Book Review - "I'll Have What She's Having" by Erin Carlson (2017)

 

The sub-title of this book says it all: "How Nora Ephron's Three Iconic Films Saved The Romantic Comedy."

If you are fan of the three movies in question, When Harry Met Sally (written by Ephron and directed by Rob Reiner), Sleepless in Seattle, and You've Got Mail (both written and directed by Ephron), this is a book that you should read.  It is also one that you should read if you are interested in knowing all the details into how films get made.  The book really tells you how the sausage gets made.  It's never an easy process, and there is never a guarantee that the movie that hundreds of people are pouring their hearts and souls into will be accepted by the movie-going public.

It is also the story of Nora Ephron as the early chapters give a brief biography of the famed reporter and essayist who turned to screenwriting and directing, about how a oft-times cynical New York twice divorced, thrice married journalist turned out to be a complete sucker for love and romance, as evidenced by these three movies.

Lots of great gossip and stories about the people involved in the making of these movies - Meg Ryan, Billy Crystal, Tom Hanks, Rob Reiner especially and all of the many other actors, writers, producers, and "production weenies" (Hanks' term) involved in making these three great movies.  If you like inside Hollywood stuff, this is for you.  The story of a nervous and embarrassed  Reiner directing his mother, who played the lady in the deli, in the now classic "I'll have what she's having" scene is alone worth reading book.

I won't begin to detail any of the good stuff herein except for this: Tom Hanks REALLY is the Good Guy that everyone perceives him to be, although his liberal use of, shall we say, salty language in his conversations with the author might unnerve you a bit.  Here's an example.  After the post-premier party for cast and crew at an elegant New York City venue, Hanks was leaving the party with his entourage when he made it a point walk up to one of the lowly production people, who brought his mother as his date to the party, to thank him for all his help, especially to him, Tom Hanks!, in the course of the making of the movie.  "He did it because he knew that my mother would hear it" the production guy said.  That really is a nice guy.

Three Stars from The Grandstander.

The Goatee and Me

(NOTE: Often times, I produce these posts solely to have a record for something that was or is going on in my life at a given time.  I realize and recognize that such posts may hold little to no interest for those who read them.  This could be one of those posts.  You have been forewarned.)

At one point in January, I went several days without shaving, just out of laziness on my part.  After a few days, I decided to shave but leave my upper lip and chin untouched.  You know, the Major League Baseball Relief Pitcher  Look.  This has been the result.

Not too bad, if I say so myself, and Marilyn likes it, so that's good.  And it answers a question.  Back in the mid-1980's I grew a beard, and it came in dark and brown, even though the hair on my noggin was already mostly gray.  What, I often wondered, would my beard look like if I grew one today?  Now I know.  Anyway, I kind of liked it, and I said that I would stay with it at least through the end of February.

Well, the Wilbon-like goatee has now reached the point where it is staring to grow much like scalp hair.  That is, it needs trimmed.  Which means, I could go to Great Clips and have it done professionally and pay for it, or I could head to Target and buy myself a new set of electric grooming tools.  My inclination is to do neither, so at some point this weekend, it's coming off, but at least now I have an historical record that a Grandstander Goatee once actually existed.

"Nomadland"

What do you want when you go to see a movie?

Do you want a piece of cinematic art?  Beautiful cinematographic shots of awe-inspiring people and places?  Great acting?

Or do you want to be entertained, even if at times, such entertainment may make you uncomfortable?

Sometimes you're lucky and you get both art and entertainment, and the entertainment can come in the form of laughter, romance, adventure and excitement, or great drama that can either uplift you or make you uncomfortable.

Last night we watched  "Nomadland", written and directed by Chloe Zhao, and if you are unaware of it, it is a movie that only recently debuted in a limited number of theaters and, in a more widespread release, on the streaming service Hulu.  

So yesterday I sign on for my one free month of The Hulu just to see this movie. It is a movie about the growing phenominon of American Nomads.  People who aren't "homeless", but "houseless",  who travel all cross the country in their beat up vans and RV's, going from job to job as the season suits.  Most of them, if you believe the movie, are people in their sixties and older.  (None of them, by the way, seem to suffer from any mental illnesses or physical infirmities, none of them carry firearms, no illicit drug use among them, and sexual predation or assault doesn't exist, so if you're a woman traveling alone across the country in beat up van, you'll be perfectly safe, so go for it.  Again, according to this movie.) The movie has received critical acclaim, and is an early favorite to sweep the Oscars later this Spring.

