The Movie 42 More Schmaltzy than Heroic

 

42 (2013)

Directed by Brian Helgeland

Warner Brothers, 128 minutes, PG-13 (racist language)

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Jackie Robinson (1919-72) was a true American hero whose reintegration of Major League Baseball (MLB) was a landmark moment in the struggle for African-American civil rights. To put his achievement in context, Robinson defied prevailing segregation patterns in 1947, a full seven years before the Brown v. the Board of Education decision declared segregated public education unconstitutional, eight years before Rosa Parks refused to move to the back of a Montgomery, Alabama bus, and seventeen years before the 1964 Civil Rights Act dismantled legal Jim Crow systems. In 1997, MLB retired Jackie Robinson’s jersey number 42 and, when Mariano Rivera retires after the 2013 season, no more MLB players will wear it. Does Jackie Robinson deserve a movie? You bet, but he deserves a better one than 42.

42 isn’t horrible–it’s Hollywood. That, of course, is often just a step or two above horrible, and seldom reaches higher than the lowest common denominator. Moreover, with the exception of boxing, few American sports are very convincing on the screen. In some respect, nearly all baseball films are a variant of The Natural, which is to say they are uniformed representations of what the late Joseph Campbell called “the hero’s journey.” In that cycle, an unlikely person–a black man in this case–receives a call to adventure, tries to refuse, is convinced not to by a mentor (Brooklyn Dodgers’ General Manager Branch Rickey), and then crosses the “threshold” from the “ordinary” to the “special” world. The hero is tested, bribed, and threatened before he undergoes a symbolic rebirth and embraces his special mission. In the end, he re-crosses the threshold and returns to the ordinary realm.

That’s the story arc in 42, though the bulk of the film centers on Robinson’s (Chadwick Boseman) relationship with Rickey (Harrison Ford), and how Jackie slowly wins the respect of skeptical and (in some cases) racist teammates during the 1947 MLB season. Because it’s Hollywood, numerous factual liberties are taken in the script (penned by director Helgeland). Boston Globe sportswriter Bob Ryan recently cataloged some of the film’s inaccuracies. These could be forgiven, if they had made the film more dramatic and enhanced our appreciation for Robinson. Alas, the film has a lightweight “Gee whiz!” feel, as if Robinson’s achievement was little more than a collective national task necessary to enhance American greatness. Nonsense! Robinson didn’t tread a teleological path; he thumbed his nose at convention and spat in the face of racism. We see the enormity of his accomplishment just once in the film–a scene in which Robinson is being brutally hectored by Phillies manager Ben Chapman (Alan Tudyk). There is name calling elsewhere and allusions of danger, but most of the film is so elegiac it could have been a joint project between Ron Howard and Ken Burns. Add Mark Isham’s cloying soundtrack, Nicole Beharie’s syrupy, puppy-dog eyed take on Rachel Robinson, and Dodger teammates undergoing racial conversion like so many Baptists at a river wash-me-down, and watching 42 is frequently like downing a bowl of Trix with extra sugar.

Luckily, a few good performances save 42 from being a total disaster. Boseman is excellent as Robinson and strikes the right balance between gritty determination, smoldering anger, and inner vulnerability. The word “irascible” is often applied to Rickey and Harrison Ford does a credible job at being a gravely voiced, obstinate moralizer, even if he is a tad too folksy at times. Andre Holland does a fine turn as black sportswriter Wendell Phillips, the man who was Jackie’s road partner during his 1947 trial by fire. A lot of the minor characters are decent, though many of them seem to have been chosen because they look vaguely like someone more famous: Christopher Meloni’s Leo Durocher evokes John Sayles, Beharie looks like Meaghan Good, Holland is reminiscent of a younger Spike Lee, and Tudyk looks like a red-headed less beefy version of Curt Schilling.

The movie stops after 1947, another aspect of Helgeland’s pat directorial and storytelling style. Robinson didn’t really integrate MLB; black players competed until 1889. Nor was integration a done deal after 1947; the Boston Red Sox didn’t integrate until 1959, three years after Jackie retired. For the record, don’t think of Jackie Robinson as a consistent champion of civil rights either; he was a conservative Nixon Republican when he died of a heart attack in 1972. None of this diminishes the heroism of Robinson’s deeds as a racial pioneer. It’s a great story-–a much better one than Helgeland gives us. --Rob Weir

Eden Book 1 is Page-Turning Junk Food

EDEN BOOK 1 (2012)

