MLB Central Time

National League: 

 

 

1. Chicago Cubs:  Milwaukee caught lightning in a jar in 2025, but it’s hard to imagine that happening twice. On paper, the Cubs lineup and pitching is superior. Busch showed unexpected power, Crow-Armstrong is a star in the making, Happ should hit better this year, they added Bregman and Conforto, and Hoerner and Swanson are solid. Regulars Horton, Suzuki, and Austin are on the IL, but the Cubbies can cover until they come back. I’m not so sure about Boyd is a # 1 hurler, but Imanaga, Horton, and Taillon are good and they lifted Cabrera from Miami and stuck the Yankees with Weathers, the definition of a bum.

What could go wrong? The bullpen could implode without a real closer. They shuffle two catchers, one of whom hits for average but has no power and the other his opposite.

2. Pittsburgh Pirates: Last year I picked the Bucs to win the Central and they cratered. This year I’ll be slightly more cautious. Let’s start with the obvious. Skenes is the best pitcher in baseball not named Skubal. Chandler, their number one prospect, joins the staff fulltime this year. Keller has the stuff to be better. The lineup bulked up to give support to Reynolds. Lowe, Ozuna, and O’Hearn will help. Heralded prospect Griffin is knocking at the door.

What could go wrong? The big question is whether they’ve added enough. The 4,5 pitchers are suspect as is the relief staff. The lineup has holes that last year hit near the Mendoza Line. Do the Bucs break out or back up the van?

3. Milwaukee Brewers: Based on last year they get picked for a Wild Card, but I still shake my head at how the Brew Crew won 97 games last year. Woodruff is good, but not an ace; Misiorowski hasn’t been as good as his press clippings, Priester is on the IL, and both pitching prospects Harrison and Patrick are suspect until they prove otherwise. Megill is a fine closer. The Brewers mashed last year. Yelich and Chourio should again and perhaps (William) Contreas will also, but this is not the same lineup as last year.

What can go wrong? Quite a lot. They’ve got a hitter named Ortiz, but it’s Joey not David. Their outfield is thin and an injury to Chourio or Yelich would be devastating. In so-called small market terms, the Brewers lost more than they gained over the offseason, including Peralta, last year’s ace. Montas left as well, but no one will lose sleep over that. More harmful was the loss of Rule 5 players close to readiness.

4. Cincinnati Reds: Speaking of teams I don’t trust, I offer the Reds. De La Cruz should be a superstar. He’s faster than a congressman leaving for summer break, but he has a history starting hot and finishing in the just-okay middle. They did score big by signing Suarez, who belted 49 homers last year.  Abbott is a good starter and Pagan one of the better closers. Skipper Terry Francona is their X-factor.

What can go wrong? Other than Suarez at the plate and De La Cruz on the base paths, the lineup has a few guys who occasionally shine, but quite a few who don’t. The same is true of the pitching. They’d have to go full Milwaukee-2025 to be in the running.

5. St. Louis Cardinals: The Cards are in a rebuild and it’s probably going to be a long few years in St. Loo. Herrera hit the most homers of any current Cardinal at just 19. There won’t be many guys pitching you’ve heard of and the same goes for the everyday players. I won’t bother with what could go wrong. Count every loss under 90 as a moral victory.

American League:

 

 

1. It’s hard to argue against the Detroit Tigers. Skubal is amazing and Mize is a young arm who’d be their best were it not for Skubal. Valdez is pretty good too and one suspects Flaherty will rebound. Jansen is 38, but he’s still closing and doing it well. Torkelson isn’t flashy, but he hit 31 dingers in 2025. The Yankees should have never parted with Torres, and top prospects McGonigle and Keith should be ready to go. If either one falters the Striped Cats have Baez to step in. Greene hit 37 homers and drove in 111 last year.

What could go wrong? Sentiment aside, 43-year-old Verlander will pitch on experience but not much else. Toledo lefthander Miller might take his role sooner than later. The outfielders beyond Greene don’t hit a ton. More like 3 lb. weights. We might see prospect Max Clark sometime this summer.

2. Kansas City Royals: are capable, if the Tigers don’t seize the day. Witt might be the AL’s best shortstop and Perez its best catcher. Pasquantino is an up-and-coming slugger. If Lugo can bounce back from a down year and Wacha continues to eat innings, KC could surprise. Estevez will close the door on close games, as he did 42 times last year.

What could go wrong? Like the Tigers, the outfield is more hope than output. I expect to see (Starling) Marte take somebody’s job. For all its potential, only Bubic had a (barely) winning record among starters and their top prospects are in the low minors. I might also mention that KC was 2025’s sexy pick in the AL Central and went 82-80.

3. The Cleveland Guardians won the Central last year and few managers do as much with constant turnover as Vogt. The only guys who jump out at you in the lineup are (Jose) Ramirez and Hoskins (via the Brewers). How do they do it? Pitching, mainly, but they lost a starter (Means) over the winter plus four relievers. They still have (Gavin) Williams and Bibee, who underperformed in 2025. What could go wrong? Every year it’s an open question how Cleveland’s Scotch tape roster will perform. Vogt will get the best out of his players, but he will need luck this year as the talent is either inexperienced or mediocre. Luckily, they have one of the best pipelines of minor league talent. I doubt that everyone projected to be a starter will be so by midseason. Lefty Messick is their top pitching prospect but if he’s not ready, the staff will be challenged.

