GUIDE TO 2016 PRESIDENTIAL CANDIDATES.

REPUBLICANS

DONALD TRUMP: Lowest vulgar denominator

JEB BUSH: Fool me once, shame on you. No, me! Fool me twice, shame on . . . you? Fool me three times .  . .

CARLY FIORINA: Ran Hewlett-Packard into the ground. Wants to do the same for the country.

MARCO RUBIO: The Latino one.

BEN CARSON: Not as funny as Herman Cain.

RAND PAUL: Greed disguised as wisdom and mistaken for politics.

TED CRUZ: Which crackpot is he?

LINDSEY GRAHAM: "What we have heah is a failure to communicate."

CHRIS CHRISTIE: The fat one.

MIKE HUCKABEE: The "Elmer Gantry" candidate.

RICK PERRY: As they say in Texas, "You give him books and give him books and all he does is chew on the covers."

GEORGE PATAKI: Former Mayor of Peekskill, NY.

BOBBY JINDAL: His long career as a footnote began with the Republican response to Obama's first Presidential address.

SCOTT WALKER: Hates women and immigrants as much as unions. Who knew?

RICK SANTORUM: Not Ted Cruz. The other crackpot.

JIM GILMORE: Wasn't he executed by a Utah firing squad in 1977?

JOHN KASICH: From those wonderful folks who brought you Warren G. Harding.


DEMOCRATIC

HILLARY CLINTON: If you don't know her, you haven't been paying attention. If you do, she hasn't been beaten beyond recognition yet.

BERNIE SANDERS: I'm sorry. You can't vote for Mr. Sanders unless you know the difference between Socialism and Communism - and Marxism.

LINCOLN CHAFFEE: If he can run Rhode Island, he can run the Free World.

MARTIN O'MALLEY: Like Maryland, he combines Northern charm with Southern efficiency.

JIM WEBB: Isn't he the Senator from Virginia who married Elizabeth Taylor? No, that's John Warner.

IRRATIONAL MAN: Woody Allen and the Meaning of Light.

     Irrational Man, Woody Allen's forty-fifth film, is not as serious as I thought, as bad as I feared or as good as I hoped. It's about a bored intellectual (Joaquin Phoenix), who discovers the meaning of life by committing the perfect crime. He's so thrilled, in fact,that he confesses what he did to his girlfriend (Emma Stone), only to realize that now, she knows too much. A small, but clever idea that deserves a smaller or, at least, shorter movie.

     Had Rod Serling used that idea for a thirty-minute episode of The Twilight Zone, people would still be talking about it - especially if it had a twist ending. That's because Mr. Serling respected irony - and had a light touch. Not light "optimistic" or light "comedic," but light as opposed to heavy, subtle instead of blunt. I'm not suggesting that Irrational Man is an existential film noir about a cold-blooded killer like Jean-Pierre Melville's Le Samourai (1967). It isn't, but only because most of Irrational Man is not about philosophy or murder. The college setting and most of the characters serve as a beard for the relationship (I don't want to say romance) of a mature man and a college-age woman. There's a lot of talk about Existentialism, but it consists mostly of name-dropping as if a college class in philosophy was a cocktail party for the drug generation. There's also (without being a spoiler)a crime, but not the kind committed by brilliant, but bored, intellectuals in real life like those of Leopold and Loeb or The New Yorker. It all seems to exist for the sole purpose of having the Joaquin Phoenix character say, "I'm enjoying life instead of celebrating death." Not exactly a light touch (see above).

     The acting - as you'd expect from a Woody Allen movie - is uniformly good (Parker Posey could bring it down a touch) and manages to rise above the uncertain tone and dubious content. The music, though, (also a strength in Allen movies) is limited to the fifty-year-old  jazz classic, "The In Crowd," by The Ramsey  Lewis Trio. It's a lively tune and keeps things moving, but has no other relation to the movie. If there's no "in crowd" and it doesn't help establish time and place, why is it the only song? Could it be one of Allen's favorites? After all, the music you love when you're young is the music you love forever.

