The ABC’s of summer blockbusting

I’ve been going back to the movies pretty fearlessly of late. In the past fortnight, I’ve seen three of the pictures people are talking about. Being a people, I herewith talk.

Tim and I thought Mission Impossible, whatever its current sequel number, might be worth seeing in IMAX. Indeed it was. Yes, there is a talky opening scene that could give you the giggles with what they are all spouting, but once these gasbags are gassed, (literally), “Mission” roars off at top speed where it remains to the very end.

Mission Impossible Poster

I’m not a fan of mindless car chases, but the action scenes here are so artfully contrived that my interest never flagged. The motorcycle cliff jump pays off beautifully, and the bridge dangling Orient Express sequence is quite simply thrilling. It builds and builds until you think it can’t top itself, and then it does. I haven’t seen anything as seat gripping since Raiders of the Lost Ark.

After all this time, no one is to blame or praise for anything that happens in this franchise, but Tom Cruise. He knows what he wants, and he knows what he’s doing. The plots are pipe dreams, but Cruise makes a pact with the audience. “Suspend your disbelief, and I’ll give you a three ring circus joyride that you’ll never forget.”

His eye for detail extends to feminine beauty and the talent behind it. Both Rebecca Ferguson and Hayley Atwell have faces that would have ruled in Hollywood’s golden age, and the skills to make you care about them in this sea of fictional nonsense. Cruise himself is older, but we should all age as he has. His physical appearance and athletic skills are “picture in the attic” stuff. He is our Douglas Fairbanks Sr.

This iteration of Mission Impossible, like its predecessors, hasn’t a serious idea in its head. It aims only to distract and entertain. Yet, given this level of craft, creativity, and polish, it rises to movie making at its best. So, A for attaboy.

Next was Barbie, which I saw with Darlene, my fashion consultant. Thanks to Greta Gerwig, Barbie has a head stuffed with serious ideas. Seeing it unprepared would be like sitting down to a banana split, only to discover that under the banana are a medley of nutritious vegetables and fiber. America Ferrera, in particular, delivers a speech that powerfully conveys the curse of being a woman with even half a brain in your head.

Still, the banana on top doesn’t disappoint. The sets and costumes have the most cheerful pink and turquoise sheen imaginable. You want to hitch rides in Barbie’s car, her boat, her plane. Just don’t bang your head on the water in her pool.

Then there’s Ken. Quite a few of him actually. Poor neglected Ken. Barbie is repulsed by his clueless advances. A trip to the real world inspires him to attempt a coup in Barbieland, but of course, the Barbies are too smart for him.

The movie has a split personality, and tries to divert two quite different audiences. Mostly, it succeeds. Little girls will like what they see, and adults will be amused by what they hear. At one point, the various Kens are quarreling about which of them does best the only thing they do well – beach (for them, it’s a verb). The resulting face off suggests to the jaded ear the prospect of an epic Mattel circle jerk. And Barbie’s final line, one for the ages really, might need some explaining to very young viewers.

Margot Robbie is a restrained dream as Barbie. There hasn’t been as earnest a portrayal of a cartoon character since Shelley Duvall played Olive Oyl in Popeye. Ryan Gosling is just whom you’d want as Ken, and Rhea Perlman has a lovely cameo as Barbie’s creator. So, I’ll give Barbie a B for better than you might expect.

Finally, Tim and I were back at IMAX for Oppenheimer. Full disclosure, I had gotten up at what seemed like crack of middle of the night for other errands, and felt under-slept as we got to the theater. I’ve never changed my opinion of a movie so drastically while I watched it. The first two hours (it’s a long watch) I alternately nodded off in boredom or hated what I snapped awake to see. Tim told me I missed some enjoyable but gratuitous full frontal nudity and a suicide.

Christopher Nolan is a show off. He serves himself first and his subject second. You must be made aware this is a movie by Nolan, so he does things that John Ford or Howard Hawks would never stoop to. He employs a slice and dice form of editing so that you’re given brief ribbons of alternating scenes, now color, now black and white, now the present, now a flashback, and you are expected to stitch them together in your head to form a cogent narrative. In my sleep deprived state, this was impossible, but Tim, who was wide awake and alert, found the editing similarly exasperating. It also didn’t help that much of the dialogue was tamped down to a whisper.

Then, about two thirds of the way in, Nolan stops hot dogging. It’s as though someone grabbed him and said, “If you don’t put down that scissors, we won’t have a picture.” Scenes lengthen, to accommodate anyone with an attention span, and a meaningful and involving story emerges.

I can’t imagine the actors are happy with Nolan’s fragmenting of their efforts. Cillian Murphy gives us the multi-faceted complexity of Oppenheimer’s troubled genius. Emily Blunt is well cast as his stressed out wife, and Gary Oldman has a telling, nasty bit as Truman, once more disappearing into a well known character as he did with Churchill in Darkest Hour. The real surprise here though, is Robert Downey Jr. as Oppenheimer’s nemesis. It’s a masterful job that I didn’t Know he had in him. Shame on me.