4. The Minnesota Twins have (Joe) Ryan as their ace and he’s a lot better than many people think. Other than Woods Richardson, though, the rest pushes the mediocrity needle to its far edge unless the prospects are Skenes clones. Buxton had a monster year at the plate last year, but ask me if I think he’ll duplicate it.

What could go wrong? I’ll admit it; I freaking hate the Twins. Every year they whine about being a small market team, though it’s a top-20 media locale of nearly four million and is owned by the filthy rich Pohland family. They seldom spend real money on talent and act as if they are saints for keeping the Twins in Minnesota. Memo: These guys just aren’t good enough.

5.  The Chicago White Sox lost more than 100 games last year. They will be better this year but there’s still a long road from here to respectability. The Sox will field a lot of pitchers who are more like household rumors than household names. They have Acuna and Sosa in the lineup, but it’s Luisangel and Lenyn, not Ronald or Sammy. Teel is on the IL but is a promising catcher. Murakami came over from Japan and is allegedly a powerful hitter with an iron glove. Hays, plucked from free agency is a good player. Benintendi hit 20 homers last year, but no one knows how. The Chi Sox allegedly have the second-best farm system in MLB. We’ll likely see some of those lads this summer.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

MLB: How to Buy the West

 

 

 

Full confession: I don’t scout the West very much, so if there’s a kid who busts out to be a rookie of the year candidate, my apologies.

 

National League

 

1. The cream of the NL West, if not all of MLB is the Los Angeles Dodgers, the two-time defending World Series champion. They’re probably the best team in Japan as well, which is where they’ve cherrypicked talent lately. They are what a billion dollars in salary get you because when the Dodgers were bad, MLB made a sweetheart deal that allowed LA to hide salaries via deferred payments, write-offs, and tax-dodges.

            They have MLB’s best everyday player, Ohtani, who might be their second-best pitcher as well. Glasnow, Snell, and Yamamoto can also throw pretty well, and they scooped up Edwin Diaz in free agency to stabilize the bullpen and still have Tanner Scott. And who wouldn’t a daily lineup that includes Ohtani, Freeman, Betts, Rojas, Hernandez, Smith, and 2026’s prize free agent, Kyle Tucker?

 

Weaknesses? The bullpen before you get to Scott or Diaz is quite hittable. Sasaki impresses those who think speed is everything, but batters have figured him out. Plus, he’s on the IL. 

 

2. The San Diego Padres turned over their roster, but kept key pitchers like Cease, King, Darvish, and Musgrave. They might have the NL’s best relief pitcher in young Mason Miller, added innings guy Pivetta, and the rest of their staff is made up of Yankees castoffs such as Brito, Marinaccio, Peralta, and Vasquez. That’s not a bad thing, as New York has fallen into a bad habit of dumping useful players for bets on those who aren’t. San Diego may have done the same thing with signing Bueler, who looks gassed, and Castellanos the worst outfielder in MLB and a known clubhouse distraction. The lineup, though is formidable with bats such as Bogaerts, Machado, Tatis Jr. and Laureano. Their bullpen might be better than that of the Dodgers.

 

Weaknesses? There are weak spots after jettisoning Kim and Solano. Will catcher Fermin handle the staff as well as Higashioka?

 

3. I’m not sold on this pick, but I think the Arizona Diamondbacks will squeeze out third place based on very good pitching staff: Kelly (currently on the IL) , Burnes, Gallen, Pfadtt, and (hopefully) Eduardo Martinzez, who are on the IL. 

 

Weaknesses? Other than Carroll, Marte, and (they hope) the aging Arendo there aren’t many hitters who will ruin a good pitcher’s sleep. Last year, the D’Backs had the worst bullpen in baseball and adding the ruined arm of Loaisiga is unlikely to help.

 

4. The San Franciso Giants:  I could have jumped straight to weaknesses, but I should give a shout out to Ray and Webb, who are good pitchers, gold glove outfielder Bader, high OBP hitter Arraez who seems always to be on base, and Chapman or Devers who can knock him in.

 

Weaknesses: More holes than a hobo’s socks. They are slow, swing at too many bad pitches, and lack power. Plus, new manager Tony Vitello has only college baseball experience. He may turn out to be a good skipper, but I doubt that will be this year.

 

5. Would someone fold the deckchairs on the U.S.S. Colorado Rockies? They lost 119 games last year and could lose 120 this year. Other than Freeland, Lorenzen, and (I Need a New Agent) Kris Bryant you won’t have heard of any of the kids who will be playing for the Rockies this year. Best Case Scenario: By the end of the season a couple of hopeful prospects will have emerged but nobody seems to know if there’s any sort of plan, let alone a “grand” one.

