Best Songs- 2014

 

The Theory Of Everything

The Theory Of Everything was the second half of a double feature for me on Saturday night.  The film tells the story of physicist Stephen Hawking (played by Eddie Redmayne).  The action begins shortly before he meets his wife Jane (Felicity Jones) for the first time when they both were in college.  When Stephen was just 21, he was given the devastating diagnosis of  a motor-neuron disease (ALS, or Lou Gehrig's disease) and given two years to live. 

Hawking has lived well past that diagnosis, but its effects are debilitating, and the film shows he and Jane trying to raise a family despite Stephen's difficulties.  Jane develops feelings for Stephen's caretaker, so the complications in the story were more than just physical. 

I enjoyed The Theory of Everything, especially the performances by Redmayne and Jones. There were scenes that stuck with me, like when Hawking learns of his diagnosis from  a doctor who lacks  warmth and dumps all the repercussions of his disease out all at once in a hallway.  It's a wonder that Hawking ever gets up again, but Redmayne's portrayal of Hawking's persistence and Jones's firm-jawed performance as Jane Hawking really made the film for me.  I think both could be up for some awards in the months ahead.

Birdman

Riggan Thomsen (played by Michael Keaton) was a big deal.  Past tense.  He played a superhero twenty years ago, but now he's the kind of guy TMZ would catch at an airport to get a meaningless sound bite.  As the film begins he's in his dressing room, and he's got problems. Someone delivered a poster of one of the Birdman movies, and it's taunting him as he tries to mount a Broadway production of a Raymond Carver play that he's starring in and directing.  He needed a miracle when it came to a lead man, and although a solution arrived in the form of Michael Shiner (Edward Norton), that solution is a head case.  Throw in the fact that his daughter Sam (Emma Stone) despises him, and he's got more than enough on his plate.


I was eager to see Birdman.  Other than the part about Michael Keaton playing an actor who was a superhero, I didn't really know what to expect.   Birdman, it turns out, is unlike anything I've seen in a while.  There's steady percussion and drumming in the background.  The camerawork is in-your-face (or rather, in the actors' faces).  The plot adds complication to complication, making the viewer feel almost as overwhelmed as Riggan.  I found myself not on the edge of my seat, but leaning back as events unfolded.

I think Birdman is one of the best films I've seen in a long time, simply because it didn't let up and didn't let me catch my breath. It efficiently and effectively tackles themes of self-worth versus worth in others' eyes, throws in some supernatural elements and a lot of unexpected twists.  I highly recommend seeing Birdman while it's still in theaters, as it's definitely a vivid sensory experience.

Chef

 

In Chef, Jon Favreau plays chef Carl Casper.  Carl's happiest when he cooks, and life's pretty good at his restaurant.  Pretty good, that is, until he receives a humiliating review from food blogger Ramsey Michel (Oliver Platt), and the ensuing Twitter fight leads him to try to change his menu to show Ramsey that he hasn't lost his creativity.  The changes don't sit well with the restaurant's owner Riva (Dustin Hoffman), who wants him to "play the hits".  Carl storms out, then storms back in to confront Riva.  Carl's tirade goes viral, and he lays low for a while before finding a new opportunity to be creative and bond with his son.

Chef certainly made me hungry, as there is a heavy focus on food preparation and enjoyment throughout the film.  Unfortunately, Chef also made me restless and a little bored.  After the conflict early on, there's not a lot of drama.  Casper starts a food truck, and too much of the film after that is travelling to the next location, shopping for food, and Casper's son Percy tweeting.

What left the sourest taste in my mouth was Carl storming back into his restaurant to berate Ramsey  To be sure, Ramsey's review got personal (saying that Carl's weight gain probably came from eating the food sent back to the kitchen).  But Carl starts almost whining that the bad review really hurts and wasn't fair to his hard-working staff.  This seemed ridiculous to me, as surely Carl would have had a bad review before and not lost his mind (and job) because a food critic simply did his job. 

 

Life's A Ride

    
     A new roller coaster recently opened at Six Flags Great America.  It's called the Goliath (shown above), and it features a first drop that's nearly straight down, as well as some inversions, one of which apparently makes riders feel weightless.  It's opening with a lot of fanfare, as it's the newest and scariest thing in the roller coaster wars.  I'll have to settle for watching the online videos for now, as the line probably stretches on for hours, but I did have my own Goliath when I was a kid.



