Roger O Green

MOVIE REVIEW: Gravity

Kudos to director Alfonso Cuarón, who WILL deservedly win the Oscar for Best Director.

So much I hated about going to the movies that Sunday afternoon to see Gravity:

1) It was at Crossgates, a local mall I particularly loathe. Don’t believe I had seen a movie there since Presidents Day weekend 16 years ago, nearly to the day, when I saw L.A. Confidential and Mrs. Brown, both Oscar nominees. But it was the only place locally it was playing, and seeing it later on video seemed to be a much lesser experience. And SamuraiFrog was so fond of it.

2) The movie was only available in 3D. I tend to hate 3D. Indeed, the preview of the upcoming X-Men movie looked like looking through one of those old ViewMasters I had as a kid; boy, I hope the MOVIE doesn’t look that weird.

3) Saw this news piece on NBC “revealing” how they got Sandra Bullock’s character to appear to be in zero gravity, noting that if she REALLY were, her hair would stand up, just one of the scientific errors in the movie.

Yet, I really enjoyed the film, both as a technological marvel, despite its flaws, and as a reflection on life and death and rebirth, sorrow and release. This summary from Deadspin spoke to me: “You want to admire the technical achievement, except it never feels like a technical achievement. It just feels like you’re there. And desperately want to leave.” The Wife was on the edge of her seat, sometimes literally. There were moments I forgot to breathe.

Kudos to Bullock and George Clooney as the astronauts, the cinematographer Emmanuel Lubezki, and especially director Alfonso Cuarón, who WILL deservedly win the Oscar for Best Director.

The (alleged) JEOPARDY! sins of Arthur Chu

When I knew an answer, I clicked once, and I was immediately corrected: “No, you keep clicking until Alex calls on you.”

Seriously, I had no idea. As a regular viewer of JEOPARDY!, there are contestants I like, ones that I don’t particularly care for, and most from whom I just want to see a good match.

Having viewed the four victories of one Arthur Chu, I did not realize that his reign, to be continued on February 24, was at all controversial until someone sent me an article and asked me to comment on it. Then a couple more people sent me other articles. This was a story on Yahoo!’s Finance page?

So what are his JEOPARDY! “sins”?

1. He jumps around the board. The first story I was sent was titled Jeopardy! Contestant Is Hated For Playing Like Nobody Else. This was untrue; several players over the years have utilized a strategy of “relentlessly hunt[ing] for the Daily Double clues in each round, clearing out the bottom three rows of the board so that he can get to them before anyone else.” It’s perfectly legal. Now it’s undoubtedly harder on Alex Trebek and the board operators, but that’s not Chu’s problem.

Moreover, his strategy doesn’t work if he gets in first but doesn’t know the answers. In looking at the pattern of topics picked in his first game, the other players would go to a more traditional pattern when they selected, so Chu would have been thwarted had the others beaten him on the buzzer.

2. He didn’t even try to answer a Daily Double, and said “I don’t know,” for which he only bet $5, which some considered unsporting. That was in his second game. The category was IN THE SPORT’S HALL OF FAME, the $1,000 question and the clues were Eddie Giacomin, Herb Brooks, Conn Smythe. Apparently, this was “easy” for most people, since Herb Brooks was the coach of the 1980 Olympics hockey team; doesn’t mean it was for Chu. He knows what he knows, and doesn’t.

3. He played for the tie, rather than the win, also in the second game; this was considered arrogant. Arthur Chu addressed this, correctly, in this interview:

Yeah, I mean, my decisions were motivated by the desire to win — I don’t think I need to apologize for that, that’s a lot of real money at stake with every game — but the other side of that is that the main thing I cared about was making my money and coming back to play again. There’s no reason to take money AWAY from other players unnecessarily, and that’s why I was puzzled that my bet for the tie somehow got everyone riled up, as though I’d somehow done something wrong.

It does make me feel good that Carolyn [Collins], who is a strong player whom I respect, went home with over $20k rather than with the $2k she would’ve ended up with had I bet the extra dollar. Or, for that matter, that Erik [Post], who was also a great player in our game, took home $2k for second instead of $1k for [third].

Former champion Keith Williams, who Chu studied, explains playing for the tie.

4. His very visible use of the buzzer is irritating. As this former player explains:

What, he shouldn’t buzz? Skill still plays a role: If you buzz in before Alex finishes reading a question, you are locked out for a crucial quarter-second or so; there is still timing to Chu’s thumbwork. His conspicuous digital athletics are merely bringing to light a facet of the game that not enough of its viewers appreciate: Buzzing well is part of winning, because most of the time more than one contestant knows the correct response.

