A Rare, but Necessary Sporting Diversion

Never in my short life have I been this frustrated with our coveted Redbirds. If you were occupied elsewhere last night, then you were lucky enough to miss their monumentally depressing and embarrassing loss to the Pittsburgh Pirates (which can be described as less of a cohesive major league baseball team and more of random pairing of beer league-rs with majorly misplaced mediocre talent).

Believe me, this is not hyperbole. The Pirates are not only the worst team in the Central Division (a cool 30 games back from Cinci), they are the worst team in the entire National League, with only the D-Backs and Nationals keeping them in near company. Let me emphasize one more time for you the point I'm trying to get across: the Pirates currently have the fewest number of wins this season throughout ALL of baseball (43 — the Orioles have 45). This includes their two most recent victories over a team with statistically, the best potential for offensive production in the league and almost unarguably the most elite pitching staff in the league. One former Cy Younger, another that deserved it last season and will deserve it again this season, a potential rookie of the year in Garcia, and the dependable veterans: Westbrook and Suppan. That's basically as good as you're going to get for starters, especially when you include McClellan and Franklin in the bullpen. What could possibly go wrong? Oh, lets just say it's the Holliday/McGwire factor.

"The Cardinals are currently pacing the league average for runs scored per game at 4.59 runs per game. Not great, but certainly not terrible either. The Cardinals are 4th in OPS+ (On base % + slugging %) though, at 103 compared to the NL average of 95 in OPS+. So, while the Cardinals offense is scoring in the middle of the pack so far, the lack of hitting with runners in scoring position (RISP) has them producing runs at a rate less than their OPS+ would imply. The timing of hits is almost completely statistically random to the best of my limited knowledge, so it should correct over the course of the season."

That's a quote from a Cardinal Nation article, published on May 6, that addressed the perplexing quality of the early 2010 Cardinal offense, and yet it sounds like it could have just been published this week. Clearly not much has been "correct(ed) over the course of the season," and with September looming, time is running out to even place a foothold in the Wild Card race.

The score from last night's game was 5-2, with both teams getting 8 hits each, but in his characteristic fashion Matt Holiday (the team's highest paid player with a salary of $16.3 million, beating out even Pujols' $14.6 million) was not able to drive in a single run with one out and the bases loaded in the bottom of the ninth inning. He popped out on his first pitch, and then Lopez grounded out, cementing the "low point of the season," as the dejected post-game hosts put it.

Truly, why do we pay Holliday the big bucks if he can't perform under pressure or even in key situations? Isn't that a basic job qualification in almost any field (except for government of course)? Aaron Miles only makes $2.7 million and yet he's the most clutch hitter on the team, especially with RISP. Yes, Holliday does start slow, but he got out of his early funk and is actually putting up much more than pedestrian numbers (.301 Avg and 22 homers), they're just never coming at the right time. Could he be feeling claustrophobic under Pujols' superstar shadow, or perhaps jealous that he's not getting the same attention? Is he resting on the laurels of his mammoth contract? Is it simply another rebuilding year where we have to wait for hitters to adjust to new hitting coach Mark McGwire's eccentricities? Whatever it is, the rest of the team is having to pick up his slack, and with Rasmus not at 100%, Freeze out for the season and the loss of Ludwick still stinging, that may not be enough for a post-season appearance.

On a personal note, I haven't felt this engaged in a Cardinal season since 2002 when we lost Darryl Kyle and Jack Buck, and yet still managed to eek out a chance at the pennant (we lost to Arizona after losing Rolen to injury). Learning that Jack Buck had died hit me hard, like many in Cardinal Nation, mainly because we had literally grown up to the sound of his voice on KMOX. When my own father (the man who introduced me to baseball, the Cards and Jack Buck) passed away last year, it may have sparked some latent passion I had brewing inside me that called me to pray at the altar of the birds on the bat. All I know is that, as I mentioned earlier I've not felt this level of frustration with the team in my life, and I am beginning to truly understand why my dad would constantly change the channel or simply shuffle upstairs to bed when things got dicey on the diamond. I got close to that point tonight, but I didn't start watching until the seventh, so I may already be there.