      Water had frequently given me trouble as a little guy, going back to when I was really tiny and thought that I was going to follow the water down the drain in the bathtub.  My first solo swimming lesson was a terrifying experience.  As I made my way out of the locker room at Pulaski High School, I saw the water in the shallow end and immediately thought that I would drown if I jumped in. 

     I'd eventually get over the swimming lesson anxiety (a few years later, I was one of only two in my class to pass the higher level "Swimmer" class).  As a little kid, though, I did have a summer nemesis.  It was a metal water slide perched menacingly in the shallow end of the McCarty Park pool.  It taunted me when I came out of the locker room, and I thought maybe my parents would forget about it and I could just have fun in the water.  No such luck, though.  Each time, I had to go down the slide.


   I would muster up some courage and look up at the slide.  It seemed to stretch into the sky.  I'd put one foot on the bottom step, and then climb up, knees wobbling slightly, one foot at a time.  I must have looked ridiculous, but I didn't care.  The steps were treacherous to me, as they were slippery and spaced far enough apart that I felt compelled to one-foot them instead of climbing. By the time I was near the top, my fear of heights kicked in and I'd cling to the sides before whooshing down into the water.  Success!  Time for an ice cream sandwich (which, for some reason tasted best next to the pool).

    I haven't totally lost the nerves around rides.  Two years ago, Sarah and I went to the Wilderness Resort in Wisconsin Dells.  It was February, so in addition to the wave pool and lazy river, we tried out all the indoor slides.  Indoor waterparks tend to build up and not out, so as to maximize space, so I'd get a little shot of nerves here and there climbing up the stairs.  For the most part, the slides were really fun, but storm clouds began to gather in the Klondike Kavern, where the Hurricane awaited.

    
The Hurricane was a regular slide, for the most part, but instead of a last drop to safety, it drops riders into a funnel, where they go up and down the sides until finally exiting the ride.  It was also accompanied in true theme-park style by fake weather reports and flashing lights.  The butterflies  were back, and I think they were a result of me flashing back to infanthood and my fear of circling the drain. Being in my early thirties, I wasn't going to let some nerves get in my way.  It was a water slide.  What was the worst that could happen?

     Oh, I don't know, me screaming "I HATE THIS THING" loud enough for the entire waterpark to hear as we were flying up the side of the funnel and thinking we'd fly off our slide and fall to serious injury or death.  It's just one of those in-the-moment things.  Same thing happened to my mom when I was a little kid and we were on a ride at a church festival.  I think she thought it was just going to be a gentle ride up in the sky, but after we shot up and over the grounds pretty quickly, she was screaming for the operator to stop the ride. The thrill, though, is the point of the ride, and conquering fears and anxieties is a thrill.  Not only did I survive The Hurricane, I wanted to go again.  
Similarly, twenty or so years ago, in one fearless and slightly drizzly half hour, I rode both Iron Wolf (a stand up roller coaster) and the scariest ride I'd ever seen, the Shock Wave (below), with its terrifying drop and seven loops.  I felt invincible (and also slightly queasy) after exiting the Shock Wave, another victory under my belt, and I'm sure if Goliath existed back then, I would have turned and pointed in its direction, ready to scream my bloody head off yet again.

Book Review- I Don't Care If We Never Get Back

Even the most hardcore of baseball fans probably wouldn’t want to see 30 games in 30 days, especially when cross-country car travel is required, but it was a dream for Ben Blatt.  Not so much for his friend Eric Brewster, who doesn’t even like the sport.  Eric went along to see the country, but winds up seeing mostly ballparks and interstate highways.  

I Don’t Care If We Never Get Back is the chronicle of the daunting trip.  It’s not really geared towards baseball fans, or packed with information about the different ballparks.  It’s more about the journey of two friends and a tale of logistics.  Ben is a statistics freak, and he designed an algorithm to identify the most efficient route to accomplish the 30-in-30 feat.  There is much attention paid to how much driving the two would need to do to make it to the different ballparks, and how Ben went from a baseball fan during the trip to rooting for short games so the travel would be easier.

It’s a fast read, but ultimately kind of repetitive, as the friends strive to make it to each ballpark on time (Ben doesn’t consider it a complete game unless they’re there from first pitch to last).  There are some notable moments, though.  Ben gets to meet his idol (not a player, but Cubs President Theo Epstein, in a meeting that doesn’t go as planned), family is visited, and complications arise throughout the trip.