So, overall, I’d say this is indeed worth seeing, (though there’s no need for IMAX), particularly if you can arrive late. I rate it C for Can you stop running with scissors?

Troubadour of a lifetime

When I was a little boy, there was Frank Sinatra. This was a voice unlike all that had come before it, a voice that made love and romance compelling and believable. The beauty of his tone, and the uncluttered honesty of his phrasing made my young heart and ears perk up. That’s what life is all about, I thought. That’s what I want above all, a love to make me feel like that man sounds when he sings.

Later, as an adolescent, there was Tony Bennett. Again, a voice with passion, and beauty, and credibility, but also something else, a rasp, a burr that roughened it enticingly, just enough to make it earthy, smooth but gritty, realistic and relatable. It was a heady and seductive combination.

I was not alone in my reaction. On my first day at South Shore high school, a kindly English teacher, whose name I wish I could remember, asked our class what song was number one. He was making a point about poetry, and everyone knew the answer. Hands shot up, mine included. “Because of You!” “Because of You!” It was Bennett’s first big hit. The melodic line gave his voice a chance to soar, and we couldn’t get enough of it.

Bennett was on a roll. The flip side, “Cold Cold Heart,” muscled its way to the top of the charts. Muscled, yes, this was a muscular voice, but one capable of great beauty and tenderness. I wanted to hear more.

I remember the Saturday I first heard “Rags to Riches” with its snazzy sax intro. I had to have it at once. I’d hoarded my allowance for just such emergencies. The IC, (Illinois Central), train whisked me downtown to the best and busiest record store at that time, Hudson Ross. I bought my prize, listened to it in one of their booths, and rushed home to play it again. That night, Howard Miller announced it was number one, on its first day of release. I smiled to think I had helped put it there.

I’d always liked my father’s music, but now, he was liking mine. Bennett appeared frequently in Chicago, and I recall Dad and I cheering him on at the Empire Room. Like Sinatra, his phrasing had become intimate and conversational. He was singing to a single person, and it was you. He could swing with the best of them, but his ballads could grip and haunt you. Something he did a lot was taking an over familiar standard like “It Had to Be You” and turning it into something fresh and new. His “I’ll Be Seeing You” can move me to tears.

For seventy two years, he has burnished the “Great American Songbook” and kept it alive. This morning, as I drove to an early appointment, WFMT, a classical music station surprised me by playing his version of Jerome Kern’s “The Way You Look Tonight.” Well, why not, isn’t it a classic? But I knew it was over. My lifelong balladeer was gone.

Goodnight, Tony Bennett, but not goodbye. Thank God for recordings.

Fond and foolish

They used to say that we reach physical perfection at age twenty-five. Anabolism builds us up to that point, then there’s a period of stasis until catabolism takes over and it’s all slowly downhill from there. Perhaps they still say that, but we live much longer now, so we may peak a bit later on.

I remember the exact day that I peaked, and it was, indeed, at twenty-five, in 1962. I looked in the mirror that morning and thought, “This is it. You’ve never looked this good in your life.” I was tan and slim, and could still find pants to fit me in the boy’s department. I had big brown orbs that had been called cow eyes. My chin was firm and taut. (whose isn’t, at that age?), and best of all, my mop of hair was behaving. It even had a little blonde streak from the sun. It was as though nature decided to make the picture even tastier by putting a cherry on top.

I liked what I saw that day. I, who generally had so little confidence, yielded to an unaccustomed burst of vanity, and smiled back at the glass. There were so few points of reference then for a gay man. At first, you think there is no one else who feels as you do. or almost no one, certainly no one you’d care about, and absolutely, positively no one who’d care about you.

Then, you discover there are like minded souls, but you’d be valued primarily for whatever looks you might or might not have. It was an uncertain and intimidating prospect – but not that morning, at twenty-five. The mirror reassured me that I’d pass inspection and then some.

The night before, I’d met a handsome boy. I can’t recall now whether it was at a bar, or just by locking eyes on the street. It could happen either way – and lots of other ways. In any case, he liked me enough that we agreed to meet the next day, at Bughouse Square, at noon.

Looking in the mirror again, I buzzed with excitement, “He’s going to be pleased he met me. Maybe this will come to something.” I made a picnic lunch, chicken sandwiches and two slices of my grandmother’s excellent apple pie. I changed my pants for shorts, to show off my tanned legs, and looked for my wallet. It was nowhere to be seen. I kept looking, going back to the same places twice and three times. I knew better than to drive off without my license, but this date was too important to be missed. I couldn’t be late. I left without the wallet. I’d find it when I came back.

