Tit for Tat

In answer to Speaker Pelosi canceling President Trump's State of the Union address, Trump has canceled Pelosi's world tour, unless she wants to fly commercial.  Two can play this game, Madam Speaker.  I love this shutdown.  May it go on for years.  That absence of government - at least that part that is furloughed - has had no impact on my life so far, beyond the entertainment value.  The longer the shutdown goes, the more likely people will realize that we are paying $100K salaries to perform unnecessary jobs.  If the shutdown lasts 30 days, various departments can move for a Reduction in Force.  We've done without you for a month so we're just going to eliminate your position.  Oh, that would be SO great.  That's one way to drain the swamp.  Most of these people vote Democrat anyway (Hillary won over 90% of the vote in DC) so it's not as if Trump or the Republicans are punishing their voters.  That's leverage that Trump will have on his side in a week.  Of course, Trump is in high-stakes territory.  Loss on the shutdown could sour his base of support.  Failing to get concessions from the Democrats now will mean he never gets concessions.

 

Uncontrolled immigration has successfully turned California from a reliably red state into a reliably blue state.  Texas and Arizona are trending toward blue.  Continuing this policy of unenforced borders benefits the Democrats.  Of course, it also benefits Republican donors who like the cheap labor.  No wonder everyone hates Trump.

 

Much of this current fight can be related to some of Trump's Elements of the Deal as detailed in The Art of the Deal.  Here are a few I see in practice.

 

1. Use Your Leverage: The shutdown makes Trump a bottleneck for spending.  Until the Congress can muster the votes to override a veto, he is in the driver seat.  He was able to cancel Pelosi's trip and he may soon get to reduce the federal workforce.

 

2. Get the Word Out: Trump is nothing if not a self-promoter.  No previous Republican president has ever pushed his case in a shutdown as hard at Trump has.  In fact, they just cave and lose.

 

3. Fight Back: Where George H. W. Bush served as a punching bag during a shutdown during his administration, Trump is fighting back.  He doesn't have the decorum bone in his body, making it hard to shame him into surrender.

 

4. Deliver the Goods: You can self-promote and blather for only so long before people realize you haven't done anything for them.  If Trump doesn't build the wall or some convincing facsimile thereof, he's toast.  He knows this.

 

5. Contain the Costs: Trump has requested $5.7 billion for the wall.  The federal budget is over $4 trillion.  The US spends $6 billion a year subsidizing the sugar industry, which is why American's pay more for sugar than the world market rate.  California's bullet train is going to cost almost $80 billion!  The wall is a bargain.

 

6. Have Fun: Whatever you think of Trump, it is pretty clear he is having fun.

 

Long live the shutdown!

300 Days of Sun

Joanna "Jo" Millard has lost her job and escaped her long-term relationship.  She has come to Portugal to learn Portuguese with vague plans for rebooting her career as a journalist.  While taking language classes in Faro, she meets Nathan Emberlin.  Nathan is a lively young fellow who asks her advice for finding people.  He wants to find a family friend.  Jo makes some inquiries and soon meets Ian, an English Expat who urges her to read a 1953 book that is a thinly disguised autobiography of the author.  The book tells the tale of a woman who escaped Paris and took refuge with her husband in Lisbon.  The book switches from the first person account of Jo in the present to the 3rd person account of Alva Barton in the 1940s.

 

The book never decides what it is.  Is it a mystery, a thriller, a historical fiction novel, a romance, a travelogue?  It is a mixture of all of the above.  If one had to pick the central theme, the issue that most needs resolution, it would be child abduction.  The prologue opens in the late 1940s with Alva searching desperately for her son on a beach.  Has he been taken?  Nathan believes that he was abducted in the early 1990s and enlists Jo to help him dig up the story.  Clearly, the disappearance of Madeleine McCann in 2007 is inspiration for some of the story.  It is initially proposed that lots of kids have vanished from the Algarve region but the book doesn't pursue that beyond Nathan.  There is a villain who doesn't appear until the end of the third act and is easily overcome.  He was never a real threat, just a boogeyman to provide some tension for Jo and Nathan.

 

It is an easy read and keeps one's interest but the conclusion is a letdown.  Worse, it provides a couple pages where Jo tells how her relationship with Nathan finally ended and that she still has doubts about whether he found his real parents or not.  They lived ambivalently ever after.  Meh.