Film Review — The Most Dangerous Man in America: Daniel Ellsberg and the Pentagon Papers

After his father fell asleep at the wheel, causing the deaths of his mother and sister, Daniel Ellsberg learned at an early age that authority figures are not infallible, and their trust must be gained just like anyone else: through action. This event early in the life of the future Pentagon policy analyst coincided with the decision to drop the bombs on Hiroshima and Nagasaki by a President he had previously admired unequivocally. Ironically, as Ellsberg would discover later on, it was the Truman presidency that also began the deleterious domino affect that was the American involvement in Southeast Asia which, continued escalating in secrecy with each of the four subsequent Presidents.

The new documentary by co-writer/directors Judith Ehrlich and Rick Goldsmith The Most Dangerous Man in America lays out with impeccable attention to detail Ellsberg's transition from former marine and dutiful war-hawk under the Johnson administration to whistleblower and outspoken war-critic during the Nixon administration. The film's scope also encompasses the unintended affects of the eventual successful release of the Pentagon Papers, including the desperation and inevitable resignation of President Nixon.

An import from the RAND Corporation, a foreign policy think-tank where he learned to critically analyze all kinds of wartime scenarios, Ellsberg's first day on the job at the Pentagon in 1964 entailed the chaotic Gulf of Tonkin incident where he first discovered the extent to which information can be manicured by the executive branch, outside of the public's knowledge in order to escalate a conflict. Before the disaster of the Tet Offensive, the doubtful Secretary of Defense Robert McNamera ordered from Ellsberg's team in the Pentagon a detailed history of America's involvement in Vietnam without the knowledge of the President. This sprawling, multi-volume analysis became the famed Pentagon Papers.

Especially for anyone unfamiliar with this generation, the filmmakers clearly insist on this story being an essential part of one's understanding of this critical period in American history where the nation's experiment in democracy was put to the ultimate test. Long a hero for defenders of the First Amendment, Daniel Ellsberg reveals in the film the personal struggles he and his loved ones went through to follow their conscience and protect their right to free speech in order to keep the American public well-informed.

Aesthetically the film does little to dazzle the senses like some other higher budget Oscar-nominated documentaries from this past year — The Cove had its mesmerizing score and Food, Inc. made your stomach churn at the thought of what it had been consuming all these years — but emotionally charged interviews mixed with expertly edited archive footage, priceless tape recordings and helpful recreations makes The Most Dangerous Man an indispensable topical film on par with Errol Morris' The Fog of War (2003). With the decade's beginning of yet another seemingly endless Asian conflict (on the bright side, it's only spanned two presidents so far) one hopes we won't have to rely on a modern day Daniel Ellsberg to pull us back from the brink of oblivion.

Best Films of 2009

While the Academy focuses its attention on primarily American fare, I'd like to broaden the spectrum a bit for my final list of impressive films from the 2009 cinematic season, and to acknowledge some of the unjustly snubbed standout films, even with the return of the expanded ten-nominee Best Picture category. The list also expanded enough to require a separation between narrative and documentary films with the former category having an un-ranked grouping of ten best, as well as some other very worthy and memorable contenders.

Overall the year was well-varied in styles, themes and genres, with even the most sentimental of them managing to significantly challenge our ways of thinking, and still others producing some of the most memorable images and acting in recent memory. One common thread that weaves through many of these stories can be found in the shadow of The Great Recession — the effects of which still plague much of the world more than a year later, and will continue to do so for years to come. Characters such as Solo (Goodbye Solo), Larry (A Serious Man), Steve and Robb (Anvil!) and the family in Summer Hours all come to discover in some way what are truly the most important parts of their lives and how easy it can be to lose sight of them.

With all this in mind, I hope this list provides at least a rough gauge for the cinematic talent that was on display this past year, and hopefully a barometer for what we can expect in years to come.