Was it cinematic art?  Absolutely.  Beautiful to look at with sweeping shots of the mountains and plains and red sunsets of the American West.  (ASIDE: I have to say that the gritty nature of this story might have been even better had it been filmed in black and white.)  As for the acting, Frances McDormand will probably win her third Oscar for her performance in this one.  She was brilliant.

Was it entertaining?  Not by a long shot.  It moved slowly, and it was so depressing, that when it was over, I said to Marilyn "Shall we go sit in the bathtub and slit our wrists now ?"  We found it to be a very depressing movie to watch.   

2020 was a weird year by any measure, the spotty release patterns and the ability to seek out and watch new movies being one of them.  "Nomadland" will delight the festival crowd and "film buffs", and it probably will win a slew of Oscars, but wow, it's not going to be a movie that I am going to watch again. Ever.

The Grandstander gives this One and One-Half Stars, solely for the performance of Frances McDormand.

The Quarterback Reveal

To refresh your memories, yesterday in this space I asked you to put yourself in the place of an NFL General manager and said that....

...you have your choice between two young quarterbacks at the relative same stage in their career development.

	Quarterback A	Quarterback B
Games Played	15	13
Games Started	9	8
Record as Starter	5-4	3-5
Attempts	326	218
Completions	201	83
%	61.7%	38.1%
Yards passing	2,089	1,410
TDs	15	6
Interceeptions	10	24
QBR	82.7	30.4

Okay, which one will you take?

Now it is time to identify these two young hotshot QBs, and I am sure that many of you, especially you Steelers fans out there, have no doubt guessed who they are.

Quarterback A is current Steelers back up Mason Rudolph.

Quarterback B is Hall of Famer and four time Super Bowl champion, two time Super Bowl MVP Terry Bradshaw, seen below at an age when he was putting up those horrible numbers back in 1970.

So why, you may ask, did I do this comparison.  Let me say right off the bat it is not to suggest that Rudolph is or ever will be better than Terry Bradshaw.  That would be ridiculous.  No, what prompted this was a remark by 93.7 The Fan's morning  hot take artist Colin Dunlap earlier in the week.  In one of the endless discussions about the future of Ben Roethlisberger, Dunlap stated "well we KNOW (emphasis mine) that Mason Rudolph sucks...."  Dunlap was basing this statement on how "terrible" (his word) Rudolph has been in the opportunities that he has had over the last two seasons with the Steelers.

Well, I thought to myself, I remember Bradshaw's early seasons with the Steelers, so I wonder what Dunlap, who was born in 1976, would have had to say about Terry Bradshaw in the formative years of his career?  I am glad that talk radio, as it exists today, was not around back in 1970 because surely the Colin Dunlaps at the time would have been boiling tar and plucking feathers to ride Bradshaw out of town on a rail.  In fact, there were people who felt that way.  People who thought that Bradshaw was a country bumpkin oaf who would never amount to anything and that Terry Hanratty from Butler High School and Notre Dame was the guy to whom the Steelers should go at quarterback.  I remember it vividly.  Colin Dunlap does not because he wan't born yet.

All that prompted me to dig into the records and come up with the comparison you see above.

It has always been my thought, for whatever that might be worth, that Mason Rudolph can be a good, maybe even a very good, NFL quarterback.  No, I am not suggesting that he will be Ben or Terry, very few quarterbacks will ever achieve what they have, but I am saying that it is too early to pronounce final judgement on him, and WAY too early to say that "we know he sucks."

One thing that I can pronounce judgement upon is that I will take the opinions of Art Rooney, Kevin Colbert, and Mike Tomlin and their counterparts across the NFL over the Hot Takes of sports radio talk jocks every day of the week.

You Are An NFL General Manager....

 ....and you have your choice between two young quarterbacks at the relative same stage in their career development.

	Quarterback A	Quarterback B
Games Played	15	13
Games Started	9	8
Record as Starter	5-4	3-5
Attempts	326	218
Completions	201	83
%	61.7%	38.1%
Yards passing	2,089	1,410
TDs	15	6
Interceeptions	10	24
QBR	82.7	30.4

Okay, which one will you take?