 

 

 

 

American League:

 

1. I’m seldom sold on the Seattle Mariners, but they should have enough to prevail again in the flawed AL West. First, though, hats off to catcher Cal Raleigh who slammed 60 homers last year. He probably won’t duplicate that in 2026, but he has other decenthitters around him: Naylor, Julio Roriguez, Crawford, Canzone, Robles and newcomers Donovan and Refsnyder. The staff is anchored by Castillo and Woo.

 

Weaknesses: The Mariners tend to look great on paper but have too many players who have been less than the sum of their parts. Castillo is said to be an ace, but he’s 84-84 lifetime and has had a winning record in just three of his 9 years in MLB. Robles is the hitter equivalent, 9 years in the majors, but a .247 hitter based mainly on two great years and has never had more than 17 homers. I’ll go on record as saying that top prospect Colt Emerson will be an early call-up. The M’s should rock the AL West but don’t blame me if it’s merely a mild shake.

 

2. Here’s my wild prediction for 2026. The Athletics (playing in Sacramento but with no city designation) will finish second in the AL West. (Once they move into their very ugly domed stadium in Las Vegas, we need never care about them again!) The A’s have done a nice job of bringing along young hitters mixed with a few veterans. Four A’s hit 25 or more homers in 2025: Soderstrom (25), Rooker (30), Langeliers (31), and Kurtz (36).

 

Weaknesses? Here’s where my optimism could turn to foolishness. You’ll notice there are no pitchers mentioned. Their top three relievers (after trading Miller) had a total of seven saves between them and all five of their starters had ERAs well north of four. They are depending on Luis Severino to be their ace. He’s a guy the Yankees released and went 8-11 for the A’s last year. Look for young pitchers Gage Jump and Jack Perkins to breakout early, or this young A’s team will finish fourth, not second.

 

3. The Houston Astros are a shell of what they were are their apex, but they’re still a decent ballclub. Walker, Altuve, Pena, and Correa make up one of the best infields in the AL now that Correa has moved to third to allow Penna to take over short. Diaz is strong behind the plate and Hader is one of the best closers around. Brown is considered their number one starter given Javier’s fall off in 2025, and they have high hopes for Japanese starter Imai, though a lot of other clubs passed on him. If McCullers and Burrows pitch to their potential, the ‘Stros will have strong pitching.

 

Weaknesses? The outfield is a wing and a prayer. Put another way, put the three starters together and they don’t add up to one Kyle Tucker. Don’t be surprised if prospect Matthews and Cole displace a few incumbents in late spring. Walker is a fine defensive first baseman, but his inconsistent bat is why teams that needed one didn’t pursue him back in 2024.

 

4. If the A’s are a fantasy pick and the Astros don’t up their game, the rebuilding Texas Rangers could move up a slot or two. Eovaldi and de Grom are frontline starters. Everyday players include Nimmo (from the Mets), Aroldis Garcia, Seager, and Langford, the latter a young player with the ceiling of a star.

 

Weaknesses?  The Rangers are quite thin everywhere. Look for Higashioka to displace Jansen as catcher but overall, the Rangers simply can’t afford injuries to key players like de Grom, Altuve, or Langford. Even if they stay healthy, they’ll be several pieces short. Robert Garcia is their closer and had but nine last year. If he goes down, the ball goes to Beeks. (Really?) Walcott, still just 18, has raked this spring and might hit his way into the lineup.

 

5. Unless Santa Claus, the Easter Bunny, and the Great Pumpkin collectively work magic the Los Angeles (really Anaheim) Angels will be hard-pressed to improve on 2025’s 99-loss season. They redid their pitching staff, which shouldn’t have been hard, but gave up their third best hitter, Taylor Ward, to acquire Grayson Rodriguez who has a dead arm. Deters is their number 3 guy and he was in bullpen last year. Neither # 1 nor # 2 (Soriano and Kikkuchi) had winning records. If I asked you who was their best hitter, you’d be tempted to say Trout, except his line last year was .232/26/64. Adell’s 37 homers led the club.

 

Weaknesses? Everywhere. When a bust like Moncada is your new third baseman, you’re in trouble. Ditto When the two guys pegged to close games are vets who collectively had four last year. The Angels should do the kind thing and trade Trout to the Dodgers for a truckload of prospects.

 

 

Iron Sky: Terrible Movie, but Great Camp!

 

 

 

 

IRON SKY (2012/2019)

Directed by Timo Vourensola

Walt Disney Studio Motion Pictures, 111 minutes, R (language, violence?)

★★ (but four stars for camp)

 

There’s no quiz to follow, but see if you can follow this. The 2019 movie Iron Sky is based on a 2012 movie in Finnish directed by Timo Vourensola. It never made it to the United States, but it was made into a video game and sequel that got a lot of play (as it were). They, in turn, spawned a crowdfunding campaign to get the movie into theaters overseas. Iron Sky hit North America in 2019 and promptly bombed!