 

One of the great things about watching baseball (for baseball fans, at least) is that memorable or odd things can happen at any game.  The odds may be small, but in any game, a pitcher can throw a no-hitter, a player could hit four home runs, or the game could end dramatically on a hit or home run in the bottom of the ninth.  Here are just a few of my memorable moments:

 

·         September 9, 1988 was my first Brewer game, and Gary Sheffield hit his first home run in the major leagues, a game winner against Seattle.  Sheffield would go on to hit over 500 home runs.

·         I watched the Cleveland Indians and Los Angeles Angels of Anaheim play a game at Miller Park.  There was a huge snowstorm hitting Ohio and Major League Baseball moved the Cleveland/LA series to Miller Park.  Tickets were heavily discounted, and we sat right along the first base line for $10.  This would be the first time I’d see CC Sabathia.

·         My dad and I were at one of Sabathia’s first home starts.  Sabathia was a huge acquisition for the Brewers,and he didn’t disappoint, throwing a complete game and hitting a home run.

I think everyone has a little Ben and Eric in them when going to a game.  Not every game is going to feature the spectacular plays, and some pitchers work very deliberately, so it’s very easy to get fidgety.  For a lot of people, it’s a three-hour opportunity to visit and chat, with the game taking a back seat to good conversation, brats and beer.

Book Review- Sitcom and Top Five Sitcoms

To me, good sitcoms have tended to be few and far between. For every good one, you might get five shows like According To Jim or Two And A Half Men, shows that I wouldn't watch unless forced, shows where the laugh track goes every five seconds as if on a timer, even if nothing remotely funny has been uttered, as labored and long as this sentence.

I'm sure Saul Austerlitz has sat through many of those same shows, along with the 24 he profiles in his book Sitcom. The book is set up into 24 chronological "episodes", ranging from I Love Lucy to Community.  Austerlitz details in each episode how the show came to be, what made it great, what influences it would have (or, in the later chapters, the show's influence).  

Sitcom was an incredibly fast read for me, and an informative one at that.  Not having seen many episodes of I Love Lucy or The Honeymooners, it was nonetheless interesting to read about how they changed the landscape of early TV by not being the same episode over and over when that was the expectation back then.  Similarly, I hadn't considered how difficult it might be to develop a truly original sitcom today, as the last chapters detail how 30 Rock and Community really don't even try to be anything original and are hyper-aware of every sitcom cliche.

My Favorite Sitcoms

1.  Frasier

I loved Frasier from the first episode, and the first few episodes were not always funny, as Frasier got established in Seattle after moving from Boston.  No, what I loved in the first season was the tension between Frasier and his father Martin, a former police officer who was shot in the hip and couldn't live alone.  They're on each other's nerves and at each other's throats, which doesn't sound all that pleasant, but it felt almost like theater, funny and intense.

The show didn't keep up that level of intensity, but the characters and the relationships between the characters made it a great show.  Frasier and Martin eventually work things out (although there's always some tension between the two), Niles lusts after Daphne, and Frasier and Niles spend a lot of time throwing dinner parties and running themselves ragged competing with each other.   

Sitcom mentions how many early sitcoms would make sure to resolve all issues and changes before the end of the episode, and Frasier's way of doing that was to make sure Frasier was still single at the end of most episodes. There are so many instances of either Frasier or his family fouling things up and ultimately ruining his chances.  In a way, it's the opposite of Seinfeld.  Jerry and company find so many ways to end relationships by finding flaws, but Frasier's too busy ruining his chances by showing his.


2.  Seinfeld

I think Seinfeld's probably the most talked about show of all time, so I'll keep this short.  Like Frasier, I've seen every episode enough to almost know them by heart.  I think what I enjoyed most was Seinfeld's twists.  I just saw the episode where Jerry's mechanic (Brad Garrett) absconds with his car because he doesn't feel Jerry's taking sufficient care of it, which sets off an entirely new chain of events.  Elaine's invested in the situation because she's got a set of her bosses' coveted golf clubs (allegedly used by JFK) in Jerry's car, and Newman and Kramer (speaking of zany) interrupt a road trip in a mail truck to chase down the stolen car, which appears in front of them.  Kramer feels like they're not moving fast enough, so he pushes Newman out of the truck.