I will identify these guys tomorrow.  Or maybe even later tonight.

Put yourself in this guy's shoes

Kritical Kommentary - One Movie, Two Books

First, the movie....

This movie is yet another look at 1960's culture and history, a la "Trial of the Chicago 7" and "One Night in Miami."  This is the story of Fred Hampton, Vice Chairman of the Illinois Chapter of the Black Panther Party in 1969, and it is surprisingly relevant today in 2021 when police overreach and #BlackLiveMatter are very much a part of our culture.  It is also the story of Bill O'Neal, a small time car thief in Chicago who gets busted and is given a way out: infiltrate the Black Panthers and serve as an informant for the FBI in order to get the goods on the Panthers in general, Hampton in particular, whom Director J. Edgar Hoover deems to be a "Black Messiah" who must be stopped at all costs, even if it means doing away with such pesky little details as civil liberties, due process, and equal justice for all.   O'Neal becomes the "Judas" of the title in this excellent film.

The cast is terrific with "Get Out" co-stars Daniel Kaluuya as Hampton and LaKeith Stanfield as O'Neal, Jesse Plemons as the straight arrow white bread Hoover-era FBI Agent, and Martin Sheen as old J. Edgar himself.  Great performances all around. 

The "what happened to" titles at the end of the movie are especially jarring, particularly as they concern Bill O'Neal.  Pay attention to those.

Oh, and to settle something that has niggled at me since I saw "Get Out" two years ago, I Googled for the proper pronunciation of Daniel Kaluuya's name.  It's Kuh-Loo-Ya.  So there.

Three Stars from The Grandstander.

Now for the books, both of which have movie and show biz tie-ins.

I have long considered Carl Reiner, who died last year at the age of 98, to be one of the true authentic comic geniuses of our times.  Back in 2003, when Reiner was a young pup at age 81, he penned this memoir.  It is an easy read, but it is everything that you would expect from Carl Reiner: Funny, insightful, funny, poignant, and did I mention funny?

Great stories about Mel Brooks, Sid Caesar, Dick Van Dyke, Mary Tyler Moore (his story about a distraught Moore coming to him to tell him that she and her then husband were going to divorce is a classic!), terrific stories about his father and his brother, and even some tales about his first born son, Robbie, who would go on to a very successful show biz career of his own fill this book.

Four Stars from The Grandstander.

Writer, humorist, novelist, screenwriter, and director Nora Ephron died in 2012 at the age of 71, a cancer victim. This slim book is a collection of essays of hers that was published in 2010.  I get the feeling that Ephron knew that she was dying when these essays were written because many of them deal with aging and getting old.  The final two essays in the book are especially moving.  One is titled "What I Won't Miss" (E-mail, My closet, Bras, Clarence Thomas, The sound of the vacuum cleaner) and the other "What I Will Miss" (My kids, Waffles, Bacon, Reading in bed, Coming over the bridge into Manhattan).  She also includes a very frank story of her divorce from her second husband whom she doesn't name, but whom we all know is Carl Bernstein.  Not sure how she had the guts to go into such detail.  It's not all bad stories and melancholia, her trademark wit is included in just about every essay in this very brief book.

Reading these essays prompted me to seek out and find her 1983 novel, "Heartburn", which tells the story of a successful writer who discovers that her husband is cheating on her while she is pregnant and leads to a divorce.  Yes, it is based on her experiences with Bernstein.  It was made into a successful 1986 movie - Ephron wrote the screenplay; Mike Nichols directed -  starring Meryl Streep and Jack Nicholson, and I will probably seek that movie out once I finish the book.

Three Stars from The Grandstander for this one.

Old Movie Time - "Hotel" (1967)

Thanks to the voluminous film library at TCM and the magic of the DVR, I watched this wonderfully cheesy piece of 1960's kitsch last night.

"Hotel" is based on the Arthur Hailey best selling novel of the same name, and it featured the proverbial all-star cast....Rod Taylor, Catherine Spaak, Karl Malden, Melvyn Douglas, Richard Conte, Kevin McCarthy, Michael Rennie, Merle Oberon, and Harry Hickox.  