Narrative Films

Top 10:
Revanche
The White Ribbon
Moon
The Headless Woman
A Serious Man

Summer Hours
In the Loop
Inglorious Basterds
The Hurt Locker
Goodbye Solo

14 More Worthy of Mention:
District 9
Antichrist
Precious: Based on the novel "Push" by Sapphire
Police, Adjective
Lorna's Silence
Bad Lieutenant: Port of Call - New Orleans
35 Shots of Rum
The Imaginarium of Dr. Parnassus
A Single Man
Up In the Air
Sugar
Avatar
Up
Big Fan



Documentaries:

The Way We Get By
Burma VJ
Daniel Ellsberg: The Most Dangerous Man in America
Anvil! The Story of Anvil
The Beaches of Agnès

Film Review — The White Ribbon

Michael Haneke has made a substantial career of investigating the reaction of the human psyche in tense situations. In Funny Games, both the 1996 original and the 2007 remake, sadism puts a challenge to decency when two young men subject a vacationing family to seemingly random acts of depravity and insult. In Caché (2005), class warfare and the unacknowledged influence of youth play a major roll in dismantling yet another seemingly common family. Now with The White Ribbon, Haneke brings this formula of methodical provocation back in time to pre-WWI, small-town Germany to perhaps show us the origins of such behavior, an end to innocence and the inescapable nature of evil.

The small village of Eichwald is relatively secluded in northern Germany, and in the few seasons leading up to the outbreak of The Great War, very strange events occur there that change the community forever — according to the narrator of The White Ribbon, The School Teacher, who is recalling these happenings from what seems like an elderly age.

First, the town doctor and his horse are tripped up by a tightly strung wire as he returns home for the day, and he is hospitalized for weeks. The wife of a farmer is then killed when she falls through rotten floorboards. As the harvest comes around, and everyone is busy, this seems to be the end of it, but after the festival celebrating a successful season, a field of the town baron's cabbages are found destroyed. One of his son's mysteriously disappears and is found bound at the feet having been severely lashed. A barn is set ablaze in the middle of the night. A farmer commits suicide. The doctor molests his own daughter and resents the midwife who essentially acts as his slave. Her disabled child is found severely beaten with a cryptic note about divine retribution.

Amidst the chaos, the town's pastor attempts to salvage the little purity that is left in what was once a tranquil town by tying a white ribbon on his son's arm (who admitted to his practice of masturbation) to remind him of his obligations to God. This symbol is in affect a reminder to the other God-fearing inhabitants of Eichwald that they are living in sin, and as a result, must be punished.

The School Teacher, whose affection for the Baron's nanny makes him the closest thing the film has to a sympathetic protagonist, eventually catches on to who might be responsible for the recent wave of crime, but realizes the truth may be more dangerous than the deeds themselves.

Haneke originally intended for the project to be a three part television mini-series, and it is possible that this richly detailed story would have benefited from more fleshing out, but as a singular piece, Ribbon is truly chilling in its ordinariness. Voices are rarely raised, there is not a single scene of violence, only a couple gory images, and it all comes in sterile black and white. One gets the feeling that the War to End All Wars was inevitable, along with the one that followed.

Film Review — Police, Adjective

You know you are watching a film made outside the United States when nothing explodes, no one dies, overdoses, is kidnapped or even arrested. One is then made completely certain of this fact when they realize they are watching a police procedural and none of the above circumstances come about to rescue the script from oblivion. A similar feeling comes to the foray while watching Police, Adjective, the new film from acclaimed Romanian director Corneliu Porumboiu (12:08 to Bucharest), who has crafted a deceptively simplistic story that proves Eastern European filmmakers continue to deserve special attention in the annual festival circuit, if not the Academy's.

Cristi (Dragos Bucur), an undercover cop in dreary Vaslui, Romania begins to take his assignment of shadowing suspected pot dealer Victor (Radu Costin) a bit more seriously after realizing he is simply a kid getting an occasional high with some friends from school. Viewing the crime as hardly an injustice to society, Cristi drags out his investigation, consuming several days without even changing clothes, hoping to find evidence exonerating the teen. Unfortunately, said evidence never surfaces, and Cristi is forced to face his boss with an update on the investigation, as well as the realization that the whims of his conscience are insignificant in the eyes of the law.

The Dardenne Brothers of Belgium have mastered a modern form of neo-realism in films like The Son (2002) and most recently in Lorna's Silence (2009) that feature a high degree of moral uncertainty and internal debate among the protagonists over the fate of another human being, often a complete stranger, who is in a compromised situation. Porumboiu's use of minimalism in plot and dialogue — which makes the film seem like an adaptation of an introspective crime novel — proves to be successful here in visualizing Cristi's haphazard discovery of his own conscience, therefore replicating in a way the Dardennes' technique.