 

The author's note discusses how she had gone on a junket to Portugal in the 80s and told her various hosts and guides that she would write a glowing piece.  At the time, she only managed to get a few paragraphs published and felt a bit guilty.  So, this book is an apology?  An effort to write the promised piece several decades later?  As with the ambivalent epilogue, this author's note could have been nixed.

 

Face for Success

 

I saw this picture on Drudge Report.  This is Juan Guaido.  He is the opposition leader in Venezuela.  Brazil has recognized him as the president of Venezuela despite Maduro's inauguration on January 10th.  That's all interesting but what caught me is that he looks like a cross between Barack Obama and Dwayne "The Rock" Johnson.

He has a face for success.  He should be nicknamed BaRock.

The High Mountains of Portugal

The book tells the stories of three men over a period of 80 years.  First, there is Tomas in 1904.  Tomas has made a great discovery in an 300 year old diary and believes a precious artifact can be found in the high mountains.  His wealthy uncle lends him an automobile - a marvel of the day - to go on his quest.  By the time he reaches his destination, the car is a wreck and he's killed a little boy on the road.  The artifact does not fill the void in his life and he has a mental breakdown.

Thirty five years later, a pathologist is working late.  His wife visits him and discusses how Agatha Christie novels illuminate the Bible.  The Bible is a murder mystery with Paul as the Hercule Poirot of his day and Jesus as the murder victim.  No sooner has his wife departed than a woman arrives with her dead husband.  She proves to be the mother of the boy who was run over by Tomas those many years ago.  She guides the coroner in performing an autopsy on her husband, during which he extracts unusual items.  In the morning, the secretary arrives to find the pathologist asleep at his desk and feels great sympathy for him since his wife died.  However, she also finds the dead husband and the suitcase of unusual items.  How much of the events described were hallucination and how much was real?

Lastly, a Canadian senator Paul Torvy is alone after his wife dies.  To get away for awhile, he accepts a junket to Oklahoma where he tours a facility that studies great apes.  He is drawn to one of the chimpanzees and purchases him.  Abandoning Canada, he migrates to Portugal with his chimpanzee and settles in the town where he was born some 62 years ago; his parents migrated to Canada when he was 2.  Endlessly amazed by the chimpanzee, Paul is entirely absorbed in the care and maintenance of him.  It is not until his son visits that Paul discovers he is living in the very house where he was born and that the boy who Tomas ran over was his grandfather's nephew.

 

Each story is engaging but none satisfactorily resolved.  The book ends with a list of questions for the reader.  This is a book aimed at book clubs.  Each character is a widower who is in the midst of grief when the related events occur.  With Tomas, a considerable time is spent describing the use and maintenance of an automobile when such were a rarity.  It is funny to compare the ordeal for Tomas to drive a relatively short distance in Portugal vs. Paul driving from Oklahoma to New York with a Chimpanzee in the car!  The tale of the coroner is the oddest since the crazy autopsy clearly took place though perhaps not as he perceived it.  What does it mean?  Discuss among yourselves.

 

The book is written by Yann Martel, the author of Life of Pi.  There is symbolism to decipher and much to ponder.  Mostly enjoyable.

 

Gunfight at the O.K. Corral (1957)

Wyatt Earp (Burt Lancaster) is riding through Texas on the trail of Ike Clanton.  He drops in to see an old friend, Cotton Wilson, and discovers that Cotton let Ike ride through unhindered.  Once a tough as nails lawman, Cotton is now interested in feathering his nest.  Earp leaves unhappy.  At the hotel, he finds Ed Bailey (Lee Van Cleef) lying in wait for Doc Holliday (Kirk Douglas).  Though he doesn't know Holliday, he still feels obliged to warn him.  Warned, Holliday kills Bailey in a duel and flees a lynching with Earp's reluctant help.

 

Back in Dodge City, Earp is irritated when Holliday shows up.  He tries to drive the gambler out of town but finally agrees to let him stay provided 'No guns, no knives, no killing.'  Holliday has a reputation.  In the ensuing days, Holliday helps Wyatt on a few occasions and a friendship develops.  Also, Wyatt falls in love with Laura Denbow (Rhonda Fleming) and plans to give up his badge in order to marry her.  Then word comes from his brother Virgil in Tombstone: Ike Clanton is making trouble.  Reluctantly leaving Laura, he rides to Tombstone.