By David Holley

Misery Loves Company Publishing

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I won’t mince words–Eden Book 1 is an awkward, clunky book, even by the relatively low standards of pulp science fiction. First-time novelist David Holley comes from a background in advertising and graffiti art, both of which influence this book. Like advertising, Holley piggybacks on what is hot rather than substantive. He rides current waves of cynicism through his post-apocalyptic, dystopian setting, and gloms onto contemporary trends such as glamorizing soldier-warriors, engaging in disaster-of-the-day reporting, and sticking zombies into every narrative. Like graffiti art, much of Holley’s intent is internal and enigmatic for those living outside his vision. (Did you ever try to decipher a tagged wall?) For all of that, his book is a page-turner—more accurately a screen-flipper as it’s an e-book­–that one zips through. If you’re looking for a trashy, thrill-a-minute bit of beach reading, this one won’t tax your intellect.

The year is 2022 and the United States has been wiped off the map, weakened by wars against Muslim terrorists, and then leveled by volcanic eruptions and tsunamis off the West Coat. Okay—we already have a problem. Holley simply states the devastation without explaining how ocean waters managed to traverse the Coastal Range, the Sierra Nevadas, and the Rockies! If tsunamis also formed on the Atlantic and caused seas to rise, why does Britain still exist? He needs to explain that because the major protagonists of his book are British, former Special Forces officer Noah Lockhart and his medical researcher wife, Evelyn.

The set up is that the Muslim uprising has just been defeated, but it cost Noah most of his unit. He is burnt out, resigns his commission, and decides to reconnect with Evelyn by taking a four-hour space shuttle flight to New Zealand for some much needed detox time. En route, the shuttle is sabotaged by an onboard terrorist and the shuttle breaks into sections and plummets to earth. The Lockharts are part of a small survivor group that manages to board rafts and make their way to some remote, uninhabited part of the South Island of New Zealand. All of Noah’s survival skills will be put to test as he tries to captain his intrepid band across mountains and ravines and through thick bush to civilization. Other major players include 18-year-old twins Max and Mia, and a Japanese couple, Hiroshi and Luna, whose daughter died in the shuttle’s impact. Did I mention that Mia is clairvoyant, or that Noah just happened to grab all manner of equipment, food, and spices (!) before the shuttle crashed? Good thing about the spices—just the sort of thing one needs when one is sautéing grubs. Noah’s backpack is the equivalent of Captain Kangaroo’s pockets—there always seems to be duct tape, a bit of rope, or some sustaining cashews at just the right moment.

Gilligan’s Island this isn’t. In their quest to survive, our crew will encounter obstacles such as another tsunami, a volcano about to explode, several Maori of questionable character, a pandemic, and, of course, some zombies. The book fails on three basic levels: plot, plausibility, and prose. If you think Dan Brown stretches logic, wait until you wend your way through Holley. His book is stuffed with more coincidences than a sophomore explaining why his research paper isn’t finished. It would be fair to say that the only consistent narrative device at work is convenience. There are also gag-me purple passages throughout the book, including (seriously) references to Noah’s “thick manhood.”

I will not deny that Eden Book 1 is a breezy read with entertaining moments, nor that I soared through it. (I had just finished a far weightier book and was looking for just such a diversion.) The book is offered for $3.99 on Amazon. That’s about $3 too high in my view, but as long as you know this book is not The Road and David Holley is no Cormac McCarthy, you can devour it as you might processed snack food. I don’t regret having read it, but neither will I indulge in forthcoming sequels. –Rob Weir

Making a Hobby (Lobby) or Abusing the First Amendment

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Here is the actual First Amendment, not the one the Christian Taliban claims. I’ve bolded the relevant parts, lest there be any confusion.

Amendment I:

Congress shall make no law respecting an establishment of religion, or prohibiting the free exercise thereof; or abridging the freedom of speech, or of the press; or the right of the people peaceably to assemble, and to petition the Government for a redress of grievances.

The latest sanctimonious tyrant seeking to use religion to hide its agenda is the Oklahoma-based Hobby Lobby chain. Hobby Lobby calls itself a “profit-making company… but also a ministry.” Hobby Lobby is seeking exemption from the upcoming federal health care law that requires companies to buy insurance that includes birth control coverage. It argues that such coverage, especially things such as the morning-after pill, violates its religious beliefs and is therefore a First Amendment violation. The  Justice Department has challenged that view.

If you are a fan of freedom of choice, you should be rooting for the Feds, no matter which side of the political spectrum you claim as your own. If Hobby Lobby wins, it will be the morality-based equivalent of the Citizens United decision in that it will define a company as a person. Even more dangerously, it will define a collective (the company) as a single individual, thereby opening Pandora’s box to determine whose voice speaks for that one big collective individual–an oxymoron is ever there was one. (Founder? CEO? CFO? Largest stockholder?)