The story centers on the pending sale/bankruptcy/demolition of the Hotel St. Gregory in New Orleans.  The St. Gregory is a grand hotel in the tradition of places like the Plaza in New York, the Ritz in Paris, the Peabody in Memphis...you get the idea.   Douglas is the owner of the joint who holds to the rich traditions (like segregation) of such places, Taylor is the manager of the place whose innovative ideas and business savvy has managed to keep the place afloat, and McCarthy, who spends most of the movie with his shirt unbuttoned down to his navel and does everything but twirl a mustache to indicate how evil he is, is the chain hotel owner who wants to buy the joint and "modernize" it, even if it's over Douglas' dead body!!  Boo hiss.

In the tradition of such movies, a la "Grand Hotel", there are a bunch of side stories.  Rennie and Oberon are a visiting Duke and Duchess who have a secret to hide, Conte is an unscrupulous house dick who may be a blackmailer, Spaak is McCarthy's mistress whom he uses to leverage his position but who, eventually, has a heart of gold, and Malden is "Keycase Milne", a hotel cat burglar just trying to make a buck but who is becoming increasingly frustrated because of all "those damn credit cards."  Malden earns the George Kennedy Award for Scenery Chewing in this one.

Everything, of course, resolves itself after a climactic scene that involves a short-circuited elevator that stalls and leads to an heroic rescue by Taylor. But does the St. Gregory get saved?  No spoilers here; you have to watch this one to find out for yourself.

Here are some other tidbits from the movie and some things I found out in researching this write-up.

My favorite bit of dialog occurred in a conversation between Oberon and Rennie.  As the Duchess frantically endeavors to protect and save her husband's reputation, Rennie looks at her and simply says "I detest you."  Don't you love it?

Catherine Spaak was - and still is - a French actress who was 22 years old when this movie was made.  She never quite made it big here in America, but she is still with us.  She will turn 76 in 2021, and is still working in Europe.  She has 85 acting credits in IMDB with the most recent one coming in 2019.

Merle Oberon was 57 years old when she made this movie and she was undeniably beautiful in it.  Fun Fact: The jewelry that she wore in this movie was her own and was reported to be valued at half a million dollars at the time.   It included a piece that was previously owned by Marie Antionette!  She died in 1979 at the age of 68.

A "Hotel" TV series based on the Hailey novel and this movie ran for five years in the 1980's and starred James Brolin and Connie Selleca.

Oh, and I mentioned Harry Hickox above, and I can still hear you whispering, "Who the hell is Harry Hickox?"  Well, I am sure that only Dan Bonk, Rob Tuchman, and myself can appreciate this bit of casting.  Hickox, who played another house detective (I think) in this one, was much more renowned for playing the role of Charley Cowell, the frustrated anvil salesman out get Harold Hill in "The Music Man."

In spite of my semi-smart assed tone in this write-up, I actually liked this movie.  Yeah, it's corny, cheesy, and predictable, but it was really fun to watch.  I highly recommend it.

Three Stars from The Grandstander.

The Timberwolves Experiment

I am hoping that people who are more serious and more seasoned gamblers that I will read this entry and offer their comments and advice after doing so. 

This whole thing started a couple of weeks back when my buddy Dan said to me, Hey, if you take a team like the Pittsburgh Pirates, who everyone knows is going to stink, and will struggle to avoid losing 100 games in 2021, if you bet on them to lose every game on the Money Line, will you end up winning money over the course of 162 games?

Seems simple, yet something that seems so simple is probably too good to be true, so I thought I would give it a test.  I would take the team with the worst record in the NBA at the time, the Minnesota Timberwolves, and I would bet $1 on them to lose (actually, you are betting on their opponents to win, but the get the idea) each of their next ten games.  This was the result, and yes, I know that ten games is a ridiculously small sample size.

	T’Wolves Opponent	Bet	Won	Lost	Net
1/31	Cleveland	1.00	0	1.00	(1.00)
2/1	Cleveland	1.00	1.47	0	0.47
2/3	San Antonio	1.00	1.30	0	0.30
2/5	OKC	1.00	0	1.00	(1.00)
2/6	OKC	1.00	1.86	0	0.86
2/8	Dallas	1.00	1.25	0	0.25
2/10	LAC	1.00	1.50	0	0.50
2/12	Charlotte	1.00	1.57	0	0.57
2/14	Toronto	1.00	0	1.00	(1.00)
2/16	LAL	1.00	1.31	0	0.31
10 Game Totals		10.00	10.26	3	0.26

As you can see, the T'Wolves went 3-7 in that stretch, and I actually DID make money: $.26, or 2.6% of the amount invested.  Of the seven games that their opponents won, the yield totaled $10.26, or an average of $.47 per win.  To answer Dan's question, and using the same math just for arguments sake, the answer is NO, you can't make money in the way that he proposed over the course of a long season.