 

Iron Sky was marketed as a sci-fi action comedy. It might have been better to call it comedy and camp. As a movie, Iron Sky makes schlock master Ed Wood’s 1957 Plan 9 from Outer Space look like 2001: A Space Odyssey. It involves space Nazis who fled to the dark side of the moon after their defeat in 1945. There’s no explanation of how they built their space compound, but it’s best not to waste time trying to figure it out. For our purposes we can assume that Doktor Richter (Tilo Prückner), an Albert Einstein parody, had something to do with it. Current Führer Wolfgang Kortzfleisch (Udo Kier) has been watching Earth during the brief moment in which the dark side of the moon is lighted. He knows that two Americans are on their way to investigate their area and sends several troopers to intercept them. When a white astronaut resists, he is killed, though they are uncertain what to do with the jive-talking, decidedly non-Aryan James Washington (Christopher Kirby).

 

Meanwhile, back at die ranch, we meet Klaus Adler (Götz Otto), a dunderheaded Nazi fanatic who dreams of becoming Führer, of marrying Richter’s daughter Renate (Julie Dietze), and of home-growing a herd of little Nazis. Renate makes all the right noises, but she knows a 5-watt bulb when she sees one. She also develops the hots for Washington and is fascinated by his black skin. Adler would happily dispatch Washington, but first he needs to learn about Washington’s iPhone, which might have the computing power that will make the giant Nazi Götterdämmerung (twilight of the gods) attack ship into an invincible weapon. Washington gets another break when its battery dies, but there’s always his iPad to consider. Instead, Adler uses drugs to albinize Washington. Like most of the Nazi “advances,” it makes Washington only marginally Aryan, more grey than white. Adler eventually assassinates Kortzfleisch to become Führer and orders preparations for an invasion of Earth.

 

If you have any doubts left whether Iron Sky was intended to be a parody, we find out that U.S. president Stephane Powell–a dead ringer for Sarah Palin–concocted the entire moon landing as part of marketing scheme to get her reelected so she can continue to use workout machines on taxpayer dollars. She is roughly as stupid and arrogant as Adler, and her Secretary of Defense is dumber still. Plus, it’s all about harvesting helium-3 from the moon. When the UN has the audacity to complain–the Russian delegate throws his shoes–a takedown of Nikita Khruschev’s famed shoe-banging meltdown at the U.N. in 1960–the U.S. claims everything belongs to them. (There is a funny putdown of North Korean threats involved in all of this nonsense.)  

 

What ensues is something short of The War of the Worlds that looks like a steampunk invasion by a Nazi fleet of zeppelins, Richter’s flying saucer, and a rush to engage or sabotage the Götterdämmerung. Alt.history further abounds in that the U.S. arsenal is headed by the starship U.S.S. George W. Bush. Figures change sides, but Renate sees beyond his albinizing and retains her hots for James Washington.

 

Who wins? Well, that’s not the point. Director Vourensola lifted ideas from war movies, 1950s Japanese sci-fi, Buck Rogers, Star Trek, and anything else that wasn’t welded in place. The entire story is ridiculous. Even the Götterdämmerung looks like something Terry Gilliam cooked up for Brazil (1985). In sum, Iron Sky is a terrible movie, but it’s bad enough to be classic B-movie camp. You could do worse than to invite your silliest friends over for beer, junk food, and hoots. Pair it with Space 9 and you will need to detox for at least a month before tackling any sort of serious film.

 

Rob Weir

 

Jupiter Ascending to Bad Film Status

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

JUPITER ASCENDING (2015)

Directed by Lana and Lilly Wachowski

Warner Brothers, PG-13 (dorsal nudity), 127 minutes)

★★

 

Although it’s baffling to consider, some sci-fi hipster critics liked Jupiter Ascending when it debuted. Very few others in North America agreed. I suspect the fans of this piece of space dreck convinced themselves that Lana and Lilly Wachowski were real directors rather than two trans-women pulling the wool over their eyes. (The Wachowskis also ruined Cloud Atlas and much of The Matrix series.)

 

I’ll attempt to untangle the plot, though I’m not sure it can be done. It opens in Chicago where Jupiter Jones (Mila Kunis) has a shitty job. Literally. She cleans toilets and does housekeeping for hire. As for her name, she has fond memories of her father showing her his telescope and her favorite planet was Jupiter. (Isn’t that an ex post facto explanation?) When he died (was harvested?) Jupiter’s Russian-American family descended to life’s margins. They are so cash-poor that she tries to sell her eggs for cash. Jupiter is strapped onto a gurney and surrounded by nurses-not-nurses. They are actually “Keepers” trying to kill her because her genetic signature makes her the heir to the throne of Abrasax.

 

Forget Genesis or evolution; Earth was actually seeded by transhuman aliens from Jupiter embroiled in an inheritance squabble. Balem (a creepy, pasty Eddie Redmayne) gets the business empire; Kalique (Tuppence Middleton) is given two planets, and Titus (Douglas Booth) blows his inheritance on a fancy spaceship. The transhumans look human, but they have special powers and have developed a youth elixir that gives them the ability to step into a pool wrinkled and step out youthful. They only die if they choose to or if they are murdered, the fate of the last queen of the House of Abrasax. This would have been Jupiter’s fate as well, were it not for the intervention of Caine Wise (Channing Tatum) an ex-military “Hunter” who rescues her before whirling blades carved her into pieces. (Shades of Perils of Pauline,” 1914!)

