in 1993 at the age of 83.

Richard Burton accrued seven Oscar nominations from 1952 to 1977.  He never won one.  He has 314 acting credits listed in IMDB.  He died in 1984 at the age of 58.

Elizabeth Taylor earned five Oscar Nominations and two Oscar wins from 1957-67.  She has an incredible 562 credits in IMBD and spent much of the her life devoted to various humanitarian efforts.  She died at age 79 in 2011.

Taylor and Burton starred together in 1967 in Mike Nichols' "Who's Afraid of Virginia Woolf".  Each earned Best acting Oscar nominations for that one, with Taylor winning her second Oscar for this performance.

Oh, and I am halfway through listening to The Plot Thickens - Cleopatra podcast once again.

To Absent Friends - Freddy "Boom Boom" Cannon

Freddy Cannon

1936-2026

One of American Rock 'n Roll's big stars of the "pre-Beatles" era left us this week when Freddy Cannon does at the age of 89.

Born Frederick Picariello in Massachusetts , Cannon came on the scene with two big hits in 1959 - "Tallahassee Lassie" which he wrote, and "Way Down Yonder in New Orleans", but his biggest hit came in 1962 with "Palisades Park" which peaked at Number 3 on the Billboard Hot 100 Chart.  Among people who have cited Cannon as influential to them are Mick Jagger and Robert Plant, and author Stephen King mentioned Cannon's music in four of his novels.  "Tallahassee Lassie" has been covered by both the Rolling Stones and Fleetwood Mac, and  the  Beach Boys, among others, have covered "Palisades Park".  It is also said that Cannon holds the record for most appearances on Dick Clark's American Bandstand with 110.

Ands let's face it, is there a better nickname in all of rock 'n roll than Freddy "Boom Boom" Cannon?  I think not.

Cannon continued to write, produce, and perform into the 2010's.  You can see him perform his biggest hit "Palidsades Park" on this 1:58 clip.  Thank you, YouTube!

RIP Freddy "Boom Boom" Cannon.
 

Quick Hit Critiques

Some (hopefully) brief and (hopefully) informative Critical Commentary  to aid you in your viewing and reading pleasure.  I present them to you in alphabetical order.

This new novel opens as follows:

"Someone will die here this morning, at this suburban train station. It will happen in the next five minutes when the 7:06 to London Victoria arrives."

Ilona Bannster then describes five random people on the platform and tells us that it is one of these five who will die: a mother and her unruly child, and old lady, a young man with a gambling problem, and a gruff and quasi-obnoxious businessman.  Between amazingly suspenseful real time descriptions of the events taking place on that train station platform over the course of the next five minutes, Bannister gives us the back story for each of them.   She lets you, the reader, whom she addresses in the second person, decide who you think will be the one to die, how that person will die, and whether or not that person deserves such a fate, or shall it befall one off the others.

It is a most interesting and somewhat unique way to tell a story. I found it to be a really good read and give it Three Grandstander Stars.

"Five Star Weeknd" is an eight part mini-series streaming on Peacock based on a best selling novel by Elin Hilderbrand.  It stars Jennifer Garner as a social media influencer specializing in food, cooking and baking, and the fancy presentations thereof.  In the opening of the first show, we see police arriving at her door to inform her that there has been a terrible accident and that her husband did not survive.  We then flash forward six months, and Garner, still struggling with the grief of this devastating loss, is planning a weekend retreat at her lavish - and  do mean lavish - Nantuckett beach house.  The guests for the weekend will be four women from various stages of her life: her oldest friend who is like a sister to her, a college friend, a woman from the "Moms' group" (yeah Garner has a college age daughter that spices up the mix a bit further), and a woman whom she has never me but with whom she became friends after the she reached out to Garner after her husband's death via Garner's enormous social network of followers.  Each of these four ladies are determined to help Jennifer G. get through her grief spiral, but each of them are also carrying some  burdens of their own as they arrive for the meticulously planned weekend.