I remember when I was at my JEOPARDY! tryout in Washington, DC in May 1998, and we played a mock game. When I knew an answer, I clicked once, and I was immediately corrected: “No, you keep clicking until Alex calls on you.” You might be temporarily locked out by clicking too early, but if no one else gets in, or if someone else responds incorrectly, repeated clicking is the way to go. In any case, I found it easier to do that than to watch the lights around the board go out before starting to click. Hey, it worked out, once.

Most people who click a lot do it at podium level, so it’s not as obvious to most.

Ken Jennings, who won 74 games in a row, defends Chu, and rightly so.

This is the 30th season of JEOPARDY! and they are bringing back former champions from the last three decades. Not only is this eliminating 30 or 40 players from participating during the season – far more than Chu’s tie game did – it weakens the field for the next Tournament of Champions. I believe the rule that allows for players to win six or more games does the latter as well.

Arthur Chu’s play does not bother me. If he wins a fifth game, I will actively root against him, but I ALWAYS root against five-plus day champions, for the reasons alluded to above.

MOVIE REVIEW: Nebraska

Younger son David decides to humor his father, and this leads to a road trip from Billings, MT to Lincoln, NE.

When we can’t get a child sitter, sometimes the Wife and I will see the same movie on different weekend days so that we can compare notes. I went to NYC with The Daughter to see the Broadway musical Newsies on a recent Saturday, so The Wife visited the Spectrum Theatre and saw Nebraska. She deemed it quite worthwhile, so I watched it that Sunday; she was right.

This is a rare starring role for long-time character Bruce Dern, playing Woody Grant, who is convinced that he has won a million dollars some Publisher’s Clearing House-type mailing, despite the insistence of his family to the contrary. His wife Kate (June Squibb) and elder son Ross (Bob Odenkirk) think Woody’s losing it. But younger son David (Will Forte) decides to humor his father, leading to a road trip from Billings, MT to Lincoln, NE, with an important side trip to the family’s past.

This is, as described, “told with deadpan humor and a unique visual style,” and it is more than occasionally LOL funny, without telling any jokes. Great acting by Dern and Squibb, both rightly nominated for Academy Awards. Stacy Keach, as an old acquaintance of Woody’s, Oderkirk, and especially Forte, who is best known for Saturday Night Live, are all excellent, as are many of the minor characters. There’s one scene with some older men, and my wife suggested – as I thought – that they reminded her of some of her taciturn relatives.

The script is by Bob Nelson, who I do not know. The direction is by Alexander Payne, who has been the writer/director for several movies I have enjoyed, including The Descendants, Sideways, About Schmidt, and Election.

Did I mention that Nebraska was filmed in black and white? This enhances the feel of the story tremendously.

A friend asked which of the six Oscar-nominated films I’ve seen so far was the most ENJOYABLE; it had been American Hustle, but I think it’s been replaced by Nebraska.

F is for the Fogerty brothers of CCR

CCR even appeared at Woodstock, though most people don’t remember that.

Creedence-Clearwater-Revival — Stu, John, Doug, Tom

John Fogerty, Doug Clifford, and Stu Cook met in junior high school, and soon backed John’s older brother Tom on some gigs. Eventually, they became a band, with Doug on drums, Stu – formerly on piano – switching to bass, and Tom on rhythm guitar, as John became “the band’s lead vocalist and primary songwriter.” In Tom Fogerty’s words: ‘I could sing, but John had a sound!'” That he did.

The group had a hit with their second single, a cover of Susie Q [LISTEN], in 1968, but then received massive success in 1969 and 1970, with five #2 hits, including three in a row. Has any group ever done that while NEVER having a #1 single in the US? Don’t think so.

1969 [LISTEN to all]: Proud Mary (#2), Bad Moon Rising (#2), Green River (#2), Down on the Corner (#3). Plus three Top 10 albums.
1970 [LISTEN to all]: Travelin’ Band (#2), Up Around the Bend (#4), Lookin’ Out Through My Back Door (#2). And a #1 album.

They even appeared at Woodstock, though most people don’t remember that; I had forgotten myself. Their performance was “not included in the film or soundtrack because John Fogerty felt the band’s performance was subpar.” That was a reflection of tensions in the band.

John Fogerty had taken control of most aspects of the band’s direction, to the chagrin of the others, so Tom Fogerty decided to quit, and the band continued as a trio. John then wanted a more democratic process with Stu and Doug, but it was John’s sound that made the band and putting out an album with all of the band writing songs turned out to be a commercial and critical failure.

The band broke up in 1974, and the label put Chronicle, Volume 1, “a collection of Creedence’s twenty hit singles, in 1976,” a double-LP set. For all my affection for their sound, this was my first CCR album, though I did acquire a couple of the earlier albums later on. That greatest hits collection included the single version of the last hit, a cover of I Heard It Through the Grapevine [LISTEN], while the CD version of the album has the 11-minute rendition [LISTEN].