 

Why would a genetically-modified Hunter swoop in with a flying device that’s a cross between Timberlakes and an invisible surfboard? Apparently, Caine once had a pair of wings that were cut off for insubordination. At least that’s the backstory. Everyone wants Queen Jupiter and are willing to cut a deal. Balem especially desires her as he has a marry/kill/inherit plan to harvest Earth to build a reserve of youth serum. (Don’t ask, but it’s a bit like Soylent Green, 1973.)  Did I mention the talking, flying carnivorous dinosaurs? I suppose they are there to remind us that humans aren’t as smart or as evolutionarily advanced as we think we are. But my money is on dinosaurs as toss-ins for the special effects (by John Gaeta) that most viewers find impressive. But don’t despair, the plot gets worse.

 

For some reason, though Caine’s training is supposed to make him immune, he is attracted to Jupiter. She is certainly coming on to him. It’s his biceps, I think. Caine tries to hide Jupiter on Earth at the home of another de-winged Hunter, Stinger Apini (Sean Bean). Of course, if the House of Abrasax found her genetic signature on Earth once, they can do it again, so the entire sequence serves only to bring Stinger into a Hunter buddy picture (after a fistfight, of course) and for Jupiter to discover that she can control bees. Cue Aegis International, a galactic law enforcement group, with a spaceship whose captain (Nikki Amuka-Bird) commands with the coolness and authority of James Tiberius Kirk. The goal is to seek sanctuary in one of Kalique’s planets, but for reasons that warped past me, they end up on Jupiter again where Balem tries first to shotgun-marry Jupiter–he is holding her family hostage and has imprisoned Caine–but you can write the cliched ending from here. Especially if you’ve seen the ending of the first Superman movie.

 

The special effects and cinematography of John Toll are pretty neat, even in service of a very bad movie. For some reason, the Wachowskis pegged Jupiter Ascending a “space opera.” I only get that if they meant that the girl ends up with the right guy, but wouldn’t that make it a “space romance?” It takes itself far too seriously to be camp. Let’s call it a “friggin’ mess” and be done with it. Awards? Eddie Redmayne got a Golden Raspberry for Worst Supporting Actor. In 2015, Jupiter was trounced by a SpongeBob sequel at the box office.

 

Rob Weir

 

 

The Godfather Reconsidered

I planned to post this last Friday, but how does review three of the greatest American films ever made: the Godfather trilogy (Paramount Pictures)–made by director Francis Ford Coppola. Collectively they cost about $74 million to make and raked in over $800 million worldwide. They also garnered 28 Oscar nominations.

Everyone from Cicero (first century AD) on has proclaimed, …there is honor among thieves,” but The Godfather casts doubt on that. The films hold up well, even though it’s rare these days to hear much about the Mafia, aka/ La Cosa Nostra (“Our Thing”).

Godfather One (175 minutes, R, ★★★★★) came out in 1972 with the impact of a machine gun fired on a crowded street. If you’ve ever wondered why Marlon Brando was such a big deal, see this film. Brando took the Best Actor Oscar for his portrayal of Vito Corleone, the head (Don) of the Five Families crime syndicate in New York. All three films are a family affair; check the casts and you’ll find numerous people with the surname of Coppola.

The films’ Corleone family was based upon the Luciano family headed in New York by Frank Costello. Vito is in the twilight of his life, though he worries over who should head the family in the future. Frederico (“Fredo”/John Cazle) is the second oldest son, but has been given the job of go-fer because he doesn’t have enough grey matter. The first baton passes to the volatile “Sonny” (James Caan) who doesn’t understand his father’s patience-then-vengeance strategy. Vito dotes over younger brother Michael (Al Pacino) whom he hopes will go to college and make the Corleone family respectable. He does, however, have reservations about his girlfriend Kay Adams (Diane Keaton) who isn’t Italian.

Vito knows that Virgil Sollozzo (Al Lettieri) is pushing for the Godfather’s blessing to go into selling narcotics, but Corleone disapproves of the activity. This makes him an obstacle for the Tattaglia family. Disputes such as this generally begin with a summit meeting followed by gang warfare. Intrigue begins during the wedding of Connie Corleone (Talia Shire) to a wise guy. Even as Johnny Fontane (Al Martino) croons amidst the blue hairs and Mama Corleone (Mary King) tries to keep a watchful eye upon events, Vito huddles with Tom Hagen (Robert Duvall), his consiglieri and an unofficially adopted Corleone. When the dust settles, Michael’s college dreams fall apart because family honor demands it. Michael cleans up the Tattaglia mess, but because he dispatched crooked cop Captain McCluskey (Sterling Hayden) Michael is sent to Sicily to hide until things settle down. He even acquires an Italian wife who becomes collateral damage before his return and marriage to Kay.