There is also room left over for a thin thread of dark comedy in Police, Adjective. When Cristi's underdeveloped vocabulary is put in check first by his wife, and then again by his boss, he seems relatively complacent rather than humiliated. Ultimately, his lesson is a simple reminder that an enforcer of the law has only the authority to uphold what the law says, not what the individual moral voice or popular sentiment might dictate.

Film Review — The Beaches of Agnes

Something often said about artists is that it is far more difficult (and usually more rewarding) to swivel their focus around — whether it be a camera, a paintbrush or a pen — from the outside world into their own lives. The recent passing of J.D. Salinger recalls his self-admitted autobiographical character Holden Caulfield and Frederico Fellini's deeply personal ode to the pains and pleasures of filmmaking in 8 1/2 received an unnecessary homage — if you could call it that — in Nine. However thinly veiled, these works remained fiction rather than documentary, something that separates them from Agnes Varda's new film The Beaches of Agnes, a uniquely revealing self-portrait of a clearly talented artist.

As a member of the New Wave cadre of cineastes like Godard, Marker, Resnais and others, Varda has a remarkably humble sense of her own place in film history, especially being the widow of the French director Jacques Demy, known for musical films such as The Umbrellas of Cherbourg. The year after he died of AIDS, Varda released a biographical film of Demy's childhood that she wrote and directed with what seems like very minor input from the man himself due to his illness. 80 years old at the time the film premiered at the Venice Film Festival in 2008, Beaches is Ms. Varda's chance to share her life story while she can still do it her way, and in this endeavor she succeeds marvelously.

As with her long-time friend and colleague Chris Marker, who appears in the film only as a tableau cat with a mechanic voice, Varda has centered much of her work around the themes of time, memory and their effects on human relationships. In her breakout feature Cleo from 5 to 7, a young woman spends two hours contemplating the meaning of life as she awaits word from her doctor on whether she has malignant cancer or not. Throughout this film, Varda literally walks backwards into the past during each vignette, cleverly juxtaposing modern images and set designs with old photos and films as she narrates each story. The casual cinemagoer will likely be lost in what at times seems like a stream of consciousness recounting of very detailed happenings, especially as she admittedly veers into random yet humorous digressions. What remains amidst her genuine quirkiness however is a powerful meditation on the timeless nature of cinema.

With exponentially larger waves of new documentaries releasing every year on nearly any subject, Varda's mise-en-scène is as fresh and original as any one's, revealing her presence as not only a pioneer in her field, but an enduring master as well.

Film Review — "Broken Embraces"

Pedro Almodovar's latest collaboration with his muse (Penelope Cruz) attempts to comment on the pressures that the process of filmmaking can have on the relationships of those involved, especially the director. As his "Bad Education" (2004) was an artful representation of his memories at a Catholic boarding school in 1960's Spain where some of his classmates experienced abuse by priests, "Broken Embraces" carries an autobiographical tone throughout the film and may be his most personal work to date.

Harry Caine is a blind writer who lost his sight and the love of his life in an accident fourteen years ago during the making of his last film. A former director, Harry now makes his living churning out stories and scripts with the help of his old production manager and friend Judit and her son Diego, who act as his secretary and assistant. When Judit is away for a weekend Diego is accidentally drugged, and so Harry is at his bedside when he finally recovers at the hospital, prompting curious Diego to ask Harry about his tumultuous past and queuing a flashback that fills the middle two-thirds of the film.

The accident changed everything for Harry, including his name, which was originally Mateo Blanco. Caine was just a pseudonym he had used for his extra-cinematic writings. The unknown Lena (Cruz) lands the lead part for his film because she happens to be the mistress of the aging producer Ernesto (José Luis Gomez) who, well-aware of Lena's attractive qualities and unable to put his insecurities to rest, enlists his son to make a 'documentary' of the production. Shortly thereafter, Mateo tries to save Lena from Ernesto's insatiable jealousy, but fate chooses an unexpected path for the lovers.

Almodovar writes his characters with a trademark sensuality and liveliness that knows no boundaries, which may be a continuing response to his upbringing during Franco's oppressive reign in Spain, and in this often hilarious film — despite some serious subject matter, we see those traits continue.

Some may misinterpret Almodovar as a maker of only 'serious art films' that require a degree to untangle their meaning, but in truth, one like "Broken Embraces" is a simple celebration of film's capability to bring people together, at least partially explaining his passion for the art form.