The zaniness extends to characters outside the group.  A mechanic steals a car because of its owners' negligence.  A fellow comedian sells Jerry a suit, and his only demand is that Jerry take him out to dinner, but what constitutes dinner?  Evidently, a cup of soup does not.  Speaking of soup, does making unbelievable soup mean that a proprietor can mistreat his customers?  It does, provided that said proprietor doesn't tick off the wrong customer.  





3.  The Office

Jim and Pam.  For a while, it was all about Jim and Pam, and if we didn't have them, The Office might not have been as enjoyable a watch.  For a few seasons, it was all about Jim's longing for Pam, and Pam's awful, soul (and dream) crushing relationship with Roy kept her from Jim even as the two flirted at the reception desk.  

Jim (John Krasinski) was always looking at the camera in that "can you believe this" sort of way as his boss Michael Scott (Steve Carell) ushered his employees into conference rooms for meaningless meetings.  He egged on Dwight Schrute, his humorless co-worker, encasing Dwight's stapler in Jello or impersonating Dwight perfectly, but it all came back to Pam.

Michael Scott, meanwhile, was a clueless and spineless boss, unable to stand up to the warehouse when the office workers beat the warehouse at basketball and therefore should have had Saturday off.  Time was wasted in so many ways, from movie Mondays to meetings about whatever was annoying Michael.

The moments that I remember most were not necessarily the funniest.  In one episode, it is revealed that Michael is working a telephone sales job to help pay off the debt he's accrued over the years.  This causes him to finally run away from the office, only to be tracked down and consoled by his girlfriend Jan.

There's another episode in which Michael takes the women in The Office to the mall to go shopping, and over lunch Michael reveals that Jan has mistreated him, and the women urge him to break up with her.  Finally, Michael has Jim and Pam over to a dinner party and we learn just how toxic his relationship with Jan has become, as eventually the police are called.

4.  Arrested Development

Arrested Development is the story of the children of two very self-absorbed parents.  As the story begins, George Bluth Senior (Jeffrey Tambor) is arrested for corrupt business dealings, and The Bluth Company is left adrift.  Michael Bluth (Jason Bateman) and his son George Michael plan to leave the family behind, but can't, as he is the only one with any business sense (supposedly) and he doesn't want to deprive George Michael of time with his family.

His siblings Lindsey, Gob (pronounced "jobe"), and Buster are different shades of clueless, but all are as self-obsessed as their parents.  Michael struggles to raise his son and provide a good environment for George Michael with his family being around and George Sr in prison.

The writing is razor-sharp for much of the series, with a lot of wordplay and character-based silliness (a lot of it featuring Lindsey's husband Tobias, who can move around like a cat and puts himself in a lot of precarious situations).  Gob is an illusionist whose stage shows involve a lot of him dancing around with a knife in his mouth or simply holding cards in his hand.  Buster is a mama's boy who clings to Lucille and rebels against her by dating her friend, also named Lucille (and played hilariously by Liza Minnelli).  

 5. Taxi

There's a theme in each of my five choices.  Without memorable characters, a sitcom is noise, a painful laugh track going off after every line or just plain boring.  Many sitcom stars have moved on to other series, only to find that the same magic just isn't there.  Joey Tribbiani couldn't really be Joey without the rest of his Friends.  Jason Alexander was in a couple different series that didn't last, and same for Matthew Perry.

Taxi, as Sitcom points out, didn't really have any main characters.  There was no love interest to root for, so the viewer rooted for everyone in the group, especially against the vile Louie (Danny DeVito).  Sure, the show centered on Alex (Judd Hirsch) as someone to give advice (or money, in an early episode), but each character had his or her own troubles, so they all helped each other out.

What made it work?  There were a couple of unusual characters that occasionally stole a scene or episode.  Latka (Andy Kaufman) was frequently butchering the English language but would also provide a kind of examination of American culture by comparing the traditions of his culture.  Reverend Jim provided one of the funniest scenes in the show by repeatedly asking what a yellow light meant on a driving exam and not understanding the group's answers.  

These worked for a laugh or two, but the characters all had relatable issues.  In the pilot, Alex reveals that he hasn't seen his daughter since she was little and regrets it.  Bobby (Jeff Conaway) is continually looking for work as an actor.  Elaine is searching for something besides cab-driving.  Louie has his own struggles, but mostly resists any urge to be a decent human being.  There's an all-for-one spirit throughout the show, and the writing is good enough to support the characters.