I got to Bughouse Square about 11:30. I wanted to be early, and I might have to park blocks away. Bughouse was notorious as a hook up spot for gays. It was also an entertaining space to while away time, filled as it was with musicians, hoboes, soapbox orators, and other splendid outcasts – like me, for that day, I felt both outcast and splendid.

I spread out on a bench, from where I could see everyone coming from all directions. The sun basted me. I leaned back, draped my arms over the bench, and mulled my good fortune, happy for once to be looked at by passers by. Don’t be in a rush folks. Enjoy the sun streak. Soon they’d see that I wasn’t alone. I’d be joined by a good looking fellow who wanted to be with me.

I didn’t expect my new beau to be early, and he wasn’t. I imagined what I’d say when he arrived. We’d talk a while on the bench, and have lunch. But I’d want to drive him somewhere else – his place, I hoped, somewhere private, where we could touch. He’d want that too. Maybe he’d want more. Maybe he’d want enough to last . . .

Twelve o’clock came and went, then 12:15. Now he’d likely be running, and out of breath. I’d enjoy that, and be all smiles and forgiveness. I’d put him at his ease, and maybe we’d risk holding hands. 12:30. I’d have to give him more time. It would be awful if I left before he came. He’d find me gone and wonder if I’d come at all. No, he couldn’t wonder, not after what passed between us last night, so easy, so simpatico.

Now it was 1:00, now 1:30. He wasn’t coming. He’d never intended to. Something else was clear, something even more unpleasant. I wouldn’t find my wallet at home. I hadn’t misplaced it. He’d taken it as he fondled me. He recognized me for an easy mark, a trusting fool, eager to help him write his larcenous scenario.

I unwrapped the sandwiches and slowly ate them, followed by the pie. Why let them go to waste? I could have given them to a hobo. Some unfortunate could have had a pleasant surprise. But I needed to process what had happened and what had not. The food was calming, and I ate unhurriedly, now and then shaking my head with a rueful laugh.

Some weeks later, my wallet was mailed back to me in an envelope with no return address. Everything was there – except the money. Had he taken it? Yes, I’m pretty sure of that. Was its return an act of conscience? Who can say. Had he liked me at all? I was vain enough to feel he did – but he was practical enough not to let that deter him from his purpose.

So, who got the benefit of seeing me at my physical peak? Nobody. It was squandered on hoboes and passing strangers. I doubt I ever looked that good before or since, but that summer day, at twenty-five, I was something to see.

No wonder I get lost

I do, frequently – even in my dreams. A nightmare that recurs on an all too regular basis has me wandering about, trying to get back to people, but hopelessly lost. Recently, I came out of the Jewel, laden with groceries, and went down the wrong parking aisle. I came to an empty space where my car should have been, and panicked that it had been stolen. A kindly stock boy observed my consternation and suggested borrowing my key remote. Shortly, he called out from one aisle over, “Found it!” I told him he had an idiot for a customer.

This is nothing new; it happens all the time. Nor is it the onset of Alzheimer’s. It’s gone on all my life. John said I could get lost crossing a room, and it’s true. It happened again this Wednesday, but I finally got some insight as to why I have such an unreliable sense of direction.

I was meeting friends for lunch before an eye doctor appointment. The restaurant was high atop the same building – or so I thought. I’d been there a few years back and remembered what seemed to be a rooftop view. I took the elevator to the highest floor but found the halls silent and deserted. As I looked for assistance, the empty corridors echoed the maze I stumble through in my dreams.

At length, I saw a woman at a computer in a darkened office. I tapped at the glass door to ask for directions. She got up smiling and seemed to welcome the interruption. She explained the restaurant was six floors below, and offered to take me there. A confidant adult would have said, “Thanks, but I’ll find it.” Life has taught me otherwise. On our way, I asked, “Did you just want a break?” “Exactly,” she replied, laughing.

My friends, Ann and Carol, were already there. I apologized for the delay from getting lost, but Ann said it wasn’t surprising, given an article she’d read. It had to do with Synesthesia, a condition I was born with. I’ve discussed it before in these blogs, so, very briefly, I see letters and numbers in color, and hear music in colors as well.

My colorful problem.

The study Ann read finds that synesthetes like me are prone to be directionally challenged due to the way our brains are wired. Learning this won’t help me get where I’m going, (thank goodness for GPS devices), but, after all these years, it’s nice to know the issue isn’t my own particular ineptitude, (though I may have turned an unfortunate predisposition into a fine art).

So much of life is trade offs – if this, then not that. I’ve pondered my situation and decided I got the best of the deal. Lying in bed late yesterday morning, listening to the vivid orange sax with the multi colored orchestra swirling around it in Ravel‘s saxophone rhapsody, I wouldn’t have missed it for the world.