     I hope Woody Allen makes another forty-five movies. In that spirit, I wish that he would trust his stories more, employ his light touch - Midnight In Paris (2011) - more often and have his obsessions serve his films - instead of the other way around.

MAD MEN ON THE SUBWAY.

      I just saw a great ad on the subway. It's so good that Mad Men's Don Draper could have written it. The ad shows two pictures of the same attractive, young woman in a T-shirt. In one, she's frowning while holding a pair of tomatoes in front of her chest. In the other, she's smiling while holding grapefruits. It's  an ad for plastic surgeons! GET IT?

     How does such a simple ad achieve such immense power? By drawing on three sure-fire sources of humor: poor self-image, elective surgery and comparing women to food. Then using the humor to zero in relentlessly on it's target market: women who choose surgeons for their personalities. It's a small market, but only because surgeons - unlike game show hosts - don't cultivate their personalities. They tend to be pragmatic, "See the hill, take the hill" types and polishing their wit and humor usually takes a back seat to being able to tie a knot inside a nut shell.

     The success of even the best ads, though, depends to a large extent on the proper advertising medium. This is where I part company  with our scalpel-wielding friends. I'm not sure subways are the best place to advertise plastic surgery. (Don't think for a second that I'm a snob about subway advertising. I am constantly asking myself, "Is it too late to learn English, become a TV repairman and is my baby getting the proper nutrition." For the record, I speak English -
don't write it too well - am baffled by remote controls and don't have children.) Getting back to the subway, the advertiser in question is depending on a commuter to look up from her paper and think, "Hmm. Maybe I need plastic surgery?" Whereas the opposite happens ALL THE TIME. "That person needs it, that person needs it and that person really needs plastic surgery. In fact, everyone on this subway car needs it except me."

     There's also the issue of price. The price of most surgery - even with insurance - is out of the range of most subway riders. Our clever carvers, though, know how to bypass sales resistance. They publish the price. By offering a breast enhancement for $3900, they lock up the business of every woman who's ever thought, "I'd pay a lot for a boob job, but four grand is my squealing point." It's not a perfect strategy, however.They may also be alienating the women who think, "For four thousand bucks, I want more than grapefruits. I want melons!"

     Answering that concern is the role of advertising copy. One could, for instance, say that this surgical practice can meet the demand for any kind of fruit. A perky pair of cantaloupes? Done! Unfortunately,there's very little room for copy on subway ads - even with small type.  So, our advertiser  is limited to saying - in very large type - that they perform a BRAZILIAN BUTTUCK LIFT. I have no idea what this procedure involves, but, harking back to Mad Men days, it sounds like a cold war maneuver in which the U.S. parachutes buttocks into Brazil to keep the country from turning communist. Calling it a "butt lift" would be more clear, but might be in bad taste.

SHOWS FOR DAYS: A Midsummer Night's Drone.

Memory play and coming of age story about the making of a writer as well as an affectionate look at community theater: Douglas Carter Beane's Shows For Days embraces all these genres - and, somehow, they all slip through his fingers.

Shows For Days, at the Vivian Beaumont, recalls the playwright's introduction to the stage at a community theater in Reading, PA when he was fourteen. Not coincidentally, it also concerns his first experience with either love or lust, we're not sure. Memory plays are irresistible to writers because it allows them to depict their young selves as either heroes, victims or some touching amalgam of both. Depicting themselves being the operative words. They are also usually done late in the writer's career when, can we talk, they have more memories than new ideas. All of which seems to be true here. There's usually no plot to this type of play, but that function is usually overtaken by a wealth of affectionately drawn, larger-than-life characters. Shows For Days has neither. A glaring absence considering the presence of Patti LuPone, someone who can play to the last row in a concert hall and still feel pinched.

In Mr. Beane's defense, he avoids the traps of nostalgia and sentimentality. Not that either is necessarily bad, but they can easily overwhelm a play like Shows For Days and the writers who are good with them are usually the ones who specialize in them. Beane, instead, is known for the sophisticated wit and social comment of As Bees In Honey Drown. Nothing like that here, either. The closest Douglas Carter Beane gets to ginning up some excitement is threatening the theater 
in which the story takes place with demolition. Yet, if the if the offstage sound of trees being chopped down in Chekhov's, The Cherry Orchard is up here, then the repeated offstage sound of a wrecking ball in Shows For Days is, well, down here.