Let's say that the Pirates will go 62-100 this coming season, and you bet $1 (or $5 or $10 or $100) on every game, you have invested $162.  Take off $62 for the games that the Pirates will win.  If the average yield for each Pirate loss nets you $.47 (as it did in the T'Wolves grid), you will have collected a total of $147 from your bookmaker, and will have lost a total of $15 (162-146) over the course of the season.

Where you can make money is if you  manipulate your bets, and bet more on games where the yield (i.e., the odds) is greater.  The biggest yields above were games when Minnesota played poorer teams, more comparable to themselves, $.86 against OKC, $.57 against Charlotte. Had you bet $1.50 on those games the yields would have been $1.29 and $.80 , respectively.  In the Pirates example, that would be when they played teams like the Rockies or the Giants.  That takes a little more of an investment of time on your part, and then there's the risk.  You will notice, that the biggest payoff for the T'wolves was $.86 against the Thunder, and you will also notice that the T'Wolves actually defeated OKC in the other game they played against them.  And you will have to say the course.  Even teams like the Pirates will have a streak where they might win six of eight or eight of eleven games.  That's baseball, that's why they call it gambling.

So, it turns out that Dan's initial proposal - making the same bet on every single game - was flawed, but it also showed that with a little work and effort, you can - probably - make some dough by betting against a lousy team over the course of a season.

As for me, I am going to continue The Timberwolves Experiment for ten more games, and maybe try to work it a little better, upping some bets, perhaps lowering others, just to see where it takes me.

Movie Reviews - "The Little Things" and "The Dig"

 

Got around to watching "The Little Things" last night.  From director John Lee Hancock, this one features an All-Star Ballot of a cast - Denzel Washington, Rami Malek, and Jared Leto, each of whom own a little trinket called an Academy Award.  What's not to look forward to?

Washington plays Joe "Deke" Deacon, a deputy sheriff in a hick county in California.  When he has to travel to Los Angeles to pick up piece of evidence, we are soon made aware that Deke used to be big time detective in LA, but something happened in his past that drove him away from the big city to the boondocks.  What could it be, and does it have anything to do with a serial killer that is currently terrorizing Los Angeles and is being investigated by rising young hotshot detective Jim Baxter, played by Malek?

Deke decides to take some vacation time and stays in the big city to investigate on his own, and Baxter, reluctantly at first, agrees to have Deke help him out in the investigation ("but if you end up pissing on my leg and tell me it's raining, we're through").  Deke soon uncovers a creep named Albert Sparma who comes under suspicion, and, trust me, Leto can do "creep" as well as just about anyone in show biz.

This movie is pretty standard fair police crime drama.  It won't make any top ten lists or win any awards, but it is quite entertaining, and it certainly does hold your interest.  The trio of Washington/Malek/Leto also lifts this one above the average cop potboiler.  I especially like Denzel Washington's hair in this one: cut very short and predominantly gray, much like The Grandstander's!!

Malek, Leto, and Washington

Three Stars from The Grandstander.

********

We also watched "The Dig" on Netflix this week, and we both enjoyed it very much. We categorize it as a very "gentle" movie. It stars Carey Mulligan, Ralph Fiennes, and Lily James. Based on a true story of an archeological discovery on a wealthy widow's property in England on the very eve of World War II. Wonderful performances and beautifully shot. I like how my pal skip categorized it, "A love story on many levels, a home front war story, and an historical event all in one."

Two and Three-Quarters Stars from The Grandstander.

To Six Absent Friends

The Departure Lounge has been filling up so rapidly of late, that The Grandstander can hardly keep up.  So, today I am going to list six notable people who have left us in recent days.  I am not going to go into my usual depth simply because there are so many to recount.  I would urge you all that if any of these folks interest you, go to your Google Machines and look them up.  All of these lives represent great and fascinating stories.