Yeah, it's a real soap opera, but  Garner's castmates Chloe Sevigny, D'Arcy Cargen, Regina Hall, and Gemma Chan assure that this is a high quality soap opera.  Each of the eight episodes are about 45 minutes in length so it requires a time commitment, but Linda and I binged it in three sittings.

On a serious note, the story also makes some telling points about how people deal with grief and the interactions of families (Garner and her daughter in this case) as they struggle to come to grips with this unbearable change in their lives.  If you know me, you know why this aspect was of special interest to me.

Three Stars from The Grandstander.

When a young woman's mother dies, her two older brothers receive the bulk of her estate (she was fairly wealthy self-made entrepreneur), and she is left with series of DVD's that her mother recorded before she died and a "life list" of things to do that the young woman made when she was only twelve or thirteen.  The DVD's instruct young Alex that she needs to complete this life list within twelve months, and only them will she receive her as-yet-to-be-disclosed inheritance.

Some of the things on the list are silly:  do stand-up comedy, get a tattoo, play one-on-one with a New York Knick.  Some are quite serious: become a good teacher, make peace with your father, find true love.  

Sofia Carson, an actress with whom I was not familiar, was thoroughly charming in the role of Alex, as was Kyle Allen, another unfamiliar, to me anyway, actor as the young lawyer who serves as executor to Mom's will.  The mother was played by Connie Britton, the only actor in the movie that I knew.

The movie was somewhat predictable.  I mean, you knew within the first twenty minutes how the "true love" part was going to resolve itself, but there were enough meaningful parts of the movies that made it well worthwhile, especially the performance of Miss Carson.

Three Stars from The Grandstander.

Christopher Nolen's, arguably one of today's most important and influential film directors, "The Odyssey" will no doubt be the biggest movie of the summer of 2026.

It is big.  It is sweeping. It is no doubt a piece of brilliant movie making, and it is based on a classic tale that is over 3,000 years old.

It will also no doubt receive critical acclaim and will probably garner a passel of Oscar nominations.

I give you all of that, and will concede that it is a great piece of film-making.

But it's not a movie for me.  Just couldn't get into the story, and man oh man, is it violent.  Lots of people die in lots of very gruesome ways in this one.

I did like how the story of the Trojan Horse was depicted, though.

It is also 2 hours and 52 minutes long.  In fact, this was me saying good-bye to Linda as I left for then theater last Friday morning:

Two Stars from The Grandstander.

I have been aware for some time that the producers of "The Big Bang Theory" were planning a spin off of that show that would feature the character of Stuart Bloom, the owner of the comic book store, played by Kevin Sussman, as well as the characters of Stuart's girlfriend Denise, Bert the geologist, and physicist Barry Kripke.

Before I go on, allow me to make some observations about the original show.  I come by these because we spend just about every weeknight watching at least one rerun of The Big Bang Theory. (1) While Sheldon Cooper and his eccentricities were the coming hub around which the show revolved, he was also a real jerk.  Even his fellow nerd scientists would never have put-up with his bullshit in real life and they probably would have punched him out early on. (2) Penny and Stuart, and maybe Bernadette, had the funniest lines over the course of the series. (3) Among all of the scientists and geniuses, the smartest person among all of them was Penny.

Okay, back to the spin-off series.  It debuted as a series on HBO Max this week and we watched the first episode last night.  It is a sci-fi story of a post apocalyptic multi-verse that resulted from some experiment conducted by Sheldon, Leonard, and Howard that went horribly awry.  It is now up to Stuart, of all people, to try to set things right and restore order to the world.

We didn't like it.  We will not be watching future episodes, and we were barely able to get through episode one.  If the producers of TBBT wanted to milk some more money out of the cash cow that was the original series, God bless them, that's the American Way, I suppose, but this sure wasn't the way to go about it.

One-half Star, just for the effort, from The Grandstander.