I’m sure there are those who would argue that owners of a company should be able to do what they wish with their firms. I’d agree–on an individual basis. An owner can, if he wishes, shutter the firm or sell it. If the Hobby Lobby CEO wants to buy an insurance policy without birth control coverage for himself, fine; the First Amendment grants that right. But listen to what Justice Department lawyer Alisa Klein says: “If you make an exemption for the employer, it comes at the expense of the employee.” Klein’s statement reveals the absurdity of the lawsuit. Hobby Lobby isn’t some mom-and-pop store selling model airplanes to preadolescent boys; it’s a chain of 500 stores in 41 states with 13,000 employees. 

Klein raises an important point. What about “the people” mentioned in the First Amendment? And what do we mean by a “company?” Is it one or two puffed up evangelists in Oklahoma, or is it also the firm’s “people” in the form of its 13,000 employees, its wholesalers, its investors, and its customers? Hobby Lobby claims to be a “biblically founded business.” Yeah, so what? It does business in the public sphere where it must conform to all manner of public mandates such as labor laws, safety codes, building inspection laws, and utility restrictions. Moreover, because it’s a profit-making firm, it has no grounds to claim religion-based tax exemptions. (Remember–the Supreme Court has already ruled that health care mandates are a form of taxation.) I suspect the ulterior motive is that Hobby Lobby is part of the “Obamacare” Fear Squad seeking to undermine reform so that it can foist cheaper but inferior health insurance plans on employees.   

I could be wrong about that last sentence, but true religious freedom is where the rubber meets the road for me. If you must, let’s take it back to the individual level. Count me among those that are fed up with people using Jesus, Mohammed, Moses, Buddha, or anyone else to tell me what moral decisions I should make. The First Amendment allows you to make decisions for you, but the moment you tell me what I must believe, there is but one path to compelling me to comply: have Congress pass a law that privileges that viewpoint. If you think my use of the term “Christian Taliban” in the lead is harsh, I would reply that there’s not an iota of moral or substantive difference between a Christian telling Americans what they can do and the Taliban imposing Sharia law in Afghan tribal regions under its control. What’s the moral difference between telling a woman she must play Russian roulette with her body, or telling her she must wear a chador?

To use a line I’ve used before, I’m not against religion, but I wish to reserve the right to be against your religion. I’m also against companies acting tyrannically and hiding behind the First Amendment when they do so. And what else other than tyranny should we call foisting your morality upon 13,000 employees?

If you agree, here’s a useful first step. Contact Hobby Lobby Customer Service and tell them you are an ex-customer until they change their policy. Here’s the link: http://www.hobbylobby.com/customer_service/customer_service.cfm

Renoir a Luminous (though flawed) Triad

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RENOIR (2102)

Directed by Gilles Bourdes

Fidélité Films, 111minutes, Rated R (extensive nudity), in French with subtitles

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Renoir centers on French impressionist painter Pierre-Auguste Renoir, though the movie is really a triad involving him, his final model, Andrée, and his middle son Jean. The year is 1913, and though Renoir is an acknowledged master and the financially secure master of a villa and a private atelier on the Côte d’Azur, his world is slowly crumbling. His wife has just died, his two eldest sons are fighting the Germans, and he has rheumatoid arthritis that’s so bad that he’s chair-bound and must have his fingers bound by strips of linen to keep them straight enough to draw or paint. Even worse, he is uninspired. His narrowing world consists of spectacular sea views, a house full of female servants (most of them former models), and a mischievous twelve-year-old son, Coco, whom he sired when he was 61. It’s hard to tell who is more bored and cranky, the old man or Coco.

Just as things seemed hopeless, young Andrée shows up at the gates, having heard that Renoir needed a model. She would beome the old man’s final great inspiration, whom would repeatedly paint until his death in 1919. Andrée (Christa Theret) is a head-turner whose luminous flesh makes Renoir think deeply of his own wrecked body; she also attracts considerable attention from Jean, when he returns home to convalesce from a war wound that cost him two inches of bone and left him with a lifelong limp. Thus Andrée becomes the object of desire of all the males of the Renoir household–the painter longing for lost youth, Jean who is besot with a combination of bedazzlement and lust, and Coco whose on-the-cusp of adolescent hormones are stirred. What unfolds is, needless to say, a complicated set of relationships.