Is Mr. Beane being overly faithful to events or too respectful of his old colleagues? Who can say? The result, however, is a show for dozing,
not days.

GOLDMAN SHARKS.

Good news for people who've always wanted to work with Goldman Sachs or trust them, but not both. As Jeremy Quittner writes in Inc. Magazine (6/17/15), Goldman intends to enter the personal finance business. Now, if you want a loan of fifteen or twenty thousand dollars, you can borrow from one of the world's leading investment banks. It doesn't matter if you have a small business or a large credit card bill, you can get into bed with people who've screwed the largest corporations directly and you indirectly through the financial crisis of 2008, for which they are largely responsible. How can you trust a bank that's made a business - literally,
a business - of selling their own clients short? It's very hard except one thing is in their favor: Goldman Sachs has already paid a fine of $550 million and promised the U.S. government not to engage in deliberate fraud again. It's slim reed to hang your trust on, I know, but it consider it the cost of visiting 200 West Street on business. 

Why, you may ask, is such a prestigious bank going from he baccarat table of advising governments to the slot machines of personal finance? Three reasons: one, they have repeatedly shown a contempt for their own reputation by being aggressively unethical and, only occasionally, illegal; two, their major stockholders don't care - go ahead, ask him - and, three, there's obviously a lot of money in it.

Tapping the low end of the consumer market is not a complete blight, however. There's one positive consequence: by offering personal loans, Goldman Sachs makes "payday" loans look respectable by comparison. 

A DIM VIEW OF 'SKYLIGHT.'

I was curiously disengaged by the current Broadway revival of the 1995 play, Skylight, by David Hare. The political symbolism rang as clear as a bell, but the emotions evaded me. Skylight concerns the reunion of a wealthy businessman, Tom Sergeant (Bill Nighy) and his former mistress, the principled, but penurious pedagogue, Kyra Hollis (Carey Mulligan). They were an ideal team once: the upper class (him) and the lower class (her) conspiring against the middle class (his wife). Now, he's a widower and they have no use for each other.

No ultimate use, that is. Tom may want the sex - and, perhaps, even the affection - he once had with Kyra and she would appreciate the standard of living to which he helped her become accustomed, but neither will compromise to get it. You might say they've grown apart, but the truth is that she has grown after he split them apart. (Their idyll ended when Tom betrayed Kyra by indirectly informing his wife about them.) He has, since then, gone on to even greater success as a restaurateur. While she has forged a career as a teacher who works - and lives - in the slums of London. Any rapprochement, though, is bound to be short-lived because Tom resolutely clings to his status and privileges
(think England under Margaret Thatcher) and
shows undisguised contempt for Kyra's liberal sympathies. They can't even return to their previous roles because who would they gang up on? The poor?  That would make Kyra middle class - something neither wants.

Swept, as they are, by confused alarms of struggle and flight, why do Tom and Kyra continue to clash by night? Her appeal is obvious: she's intelligent, spirited and - dowdy as she appears - looks like Carey Mulligan. His appeal is a good deal more dubious. One the one hand, he's vigorous, intelligent, self-possessed and - as embodied by Bill Nighy - tall. On the other, he's completely lacking in character. He couldn't be more of an empty suit if he was Clause Rains prancing as "The Invisible Man." It doesn't matter if the suit is by Anderson and Sheppard, Tom Sergeant is a monster of entitlement and treats Kra Hollis as if she were a balky appliance. How much, though, does that matter? How much of their relationship is predetermined - by class or their history together - and how much is controlled by them?

I watched the entire play - carefully - and I still don't know. Whatever emotions draw them together aren't as powerful  as the tastes and opinions that drive them apart. Oh, there's hunger here, but not for connection - it's for power. If the director, Stephen Daldry,
knows what mysterious force bins them, he's not letting on. Nor does the initial scene between Kyra and Tom's grown son, Edward (Matthew Beard), shed any light.