The Godfather has the complexity of a Greek tragedy. A lot of chances are taken, most of which were blood-soaked successes. Note that Pacino and Duvall went on to glory, but were relative unknowns at the time. The film won 7 Oscars with Coppola and novelist Mario Puzo sharing one for Best Adapted Screenplay. In most lists, Godfather I trails only Citizen Kane as the greatest American drama of all time. By the way, one of the film’s assassinations pays homage to Arthur Penn’s Bonnie and Clyde (1967).  

 

 

Godfather Two (1974, 200 minutes, R, ★★★ ½) is often considered a continuation of the 1972 film. Many critics declared it superior to the first film. IMHO, it’s the weakest of the three. Oscars are often meted out to those who should have won for previous films. Coppola won two more Oscars, his father Carmine won for Best Dramatic Score, and Robert DeNiro got a Best Supporting Actor statue for his role as both Tom Hagen and as Vito Corleone in his twenties. Ironically, Godfather II is mostly about Michael’s rise to the Mob throne but Al Pacino did not win an Oscar for any of the three films, possibly because he was competing against himself as Best Actor. (He was also nominated for Dog Day Afternoon.)

Coppola did something daring in the second film; he made it both a prequel and a sequel. It cuts back and forth between the 1920s and 1958-63. We discover that Vito Andolini was born in the Sicilian town of Corleone. Nine-year-old Vito fled Sicily for New York in 1901, because Mafiosi Don Cicci (Joe Spinell) killed the rest of his family. He bore the name Corleone after Ellis Island officials confused his birthplace and surname. Vito survived in the streets by theft, but becomes a person of substance when he kills Don Fanuci (a wonderfully bombastic Gastone Moschin), a local neighborhood fixer. He also marries and fathers Sonny (James Caan), Fredo (John Cazale), and Michael (Pacino). Connie was born on a ship back to America. In 1922, Vito and his associates go back to Sicily, ostensibly to get Cicci’s blessing for an olive oil export business. Cicci is old and doesn’t recognize Vito but learns just before Vito disembowels his family’s killer.

The sequel parts follow Michael’s reluctant rise to his apex power. He has enterprises in both Cuba just before Castro’s 1959 takeover and at Lake Tahoe. You might need a scorecard to keep track of who is loyal to the Corleone family and who is feigning friendship in the hope of supplanting Michael. Several powerful enemies emerge in this cat-and-mouse game: the Pentangeli family, Jewish mobster Hyman Roth (Lee Strasberg), and others. Michael’s plans for going legit–including promises made to his wife Kay (Diane Keaton) get lost in bloodshed, Congressional investigations into organized crime–based on real-life situations revealed in Valachi Papers and hearings in 1963–and in Fredo’s incompetence. After Mama Corleone dies, Fredo “drowns” (read shot and dumped) in Lake Tahoe.

Brando wasn’t in this film, he proved too expensive and too much of a pain in the old keister. (He infamously refused his Oscar in 1973 and designated Sacheen Littlefeather to harangue the Academy on the plight of Native Americans.) 

 

 

Godfather Three (1990, 179 minutes, R, ★★★★) is said to be unfathomable unless you’ve seen parts one and two. That’s true, but it’s much more coherent than the flashback style of part two. Michael is nearing 60, suffers remorse from ordering Fredo’s murder, and is divorced from Kay. He realizes that he has been on the same trajectory as his father and is weary of all the betrayals and murders. This time he means it when he says he wants out, but given that “family” is the Corleone keystone principle he keeps getting sucked back into the things he hates. He does make an agreement with Kay that their son Anthony (Franc D’Ambrosio) can pursue a music career instead of inheriting the family “business.” His daughter Mary (Sofia Coppola) isn’t blind to her father’s doings, but she dotes on him. Her one transgression is that she has a love affair with her first cousin Vincent (Andy García), an ambitious and sanguinary hothead. Connie (Talia Shire) convinces Michael to allow Vincent to set up a meeting with rival Joey Zasa (Joe Mantega), which ends badly, though Michael is impressed by Vincent’s loyalty. He tasks him with pretending to leave the Corleone family to get inside that of Don Altobello (Eli Wallach), who plans to assassinate Michael.   

Mainly Godfather Part Three is about how Michael fails to go straight. He has given tens of millions to charity and has been awarded a prestigious medal from the Catholic Church in the hope of making even more money by taking over Internazionale Immobiliare, a worldwide real estate firm. Michael has also been approached by Archbishop Gilday (a rat-faced Donal Donnelly), who heads the Vatican Bank and is more than $750,000 in arrears. Michael recognizes a swindler when he sees one, but he needs the Vatican’s support to secure a government commission’s okay for the real estate firm that would allow him to go legit. We learn that Michael has a gory plan for the crime families who want him to share the wealth.

There are emotionally affecting sequences in which Michael makes his confession to Cardinal Lamberto (Raf Vallone) in Palermo, where he, Kay, Mary, and Vincent traveled to hear Anthony’s operatic debut. Lamberto tells Michael he deserves to suffer but offers him absolution; shortly thereafter Lamberto becomes Pope John Paul I, who many believe was poisoned by Vatican Bank conspirators to sandbag his vow to reorganize it. It’s also satisfying to see the demise of Archbishop Gilday. Michael, though, will suffer the deaths of two people so close to him that he is reduced to a writhing version of Edvard Munch’s “The Scream.” I would given Pacino an Oscar just for his gut-wrenching depiction of pure anguish. The film’s coda shows an aged, l hollowed out Michael sitting in a chair in a small Sicilian town waiting to die. We learn that.