 

After some preliminaries that result in the death of James Earp (Martin Milner), Billy Clanton (an astonishingly young Dennis Hopper) meets with Wyatt to schedule the gunfight at the O.K. Corral.  Wyatt, Virgil, and Morgan (played by DeForrest Kelly, better know as Doctor McCoy from Star Trek) are joined by Doc Holliday.  The gunfight is more like a military skirmish that lasts five minutes rather than the historical 30 seconds.  In the end, every Clanton and McLaurey is killed, as are Johnny Ringo, and Cotton Wilson.

 

Though entertaining, it is far from historical.  Rather than Wyatt being Charlie Basset's deputy, this has it the other way around.  Burt's Wyatt is clean shaven, as are all of his brothers.  The Earps are known for their full handlebar mustaches.  Ike Clanton survived the O.K. Corral and Ringo wasn't even there.  The only fatalities were the McLaury brothers (Tom and Frank) and Billy Clanton.  Tombstone (1993) does a far better job with the history though it too has its faults.

 

Kirk Douglas makes for a good Doc Holliday.  By contrast, Lancaster plays Wyatt Earp as some proto-Boy Scout, which is far from the mark.  A clear product of the 50s, it is nonetheless fun.

Cyrano de Bergerac (1950)

The movie opens in a playhouse in Paris and the actor onstage is interrupted by an unseen figure.  Told to vacate the stage or suffer the consequences, the actor protests until it is clear that none will protect him.  The unseen figure proves to be Cyrano de Bergerac, a perfect specimen of a man with the sole fault of an enormous nose.  He is an unmatched swordsman with a razor wit and a gift for poetry.  He is a learned scholar and a military genius.  However, he loves a woman who does not love him in return.  She views him as a brother and asks him to help her meet the man of her dreams, Christian de Neuvillette.  Christian proves to be a handsome simpleton with no talent for wooing so Cyrano provides the words - his own heartfelt words - to woo Roxanne - the woman he loves - for Christian.  The tragedy!

 

Jose Ferrer is amazingly good in the role.  He has charm and wit to spare.  His death scene is rather silly but the rest is top notch.  It is no wonder he won the Oscar for this role.  It is strange that his great roles - Cyrano (1950), Moulin Rouge (1952), and The Caine Mutiny (1954) - all happened early in his career and then he faded to a TV guest star in his later years.

 

Lots of fun and highly recommended.

The Favourite (2018)

Abigail Hill (Emma Stone) has fallen on hard times thanks to her dissolute father.  She opts to seek aid from her distant cousin, Sarah Churchill (Rachel Weisz), who happens to be the current favorite of Queen Anne (Olivia Coleman).  Sarah is married to the Duke of Marlborough, England's leading general in the War of Spanish Succession.  Taking pity on her cousin, Sarah places her in the kitchen.  Abigail is not content.  She is ambitious and sees opportunities to come to the queen's attention  Sarah soon finds that she has a rival for the queen's attention and her status as favorite might not be as secure as she thinks.

 

The movie is based on history though it is compressed for dramatic purposes.  Emma Stone is quite good as a sometimes sweet but more often conniving courtier.  Where Sarah had declined to destroy her cousin when she had the chance, Abigail was not so kind.  It is not quite as funny as the trailer led one to think it would be.  Yes, there are big laughs but mostly it is drama.  Abigail was fun early on but her treatment of her husband is hard to overlook.  She is the worst sort of gold digger and one has no sympathy for her hardships thereafter.

 

Sarah, as the victim of her own charity, comes off better though still not admirably.  Her manipulation of the queen is constant.  She wants the war to continue and bends the queen's ear in that direction.  She makes sure the queen is unavailable to meet with Harley, leader of the opposition in parliament, who wants to make peace with France before the war bankrupts the nation.  Sarah proposes tax increases to the queen and even drafts the bill.

 

The movie proposes lesbianism among the queen and her favorites.  There is no hinting; it is graphically shown.  Emma Stone has her first nude scene here.  Abigail wins the chase for favorite thanks to greater willingness to please the queen sexually.  This could have been completely excised and it would have improved the movie and not besmirch Lady Sarah or Queen Anne.  When I took English History at the University of Iowa, somehow Queen Anne's lesbianism wasn't mentioned.

 

Harley (Nicholas Hoult) steals every scene he is in.  He is a politician's politician, a matchless jerk, and a skilled manipulator.  He assists Abigail's rise because he doesn't like the war.  Sarah, whose husband fighting the war, has the opposite view.  He doesn't give a whit what Abigail wants except as far as it advances his goals.  He treats her with contempt and amusement.