It may be useful here for me to admit a certain handicap. I find sometimes that British people speak with a self-effacing harrumph that swallows a lot of information before it reaches the American ear. A crucial impediment when - as in any play that has one set and two characters - the dialogue  takes on great importance. Most of the audience, however, responded heartily. They even laughed.

I wasn't moved to either tears or laughter. I wish I was.

U.K. EUCHRES EVERYONE.

When it comes to being unethical, British banks yield to no one. To paraphrase Oscar Wilde, they display a contempt for the ordinary decencies of banking that reminds one of the worst excesses of the French Revolution. 

              The End of the LIBOR Party.

Five global banks (Barclays and Royal Bank of Scotland among them) must pay - according to MSN - a $5.7 billion fine for manipulating the London InterBank Offered Rate. It's not the crime that matters here - rigging a $350 trillion market for their private advantage - it's the punishment. Although $5.7 billion seems like a lot of money to me, it's nothing to a bank. It's a rounding error. They can dig it out of the couch in the chairman's office. Should it even begin to pinch, they can always pass the expense along to their customers.

It doesn't matter how big a fine a bank must pay, if it's more money than most people  can imagine, it will look like justice.

                            Heidi and Seek.

HSBC has, according to Zacks.com (6/8/15), agreed to pay $42.8 million to the Swiss authorities to settle allegations of money laundering. The news here isn't that a British bank has engaged in money laundering. Three years ago, Standard Chartered was fined $674 million by the U.S. government for secretly channeling $250 billion into the coffers of Iran. It's not even  that HSBC has done it. It was also in 2012 that HSBC paid the U.S. government $1.9 billion to settle charges of money laundering. The news is that this kind of activity is against the law in Switzerland, right? I would have bet my grandmother's gold fillings - in a Swiss vault somewhere - that it wasn't. HSBC, alone, has been implicated in hiding assets worth roughly $120 billion in 30,000 Swiss bank accounts. A great chunk of that coming from Mexican drug gangs. That's right, Mexican drug gangs. (If you want seven heads in a duffel bag, HSBC knows where to get them.) The Swiss, of course, must share part of the blame, but they have part of an excuse. Their banks have been struggling since 1945 to replace the business lost when their biggest client, The Third Reich, went under. (Why else would bubbie's  biters be resting in pieces?)

Not that American banks are willing to cede the moral low ground. Goldman Sachs, for instance, can always be depended on to mount an aggressive offense - or offensive aggression. (See TFT 1/31/14, 3/15/12, 7/20/10 ad nauseum ).

FIRST DAY OF SPRING IN FERGUSON, MO.

(After "Daffodils" by William Wordsworth)


I wandered like a tear gas cloud
     Shouting, "Black lives matter" as I trod.
When all at once I saw a crowd,
     A host of the Riot Squad;
Beside the river, beneath the trees,
Stalwart and grimacing in the breeze.

Continuous as the buttons that shine
     Upon a policeman's chest,
They stretched in never-ending line,
     Poised to make arrests;
Ten thousand saw I at a glance,
Swinging their clubs in a baleful dance.

Angry people taunt the cops; attacked,
     The once-brave marchers flee:
A poet never could be gay,
     In such beleaguered company.
I gazed - and gazed - but little thought
That, merely marching, I'd be caught.

For oft, when in my cell I lie
     In vacant or in pensive mood,
They flashback on that inner eye
     Which is the bane of solitude;
And before my head can nod
I rise and curse the Riot Squad.

ALMOSTLAND: Peter Pan Live on NBC.

On Thursday (12/4/14) night, NBC attempted to recapture the thrill of watching Peter Pan on live television – and almost succeeded. If the acting, directing and flying were better, they might have added something to the Peter Pan canon. Instead, they gave ammunition to their critics.