Part Three has a central glue lacking in Part Two but any way you slice it, Francis Ford Coppola’s Godfather trilogy is a masterpiece. Coppola was just 33 when he made the first film and it’s tempting to think that perhaps he peaked too early. The acting throughout is spectacular, even if Part Three won no Oscars and Sofia Coppola was awarded two Golden Raspberry trophies for bad acting. (She wasn’t that bad!) Coppola’s morality play about family, loyalty, ambition, greed, betrayal, revenge, and Catholic guilt continues to resonate, even when the period detail appears dated. The storyline is filled with fictional characters, but it is based on things that did happen.  

Rob Weir

 

 

 

 

 

Another Circle Around the Sun

Did Emerson really say this? If he didn't, he should  have.

Once upon a time there was a five-year-old boy who spent summers on his grandparents’ farm. When he got older, he’d help with chores, but when he was young, he had the whole day to toss a rubber ball against the shed wall and pretend to be a baseball player. When he got tired on that activity he’d lie in the grass and imagine shapes in the clouds. Once he asked his grandma how old he’d be in the year 2000 and she told him he’d be close to 50. He returned to lying on the grass to contemplate being 50, but he couldn’t. He concluded that no one was actually that old.

A fairy tale? Nope. I was that little boy and when 2000 came around it seemed unfathomable that my grandparents had been dead for many years and I actually had only a few years until I reached the half century mark. I’ve heard it said that time speeds up as one gets older. Intellectually I know that’s not true. A day is still 24 hours and it still takes 365 ¼ of them to add up to a year. Yet, before I knew it, I was 60, then 70. I remember turning 40 because I was a high school teacher monitoring a study hall, a task akin to telling dogs not to chase squirrels.  A funny, delightful 8^th grade sprite named Julie bounded up to my desk and asked me if I knew that Paul McCartney “was in a band before Wings.” Tremulously I asked, “Do you mean The Beatles?” Her answer stunned me: “Yeah, that’s the one. Ever hear of them?” I was gobsmacked and told her to return to her seat, that I was depressed and would explain the next day, but I just couldn’t that moment. I felt ancient.

That’s the only reason I can remember 40, but if you ask me what happened on other birthdays, things get hazy. I recall thinking of my grandma at 50, but I haven’t the slightest idea about 60 or 70. Those blanks have nothing to do with being older per se–though it does freak me out to think of myself as a bona fide “senior citizen”–it’s that I’ve reached that awkward time in which my mental outlook is out of whack with my body’s age. I see myself as 28, until I try to grab a word or a name that’s not perched on the tip of my tongue, lift something heavier than a baguette, or try to keep pace with my speed-walking wife. I even took a memory test and pretty much aced verbal recall. (I was hopeless with shapes and drawing, but that didn’t faze me as I was always a person you’d never trust with a building or art project.) For the most part, all the knowledge I’ve acquired is still somewhere in my brain, though it takes me longer to retrieve things. A common phrase I use these days is, “I’ll think of the answer five minutes into my drive home,” and it’s usually the case.

But I can’t pretend that my body hasn’t changed. I try not to whinge about that as there are lots of people who have it worse than I–friends with cancer, heart problems, or Parkinson’s, those who’ve lost spouses, or have died. Another of my running jokes is that I awake each morning and check my pulse to make sure I’m still here. I try my best to deny it, but the reality is that my future is behind me. Another reality is that the 70s often hurt. I have a terrible back that aches all the time unless I’m too distracted to cry “ouch!” Compacted discs have robbed me of over two inches of height and I have neuropathy in my right leg resultant of having had only a partially successful laminectomy. Once I tripped over a tree root and smacked face down on the sidewalk with blood coming from my mouth. I feared I would lose my front teeth, though luckily, I had only a condition I had never heard of: sprained teeth. I also had a brain bleed a decade ago that, luckily again, was not an aneurysm or stroke. But enough with the organ recital. Again, many people have suffered more. I can’t recover my 28-year-old body, but I can be grateful for each new day.

Today is another birthday. It doesn’t end in five or zero, so it’s not a birthday that gets labeled “a Big One.” I’ll have my free Herrell’s sundae, a meal of my choice, and a slice of my favorite birthday dessert: carrot cake. Please hold the jokes that begin, “Wow! That’s a lot of sugar for an old dude like you.” Hold them because the other thing that will happen today is that many of you will send me fond birthday wishes. The best thing of being in my 70s is that I have collected a lot of friends, former students who still say in touch, and professional associates who like me. And that, my friends, is the best birthday gift anyone my age could ever wish to have.

Peace,

Rob

 

 

Trump is Courting Disaster

I planned to post this earlier but my first draft was as long as War and Peace. It’s still wordy, but it’s abridged.