Rennie Davis (1940-2021)

In 1968, Rennie Davis was part of the famed, or infamous, Chicago 7, who, in 1969 went on trial for their roles in the disruption of the Democratic Convention in 1968.  It is a part of history that is pretty much remembered by only people older than age 60 or so.  Davis, described as a "peace activist" in his obits, died at the age of 80, and spent much of his life as an environmental activist.  You can learn a bit more about him and the Chicago 7 by watching the current movie "The Trial of The Chicago 7."

Davis (L), with Abbie Hoffman, and Jerry Rubin

Hal Holbrook (1925-2021)

Hal Holbrook had a long and distinguished career on stage, film, and television.  He is known for performing as Mark Twain in one man stage shows, which were great, but I will always remember him as "Deep Throat", the confidential informant to Bob Woodward during the Watergate investigations, in the terrific movie "All The President's Men."  In the obits, Woodard was quoted as saying how well Holbrook captured the essence of the informant, even though no one except Woodward knew his identity.  Want to appreciate Hal Holbrook?  Watch "All The President's Men."

Eugenio Martinez (1922-2021)

Martinez in 1972 after his arrest

Martinez was an exile from Castro's Cuba, a member of the Bay of Pigs invasion, and a longtime CIA operative.  He was also the last surviving member of the crew of burglers that broke into Democratic National Headquarters in the Watergate apartment and office complex in 1972 that led to a long, long chain of events that culminated in the resignation of President Nixon in 1974.  Normally, a guy most associated with a criminal and unconstitutional enterprise would not get recognized here - he is hardly a "friend" - but  the whole story of "Watergate" was and remains so huge, that the passing of the last of the burglers who set the whole thing in motion should be noted.

Marty Schottemheimer (1943-2021)

Schottenheimer with another western PA 

football player of some consequence

I could be writing about Marty Schottenheimer's passing because he was a western Pennsylvania athlete of some note. Or because he had a distinguished career at the University of Pittsburgh in the early 1960's and played in the AFL.  Or because he was great NFL head coach with the Browns, Chiefs, Washington Football Team, and Chargers where he complied a record of 200-126-1, and spawned a coaching tree that includes Super Bowl winning HC's Bill Cowher, Tony Dungy, Mike McCarthy, Bruce Arians, and Mike Tomlin.  

Instead, though, I am mentioning it because of an incident that my pal Dan related to me a few months ago.  Several years ago, Dan and some of his friends were having lunch at the famed Original Hot Dog Shop in Oakland, near the Pitt campus, and who do they see sitting there eating but Marty Schottenheimer and his wife.  After saying Hello to the Coach, Marty told them, "I'm in town visiting some family, and I just HAD to get a hot dog at The O."  

THAT is a great story.

Leon Spinks (1953-2021)

Leon Spinks won an Olympic Gold Medal in boxing as a light heavyweight in 1976, and in 1978 he shocked the world by defeating a heavily favored Muhammad Ali and becoming the Undisputed Heavyweight Champion of the World.  In fact, I believe that he is the last person to hold a unified and undisputed claim as Heavyweight Champion.  Fame and riches came rapidly to Spinks, and he then became a cautionary tale of what "too much too fast" can do to a person.  In a rematch seven months after that 1978 fight, Ali defeated Spinks, and Leon spiraled down hill quickly.  I remember reading a story that described the day of the Spinks-Ali rematch.  Leon entered the hotel surrounded by an entourage hangers-on and leeches.  You could barely see him among the crowd.  After the fight, Leon returned to the hotel all by himself with no one by his side. 

Mary Wilson (1944-2021)

Wilson (L), Florence Ballard, Diana Ross

The Supremes

Mary Wilson was an original and founding member of the Primettes, a name that Motown's Barry Gordy didn't like and changed to The Supremes.  They were, simply put, the greatest "Girl Group" of all time.  The news of Miss Wilson's death today prompted me to listen to some of The Supremes greatest hits, and you should do the same.  It is time well spent.  A quote for Mary Wilson that appeared in one of her obits today:

"My whole life is like a dream.  I tell you, if I were not a Supreme, I would want to be a Supreme."

Enjoy a little Baby Love from 1964  from The Supremes:

https://youtu.be/ZAWSiWtUK2s

RIP to all six of these Absent Friends.