Allison Williams has the appropriate androgenous look and youthful appeal to play the boy who never grew up. I’m sure, she can sing, too. It was probably the pressure of live television that caused her to run out of breath and carefully avoid high notes. No such problems with Kelli O’Hara as Mrs. Darling. I’d say she’s the platonic ideal of a Victorian mother except my feelings are more than platonic. The role of Mr. Darling should only be played by the same actor as Captain Hook. No other casting is acceptable. Thus, it would be unfair to criticize the performance of Christian Borle, but we might question his judgment. That leaves Christopher Walken as Captain Hook.

So good in so many things, Mr. Walken is so bad in so many ways that it’s a mystery. What, for instance, was he looking at that was just off-camera and below eye level? Was it a teleprompter? That would explain the, at best, distracted nature of his performance. At best, however, that should only happen once or occasionally. Christopher Walken almost never looked at the camera or the other actors. Even his famously deadpan style and eccentric speech patterns can’t explain the completely disengaged nature of his entire performance. 

Rob Ashford’s work as director is harder to judge. He can’t be credited with imposing a unique vision or style upon either the 1904 original or 1954 musical version of Peter Pan. Nor do we know which bad decisions (casting, for instance) to blame him for and which were foisted upon him. As captain of the production, however, Mr. Ashford is responsible for everything and must go down with the pirate ship.

As for flying, I didn’t see any. Neither in fantasy nor reality do people fly with their legs dangling. Look at Superman. Even planes pull up their landing gear. I saw a lot of hanging and swinging in this production, but nothing that looked like flying. Booo.

Live TV production of famous plays is still a good idea. So is quality family entertainment and television viewing as an event. Ironically, the success of last year’s The Sound of Music (also produced by Neil Meron and Craig Zadan) set both a precedent and raised the bar very high. Their next production - I hope there is one - will have to clear it. Almost isn’t enough.

ASHES TO ASHES, FAIRY DUST TO FAIRY DUST.

Vintage 10/26/09 post from archives:

How could such a bleak and depressing play as Peter Pan ever have been considered children’s fare? Sure, there are pirates, Indians and mermaids, but those are just distractions. It’s really about fear, loneliness, aging and death. 

Take growing up. Peter is opposed. Not because he enjoys childhood so much, but because he fears adulthood. Peter is one year old, being pushed in his pram, when he overhears his parents making plans for his future. This doesn’t square with him, so he bolts. The fairies in Kensington Garden tell   him how to get to Neverland and off he flies. 

That he would make a life-altering decision at such a tender age shows an impulsiveness more common in tragic heroes. What’s more, like those heroes, Peter must face the consequences of his acts. Because of a decision made when he was in his baby carriage, he spends the rest of his life as a virtual orphan. Yes, Neverland has the aforementioned distractions, but he misses his mother. That’s why he visits Wendy. He’s not exactly self-sufficient, either. Peter cries when he loses his shadow and needs Wendy 

to sew it back on.

However much Peter wants or needs her, Wendy goes home at the end of the play. She does, however, agree to see him again next year at “Spring Cleaning” time. This hasty solution bears within it the seed of another dilemma. What happens when Wendy grows up? Both the play and the novel versions of Peter Pan acknowledge that Wendy must get older with each succeeding visit. The play hints at it. The later novel is much more explicit. It ends with Wendy, a married woman, sending her young daughter, Jane, off to visit Neverland with Peter. Thus, beginning a tradition that is passed down through the generations.

                                                         

This serial Wendyism may solve one problem, but, again, it creates another. How can Peter ignore the effects of aging upon the original Wendy? Immune to the passage of time himself, he must watch it consume her in year-long gulps. See her change in front of his eyes. Getting bigger  - and then smaller. “Whom the Gods love die young” for this very reason. They are never diminished nor witness the gradual dimming of those they love. Something of which Barrie’s contemporary, A.E. Houseman, was exquisitely aware. Look at his poem,  “To An Athlete Dying Young,” wherein he writes, “Smart lad, to slip betimes away/From fields where glory does not stay” and “Eyes the shady night has shut/Cannot see the record cut.” If there is a brief for not growing up, this poem is it. Houseman’s solution, however, is a little drastic. It follows, “The road all runners come/shoulder–high we bring you home.” 