 

Queen Anne ruled from 1702 to 1717.  She was only 49 when she died.  Her father was James II (1685-88), who was grandson of James I (1603-1625).  James I was the only son of Mary, Queen of Scots.  Anne was the last of the Stuarts to rule, though several efforts to restore the line were made following her death.  The remaining Stuarts were barred from succession because they were Catholic, thus George I of Hanover succeeded Anne.

 

It has it's moments but fell well short of expectations.  However, it is far, far superior to Mary Queen of Scots.

At Eternity's Gate (2018)

Vincent Van Gogh (Willem Dafoe) is in Paris and trying to establish himself as an artist.  He sells nothing.  The shop clerk where he has displayed his paintings demands that he remove them immediately.  At a meeting of painters, there is a proposal to spread the income from those paintings that sell among all the members.  Paul Gaugin (Oscar Isaac) storms out and Vincent follows.  Thanks to his brother, Theo, Vincent moves to the south of France and paints.  He has his breakthrough in style though no one appreciates it.  Gaugin visits - being paid by Theo to do so - but soon leaves.  Vincent slices off an ear and is soon in a sanitarium.  Arles no longer wants him so he moves back to Paris and produces almost a painting a day until his untimely death.

The movie attempts to put the viewer in the mindset of Van Gogh.  This rarely works and is mostly annoying.  There are many times when the screen is blurry and discolored.  Frequently, exchanges Vincent has are repeated several times as he weeps and wanders about.  When he is coherent, he is often abrupt and it becomes clear why he does not get along well with others.  I am far more interested in exploring his art than his mental illnesses.  Yes, one may lead to the other but putting the emphasis on the art would have been better.

 

The movie proposes that a pair of hooligans shot Van Gogh and buried the canvas he had been painting.  What is this about?  It does not delve further into it, as such it should have left is out and just had a gunshot (off screen) followed by Vincent walking back to town with a bullet wound.  Don't introduce conspiracy theories if you aren't going to explore it.

 

Dafoe is terrific in the role, an inspired choice.  He is 62 and Van Gogh died at 37.  But Van Gogh had a difficult life and Dafoe perfectly shows that.

 

I know little of Gaugin and have never cared for his art.  Isaac plays him as a know-it-all jerk.  He is constantly lecturing Van Gogh on how to be a good painter while Vincent counters with his opinions with equal confidence but less vigor.  If anything, I like Gaugin less from this depiction of him.

 

It is a difficult movie to watch but has its moments.

Aquaman (2018)

The movie opens during a storm on the coast of Maine.  Tom Curry, the lighthouse man, sees a figure on the rocks.  He finds a woman in an odd wetsuit and a trident nearby.  She is wounded.  He carries her to the lighthouse and bandages her.  When Atlanna (Nicole Kidman) awakens, she is initially hostile but she soon warms to Tom and the two settle into a blissful life together that soon includes a son, Arthur.  However, Atlanna's past catches her and she is taken back to the sea.  Arthur grows to manhood and gets trained by Vulko (Willem Dafoe).  Arthur wants to see his mother again but Vulko always sets another test for him before a meeting can be arranged.  He finally realizes his mother is dead and mostly swears off Atlantis and Atlanteans.  Meanwhile, his half-brother King Orm (Patrick Wilson) wants to go to war with the surface dwellers.  With the help of Black Manta, a human pirate, he triggers a crisis that will lead to a war.  Black Manta has revenge on his mind.  Aquaman let Manta's father die.  This only scratches the surface of the story.  It is epic.

 

It feels like the previous DC movies in that much of the CGI is over the top.  When we see the vast undersea empires, it becomes impossible to believe that folks on the surface would be unaware of them.  However, the tone of the movie allows that to be ignored.  Unlike Batman and Superman, Aquaman isn't a brooding stick in the mud.  He's well-adjusted and hangs out with his dad when he isn't stomping pirates at sea or joining the Justice League to save the world.  Unlike Zack Snyder, James Wan knows he is making escapist entertainment, not high drama.  That makes all the difference.

 

Jason Momoa is great in the role.  He can be hard edged here, comedic there, serious when needed, and silly on occasion but is works.  This is a faceted character, a rarity in the current string of DC movies.  Let's get the Aquaman & Wonder Woman movie and forget about those others.  Well, I am curious to see the Flash.