John performed as a solo artist but didn’t sing CCR songs for emotional reasons tied to the group’s terrible contract with Fantasy Records, by which he would have to pay performance royalties, for a decade and a half. He got sued for sounding too much like John Fogerty on a song he recorded for another label in the mid-1980s, which was eventually settled in his favor. But he never really settled his dispute with brother Tom who “died of an AIDS complication in September 1990, which he contracted via a tainted blood transfusion he received while undergoing back surgery.”

This is also sad: “In the 1980s and 90s, new rounds of lawsuits between the band members, as well as against their former management, deepened their animosities. By the time CCR was inducted into the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame in 1993, John Fogerty refused to perform with Cook and Clifford. The pair were barred from the stage, while Fogerty played with an all-star band that included Bruce Springsteen and Robbie Robertson. Tom Fogerty’s widow Tricia had expected a Creedence reunion, and even brought the urn containing her husband’s ashes to the ceremony.”

Stu and Doug worked as session musicians and on other people’s albums before forming “Creedence Clearwater Revisited in 1995 with several well-known musicians. Revisited toured globally performing the original band’s classics. John Fogerty’s 1997 injunction forced Creedence Clearwater Revisited to temporarily change its name to ‘Cosmo’s Factory,’ but the courts later ruled in Cook’s and Clifford’s favor.”

The chance of a CCR reunion is remote. While John has recently suggested, after years of rejecting the idea, that it was theoretically possible, Stu and Doug don’t believe it will ever happen. But John’s solo career is thriving.

(I realize that quite a few of these family tales are less than happy. It DOES get better.)

ABC Wednesday – Round 14

Presidents Day 2014

From JEOPARDY show 6666: MY “SON”, THE PRESIDENT (each answer has the word “son” in it)
*Chronologically, he was the first who fits the category
*He was preceded & succeeded as president by the same man
*He beat Clinton–DeWitt Clinton–in 1812
*For refusing to shine the boots of a British officer as a child, he got a saber across the face
*He whipped 2 former presidents in the same election by an electoral score of 435-88-8

Another quiz question: Who was the last president to outpoll non-voters in a presidential race?

Some music trivia: What blues legend, who performed under a pseudonym, was actually named after a US President?

(Answers at the end)

“Nixontapes.org is the only website dedicated solely to the scholarly production and dissemination of digitized Nixon tape audio and transcripts. We have the most complete digitized Nixon tape collection in existence–approximately 2,300 hours spread over 2.5 terabytes of hard drives that contain more than 7,000 audio files. This is the only website in the world that makes the complete collection of Nixon tapes available directly to the public in a user-friendly format, free of charge.” There are a total of 3,700 hours of tapes, so the job is only 2/3s done!”

The song The ’68 Nixon (This Year’s Model)- Denver, Boise & Johnson [LISTEN]. And here are the LYRICS.

Thomas Jefferson’s Silent Armies. Also, re TJ: Esopus Spitzenburg and the Newtown Pippin.

James Garfield: good at math.

Former President George H.W. Bush and his wife, Barbara, were the official witnesses of a marriage between two women in Maine last September. “Several other notable Republicans have voiced support for gay marriage, including Bush’s son, former President George W. Bush.” That last sentence I did not know; didn’t seem evident during his administration.

If Hillary Clinton becomes President, will she name Bill as Secretary of State? No, she can’t, unless they get divorced. And I gather the law banning it was in reaction to John Kennedy naming his brother Bobby as Attorney General.

“Expansionism and intervention are oppressive forms of activism. From that perspective, it’s easier to arrive at the four worst Presidents.

Five-year-old kid who knows more about US Presidents than most people I meet.

And a 12-year-old girl who showed that all the Presidents, save for one, have a common, royal, ancestor; that would be 42 of 43 Presidents, despite what the article headline reads. And there is only one President whose native language was not English, and that would be that same outlier, the guy pictured.

ANSWERS –
Who was:
Thomas Jefferson
Benjamin Harrison
James Madison
Andrew Jackson
Woodrow Wilson

and Theodore Roosevelt.
I had guessed LBJ, who beat Barry AuH2O badly in 1964. Dan reminded me that “Johnson got the highest vote total of the century, but the non-voters still beat him. Goldwater’s veep went to Albany Law School. He was also the first Catholic veep nominee for the Re-pubs. His name? [which I DID remember] ‘Here’s a riddle, it’s a killer/ Who the hell is William Miller?’ His daughter is comedienne and talk show host Stephanie Miller.”

The musical answer is Howlin’ Wolf, who was born Chester Arthur Burnett.

Oh, the guy pictured: Martin Van Buren, whose native language was Dutch. This was a quiz on ABC’s This Week with George Stephanapoulous earlier this year, and NONE of the panelists got it right.

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