Peter Pan can’t die, though, because he’s already dead. Look at the evidence. He enjoys the only permanent, unchanging condition known to man. He lives in a paradise where no one ages. An undiscovered country from whose born a traveler never, never returneth. The play, itself, begins and ends in a bedroom.  If you think that sleep is a rather unsubtle metaphor for death, you definitely won’t like the clock. Captain Hook is chased throughout the play by the man-eating crocodile that’s already taken his hand. How does he know this normally furtive reptile is near? The beast has also swallowed a clock. The approach of death is heralded by a ticking clock. The only thing missing is Tinker Bell saying, “Walk toward the light, walk toward the light.”

Now would be a good time to step back from the brink, if only to better appreciate the joy in Peter Pan. Thinking lovely thoughts, for instance. What could be nicer? And flying – what could be more fun? Then there’s Wendy, her mother and Nana, all of whom are unambiguously good. Not that a character has to be bland or sweet to be positive. Tinker Bell, for instance, is appealingly tart. Especially in the Disney version, where she gives off as much heat as light.

Yet, what do people remember about Peter Pan? Those charming moments in the nursery? Playing house in Neverland? Among writers (a brooding group, I’ll grant you) it tends to be the darker aspects. Peter’s literary influence, unlike his entrance, comes with shadows attached. Take F. Scott Fitzgerald. Only a generation later, he writes about a lonely dreamer stuck on this side of paradise. The following passage, the ending of The Great Gatsby, could just as easily be describing Peter as he hovers outside Wendy’s window, casting one last backwards glance before returning to Neverland. “He had come a long way to this blue lawn and his dream must have seemed so close that he could hardly fail to grasp it. He did not know that it was already behind him, somewhere back in the vast obscurity beyond the city, where the dark fields of the republic rolled on into the night. Gatsby believed in the green light, in the orgastic future that year by year recedes before us. It eluded us then, but that’s no matter - tomorrow we will run faster, stretch out our arms farther … And one fine morning – So we beat on, boats against the current, borne back ceaselessly into the past.”

Again, a mere generation later, Peter returns, practically in the flesh, as Tom Wingfield in The Glass Menagerie by Tennessee Williams. Tom’s futile attempt to save his fragile, younger sister from the brutality of life with a dominating parent parallels the story of Peter, Wendy and her Captain Hook-like father. The directions to Neverland are, “First star to the right and straight on until morning.” The last part is significant because, as Tom Wingfield says, “I didn’t go to the moon, I went much further – for the time is the greatest distance between two places.” One reason why Peter is constantly fighting pirates and Indians may be that, like Tom, he is, “Attempting to find in motion what was lost in space.” Neither, of course, succeeds. Their days may be filled with violent activity, but they don’t build upon each other. They have no cumulative value. As Williams’s hero puts it, “They swept about me like dead leaves, leaves that were brightly colored but torn away from the branches.” Why does Peter return to Wendy every year at “Spring Cleaning” time? Tom Wingfield, again, may have the answer as he confesses, “I tried to leave you behind, but I am more faithful then I intended to be!” Tom feels enormous guilt over not being able to save his sister. As for Peter, who knows? Maybe he never expected Wendy to stay with him in Neverland. It is, after all, a candle-lit world and, as the last line of The Glass Menagerie reminds us, “Nowadays the world is lit by lightning!”

                                               

Don’t get me wrong. I’m not saying that Peter Pan isn’t for children. It’s exciting and fast-paced enough to thrill even the most video-besotted tot. It just shouldn’t be thought of as exclusively for children, something lost on most productions. Worse even than the simple-minded approach of these affairs is that they usually happen around the Holiday Season, when there is already enough saccharine in the culture to sweeten an ocean without adding calories. So, by all means, see Peter Pan with a child. They can hold your hand through the scary parts.

MAGIC IN THE MOONLIGHT: WHAT DOESN'T THRILL ME, MAKES IT LONGER.