The film also develops three subthemes: beauty and horror, decay and rebirth, and pride versus wisdom. Andrée’s stunning body and the tranquility of the French coast stand in marked contrast to the horrors of World War I, as seen in disfigured vets along the roadside and embodied in Jean’s bone-exposed wound. We see decay and rebirth in several forms, most notably in how Renoir’s arthritis-deformed body and the passing of impressionism contrast to the sun-bathed youth of Andrée and Jean, and in Jean’s screening of silent films in the family parlor. (In his postwar life he became one of the greatest movie directors of all time. Andrée became his first wife and starred in several films under the name Catherine Hessling.) We also see the struggle between vain pride and wisdom in scenes in which Renoir tries to convince Jean not to return to war because of its utter stupidity and Jean stubbornly defends camaraderie to his father and the war itself to a rapacious war profiteer. (We see it also in some of Andrée’s tantrums and foolish decisions.)

As befits a film with Renoir at its center, director Bourdes bathes the screen with painterly scenes. One, of a paintbrush being dipped into a jar of clear water, is ten seconds of absolute beauty, even though it’s a heavy-handed bit of Freudian symbolism with the stiff brush representing the virility of youth and the semen-like paint swirls the ebbing of Renoir’s own. There is another of soldiers on R & R floating on the blue waters of the Mediterranean, their arms akimbo, and shot and lighted from below–as if they were already the corpses they were destined to become in the trenches. (And check out a scene in which headstrong Coco blows purple paint pigment over Andrée’s sleeping nude body.)

The cinematography and two of the central performances are the strongest part of the film. Michel Bouquet is sublime as Renoir. He not only looks the part, but is also a master at conveying the pain of Renoir’s infirmities, his barely contained rage that he has to cope with them, and his headstrong determination to work and capture beauty, no matter the physical toll it exacts. Christa Theret is–dare I say it–a work of art. At one point Renoir remarks that that Titian would have given anything to paint her breasts. I can’t think of an artist who wouldn’t! But she also shows emotional range to match her physical attributes, playing Andrée as self confident, arrogant, impulsive, and reckless, but also as vulnerable, sympathetic, and naïve. Less successful is Vincent Rottiers as Jean, who is too buttoned down. Other than actually watching movies, we get little sense of the artistic vision one associates with Jean Renoir, and we see no hint of the sort of critical analysis that led him to make Grand Illusion in 1937, considered one of the greatest antiwar films ever made.

Those looking for historical accuracy will also be disappointed with some of the script’s liberties. Andrée, for example, was not a referral from Renoir’s wife before she died; Henri Matisse, who thought her more Renoir’s ideal model than his, sent her. In part, that’s because she was a tad fleshier than the nubile Theret. She was also just 13 when she first doffed her clothes for Renoir; not surprisingly, no modern director wants to touch that! Film historians will also pick up that certain works were out of their time period. Most non-scholars, though, will find the film’s pacing languorous in places. One could justify this as appropriate for the subject and its locale, though if one is going to take liberties with basic facts, why not telescope time a bit as well? Still, Renoir is well worth the time. We can appreciate his artistic vision, and we can certainly appreciate his fixation on youthful beauty. You may feel like a voyeur for a while, but you’ll get over it!

--Rob Weir

Not One Nickel to the State of Oklahoma

Read my lips: not one nickel to the State of Oklahoma for tornado relief. How can I say such a thing? Two dozen (or more) people died in Moore, the Oklahoma City suburb of 55,000 has been reduced to four square miles of rubble, power lines are down, water is scarce, several hundred people are hospitalized, hundreds more are homeless, private charities are tapped out, and children have died. Doesn’t this make me as heartless as the Tea Party loonies against whom I rail on this blog? Read my statement carefully: Not one nickel to the State of Oklahoma.

If Barack Obama has any political savvy at all–a questionable presumption for a president that increasingly (and aptly) draws more comparisons to Jimmy Carter than FDR–he should continue his current plan of flooding the State with Federal Emergency Management Administration (FEMA) agents, cash, and equipment. But he should not allow so much as a penny to be administrated by Oklahoma itself. It’s time for the chickens to roost in the Tea Party henhouse. (Or is it shithouse?). Both of Oklahoma’s U.S. senators, Tom Inhofe and Tom Coburn, voted against the $60.2 billion aid package for Hurricane Sandy victims. I’ll begrudgingly hand it to Coburn–he’s at least consistent. He’s such a Tea party loser that he has said that every dime of aid to his own state must be balanced by cuts elsewhere in the budget, though it’s probably just a matter of time before he calls for cuts in education and/or poverty programs to get some Sooner cash. Inhofe, though, takes the cake for hypocrisy. He’s telling everyone who will listen–­and we shouldn’t–that his request for tornado aid is “totally different” from the Sandy bill, which he insists was loaded with “pork.” (Guess it takes a pig to know pork!) Slice your bacon however you wish, but the bottom line is that both of Oklahoma’s Tea Party senators said, “Fuck you!” to New Jersey and now at least one of them thinks his state’s needs are more important. No–they’re not, senator; suffering is suffering.