 

It is a long movie but it has good pacing.  The fight scenes are reminiscent of some of the hyperactive space battles in the Star Wars prequels.  Lots of fun.  If DC can shift gears to make them like this, it might start competing with Marvel.

Mary Queen of Scots (2018)

World History: A Social Justice Warrior Interpretation.

Lord Randolph is a black man.  Scotsman George Dalgleish is black.  Andrew Ker is black.  Bess of Hardwick is Chinese.  After this, I don't want to hear another complaint about Mickey Rooney playing Japanese, Johnny Depp as Tonto, or John Wayne as Genghis Khan.  This movie screams out that it is not history.  The slave trade that brought blacks to Europe had barely begun but this movie proposes that blacks are long integrated into the society and have risen to the nobility.  If this was a high school or college play, that's fine.  But big budget film?  No.

 

David Rizzio, who served as a secretary for Queen Mary, is openly gay.  Also, he has an affair with Henry Darnley - Mary's husband - on their wedding night!  Right.  Well, it is true that Rizzio was accused of impregnating the queen because of his close association with her and Darnley was estranged from Mary very soon after the marriage but this is an interesting bit of fiction.  The brutal murder of Rizzio takes on a new meaning when he is homosexual.

 

Mary Stuart was raised in France.  She was married to the King of France, Francis II.  He died young and she returned to Scotland, where she had been queen since she was a week old.  She should not have an Irish accent.  The movie is more interested in listening to Mary titter and squeal with her ladies in waiting than ponder the decisions and crises that led to her abdication, English imprisonment, and execution.  Her menstrual cycle figures in the story because that's unique to Reformation royalty.

 

The characters are mostly unlikeable and I cared not a whit when Rizzio was murdered or Darnley strangled.  Even Mary seals her fate in an exchange (entirely fictional) in which she tells Queen Elizabeth that she is her superior.  No, Mary was quite clearly Elizabeth's inferior except that she managed to birth a child.  Mary's son became King of England and Scotland upon Elizabeth's death.

 

This is crap.  I was very tempted to walk out.  Avoid this turkey.

An Adventure in Space and Time (2013)

It is 1966 and a car pauses on the street. Seen ahead through the fog is a police box. A police man emerges and walks toward the car. “You must move along, sir,” he tells the driver. The driver is William Hartnell (David Bradley), who appears bemused.

Flashback to 1963. Sydney Newman (Brian Cox), head of BBC Drama, needs a half hour show to bridge a gap between two ratings hits. He has in mind a Sci-Fi show, which induces groans from the others in the room. He knows just the person to produce the show: Verity Lambert (Jessica Raine). Verity had been his assistant at ITV but he promotes her to show runner, the first female producer at BBC! She is assigned Waris Hussein to be her director; he is the first Indian director at BBC! As they hammer out details of the script and get props to design the TARDIS, Verity looks for the titular Doctor Who. She wants someone who is grandfatherly, a bit abrasive, but still charming. She finds William Hartnell. Hartnell has spent his career in the mold of criminals or military/authority figures. His most noted recent role is that of a Sergeant Major in The Army Game. He’s not sure he is right for the part but is convinced to try it. He loves it. From these early beginnings, the show moves through the years and the people leave. Waris is the first to go. Then his onscreen granddaughter, Carole Ann Ford, departs. The whole cast is gone but for Hartnell after two years and then Verity Lambert moved on. The later part of the show is rather depressing and sad. Though only in his fifties, Hartnell is not well and has trouble remembering his lines. By 1966, Sydney tells him that it’s time to get a new Doctor. Hartnell is heartbroken but approves the choice for his replacement.

Back on the road, the policeman knocks on the window. Hartnell rolls it down, is recognized by the now happy policeman, and then drives on. Today is the last day of filming, the day the Doctor regenerates and a new actor, Patrick Troughton, takes the reins.

This is a terrific TV movie and loads of fun. It is great to see them chat while Daleks roll in the background or the Doctor is dressed for the Reign of Terror, or Cybermen are taking a smoke break. Each year, there is a photo of the latest batch of companions. It is also quite sad. Hartnell is the central character and this is mostly a tragedy from his perspective. All those who were with him at the beginning have departed for other projects, his health is failing and not helped by the 48 week shooting schedule, and he can barely remember his lines. He takes such joy in interacting with the young fans of the show and doesn’t want to let go.

A must see for any Doctor Who fan. This is how it all started.