Donald Trump’s ratings are in the dump, and you don’t need to be a genius to figure out that he’s not one! The war against Iran gives him a stage to play hero. It is, though, it’s a tragic comedy. He and I share one thing in common: Neither of us served in the U.S. military. Too bad the Orange Snollygoster didn’t study history; he’d know that reviews of his farce will not be good.

An advisor to Genghis Khan once said, “… one can conquer [China] on horseback, but one cannot govern it on horseback.” In modern terms this sagacious aphorism means that armed forces can conquer, but they cannot build stable nations. Victory parades–real or manufactured – are feel-good moments, but boots on the ground should march home once wars are over. Rebuilding is the work of financiers, planners, diplomats, and–above all else–honest indigenous leaders. An oft-repeated narrative holds that the United State “rebuilt” Europe and Japan after World War II. If you mean American dollars, yes. If you mean much beyond that, no! Don’t confuse what was made possible with American dollars and what was implemented by leaders and institutions.

The American government embraced men like Atlee and Churchill in Britain, General de Gaulle in France, Adenauer in West Germany, Nehru in India, and a chastened Hirohito in Japan. They were needed to execute postwar initiatives such the World Bank, the International Monetary Fund, the gold standard, the General Agreement on Trade and Tariffs, and the United Nations. Democracy? The United States has long been inconsistent on that score. We even smuggled ex-Nazis out of Europe to work on military projects. Some erstwhile leaders were weak, plutocrats, or unsavory tyrants: the Saud family in Arabia, the Shah in Iran, the Hashemites in Iraq, Ben-Gurion in Israel, Chiang Kai-Shek in China, King Sihanouk in Cambodia, Syngman Rhee in Korea, Fulgencio Baptista in Cuba….

With the exceptions of Britain and Japan, most of those mentioned above proved to be intransigent or catastrophic. China quickly fell to Mao Zedong, who became a communist after the U.S. refused to support him; ditto Fidel Castro! Charles de Gaulle quarreled with virtually everyone and demanded that Vietnam be returned as a colonial possession; Nehru insisted India would follow a Third Way that was neither Western nor communist; and Germany was cut in half. Others made no pretense at being democratic: Baptista, antisemitic Palestinians, Ben-Gurion’s perpetual warfare policies in Israel, the robber baron mentality of the Saudis and Hashemites, radical nationalists in Africa, Asia, and the Middle East.

Korea was the first mess. Rhee was an authoritarian leader who bilked South Korea after the wartime trusteeship dissolved. North Korea became communist and the Korean War (1950-53) saw a loss of over 730,000 Korean and 36,500 American lives. It took until 1987 for U.S. ally South Korea to cast off authoritarian rule.

Modern scholars view Korea as a dress rehearsal for the disastrous Vietnam War (1955-75). It collapsed the French government and wasted billions of U.S. dollars and left three million Vietnamese and over 58,000 Americans dead. The U.S. tried to remake the South in its image, including relocating 4.3 million Vietnamese into “strategic hamlets” provisioned with US goods. The war tore apart U.S. society and ended when communists overran South Vietnam, Laos, and Cambodia. Whatever the U.S. was selling was soundly rejected.

Since the end of World War II Korea and Vietnam have been the template for force-feeding democracy and the American Way of Life. The bulk of U.S. military interventions have been utter failures. We’ve sent troops to Africa–especially Liberia, Niger, Nigeria, and Somalia–dozens of times. I’m not seeing any democracies popping off that list. If we move to the Middle East, we’ve sent combat troops to Afghanistan, Iran, Iraq, Kuwait, Lebanon, and Yemen. Afghanistan holds the dubious distinction of being America’s longest war. Before we went there the Taliban ruled. After the dust of 20 years of warfare settled, the Taliban rules. Does anyone remember Arab Spring, which was supposed to be a flowering of liberal democracy? Where?

Maybe you’ve read about the botched Bay of Pigs invasion of Cuba in 1961 or the 1973 removal of the elected Allende in Chile in favor of the despot General Pinochet. But did you know we’ve sent combat soldiers to Central and South America 41 times. We’ve taken out leaders in Haiti and the Dominican Republic, not because they threatened American shores, but because, like Allende, we didn’t like their politics. Tell me what good it has done for the DR or basket-case Haiti. Did you know we’ve been in Peru, Brazil, Lebanon, and Venezuela three times? Yet, the only conflict the U.S. military has “won” in terms of improving standards of living is Grenada, though the Massachusetts State Police could have taken Grenada.

Donald Trump wants a Nobel Peace Prize; that’s unlikely given his meddling in the Gulf of “America,” threats to Denmark over Greenland (!), the war against Iran, his incursion into Venezuela, and bombings of Iraq, Syria, Nigeria, Somalia, and Yemen. Since the end of World War II, approximately 105,000 U.S. personnel have died overseas. Yes, 90% perished in Korea and Vietnam, but what’s the final toll of lives lost (including suicides), PTSD cases, and money spent for counterproductive results? Is it any wonder that the United States has slipped to #14 in global quality of life ratings? But you know that when you go to the grocery store or fill your gas tank!