The tornado is a moment of opportunity for President Obama, but to seize it he will need to play politics and ignore the caterwauling from the Right. He should release funds to FEMA and make certain that every dollar spent in Oklahoma is funneled through federal agencies, not state bodies. He should make numerous trips there–photo-ops, if you will. At each stop Obama should emphasize that the federal government is committed to helping Sooners restore their lives. Tell them that he’s personally dedicated to the task, even if it means he must tackle Congress to get it done. Let Inhofe and Coburn explain why Obama has delivered and they could not. The Right will scream, “Obama is still campaigning.” He should follow that with a curt, “I don’t have time to respond such nonsense. I’m trying to help desperate people get back on their feet.”

When Franklin Roosevelt put Harry Hopkins in charge of a jobs program during the Great Depression, he told Hopkins not to ask if the person needing a job was a Democrat, a Republican, or a Socialist. Just put them to work, he told Hopkins, and let them see that the government is on their side. FDR presumed that would make them into Democrats, and he was right; in the 1936 election FDR won every state in the Union except two. It is time for a strong leader to expose one-note tax cutters, deficit evangelists, and Tea Party fanatics as the greedy, clueless, provincial  piggies they really are. It’s the first step to restoring a civic ideal that shows where the pork really lies: among those who place their own wealth, intolerant ideologies, and backyards above what philosopher John Dewey called the “Great Community.” You know it as the United States of America, though the word “united” has been savaged and bloodied as of late. It’s time for it to rise from the canvas and deliver a haymaker to the chins of Inhofe and Coburn.

Marcy Marxer Serves Up Another Winner

MARCY MARXER

Things are Coming My Way

Community Music 206

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If you’ve got a blues, country, gospel, or old-time song that can be plucked, picked, or strummed on any kind of stringed instrument, Marcy Marxer will play it and make you happy that she did. Her latest collection of present and future standards has three tracks that pay direct tribute to Django Reinhardt and several others that mirror his gypsy soul and loose jazz influences. There is an especially sharp interpretation of Reinhardt’s “Montagne Sainte Geneviève” in which she tosses off swift runs on her Gibson L4 like so much dust from her soles. She gets positively 1920’s Hawaiian in her ukulele-laced cover of “I’ll See You in My Dreams,” goes swamp bluesy on “Kissing In the Dark,” a song first popularized by Memphis Minnie in 1953, gives a folk treatment to the title track, and joins forces with Cathy Fink and Grace Griffith to gives an Andrews Sisters spin to “It’s the Girl” and "Girl Django." Heck, Marxer even gets down to a bongo beat on “Brasil.” The one thing she doesn’t do is get on board with the flavor of the month. Marxer’s albums are generally delicious throwbacks and this one is no exception. So step into the Way Back Machine and enjoy the ride!--Rob Weir

Koby Israelite an Accordion Beast!

KOBY ISRAELITE

Blues from Elsewhere

Asphalt-Tango records 3513

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Koby Israelite—born in Israel and now based in London--is one part Jimmy Page, one part Bob Dylan, one part Johnny Cash, and one part John Zorn—except he plays the accordion, not a guitar or saxophone. His latest is the aptly named Blues from Elsewhere, and the eponymous track sounds like Sephardic honky tonk. I’m not exaggerating about any of the influences noted above. Check out how he squeezes out the notes atop crunching power chords in “Accordion is the New Guitar,” and then give a listen to his cover of “Subterranean Homesick Blues.” I can doubt even Dylan could imagine the jump jive/power rock instrumental treatment, or Annique’s keening vocals. Israelite is full of such surprises. “Johnny Has No Cash No More” is where Texas two-step meets barrelhouse accordion; “Crayfish Hora” unfolds as if gumbo-crazed Jews were belly-dancing down Bourbon Street; “Take My Brain and Sell it to the Night” is like string band for the Andrews Sisters; “My Way the Right Way” a blend of rock, hand jive, and surf guitar; “Just Clichés” sounds like the soundtrack for an experimental cartoon made in the 1930s; “Kashmir” has the trippy dreaminess of a lost Yes composition; and “East of Nashville” is really east—like Tel Aviv. My first thought was that only Sharon Shannon pushes the accordion to such innovative extremes. Upon further reflection, she’s a piker compared to Koby Israelite.—Rob Weir