     Woody Allen knows the recipe for a romantic comedy, but he's lost the instructions. With Magic In The Moonlight, he combines the perfect ingredients (appealing actors, beautiful scenery, a summer moon) but the results are half-baked.

     Colin Firth plays a stage magician touring Europe in the Twenties. He's professionally successful, but personally unpopular. We know that because he plays to large audiences and yells at his assistants and crew members backstage. If that's too subtle, a fellow magician tells him that he may be successful, but he's a terrible person. Firth is further isolated because there's no one above him. At least, that he acknowledges. We know that because he calls himself a genius, derides his colleagues and announces loudly, frequently and without provocation that he is a devout atheist. Anyone, of course, who believes in a higher power is beneath both him and his contempt.

     Firth's character, named Stanley and known professionally as Wei Ling Soo, is called to the South of France to investigate an allegedly fake medium, who is financially exploiting a wealthy, but mourning family. Her name is Sophie and she's embodied - or disembodied - by Emma Stone. Stanley is immediately attracted to Sophie because she looks like, well, Emma Stone. She is likewise attracted to him because he looks like Colin Firth. (By the way, his character seems to be equal parts pride and prejudice. Hmmm.) There are no complications. Instead, we have a Sisyphean romance, in which they push the boulder of their mutual attraction up a steep hill until it becomes a pebble of affection, which they mistake for love because the movie is almost over.

     It's a tribute to Colin Firth's skill and dedication as an actor that he can say the line, "What you see is what you get" without sounding like Flip Wilson. He can also perform what is, essentially, the last scene of 

My Fair Lady without breaking into "I've Grown Accustomed To Her Face." Emma Stone is pretty enough to play gorgeous, but she needs help - preferably from the script. Wendy Hiller, for instance, covers a lot more distance between the two in the last scene of the 1938 film,Pygmalion (how that play comes up!) but she was helped by three major talents at their peak, George Bernard Shaw, Leslie Howard  and the director, Anthony Asquith.

     Magic In The Moonlight (2014) shows that Woody Allen is a master craftsman. He can, no doubt, compile a film script in minutes. He should, however, devote more time to the art of screenwriting. To paraphrase a quote by Thomas Hobbes that is dragged through the movie, Magic In The Moonlight is hasty, brutish and not short enough.

A PRISONER EXCHANGE IS NOT FANTASY BASEBALL.

Trading five of your best players for Alec Rodriguez may seem like a good deal, but what if Alec Rodriguez turns out to be, well, Alec Rodriguez? You look like a gullible fool.  Not to mention what it does to your line-up. Your only hope, in that case, is to find someone who still wants Mr. Rodriguez. A little kid, for instance. The problem there is that kids are usually smarter and less gullible than you think. You don’t have that problem with Congressmen. They’re never smarter or more sophisticated than you think.

       I don’t want to get into parties or petty distinctions - being a Senator, for example. Instead, let my comments stand for everyone who has criticized the recent trade of five Guantanamo Bay prisoners for U.S. Army Sergeant Bowe Bergdahl. They are all feeble children treating the life of a U.S. soldier as if it were part of a sports trade.                                          

      “He isn’t worth five prisoners.” “We already have a sergeant.” “We’re getting rooked.” “We should have asked for money and a prisoner to be named later.” You might expect this reaction from the usual cast of dressed-up Snopeses, who have represented large parts of the country for a long time. Surprisingly, they are joined by members of both houses, who, otherwise, are supporters of the President. These people should know better. Instead, they protect their privileges against Presidential incursion with an unashamed vigor. The only possible excuse is that as members of a debased institution, Senators and Representatives are forced to grub for respect like convicts trying to dig their way out of prison with a spoon. Even worse than the foregoing behavior are attempts to discredit Sgt. Bergdahl. 

     Do we really want to go there? Do we really want to open up that can of worms? First, there’s the issue of credibility. Remember “Swiftboating?” If you don’t, ask Secretary of State John Kerry to explain it. You may also want to speak to former U.S. Army Private First Class Jessica Lynch. Not only was her military service – and supposed “heroics” – treated as a political football, but it began with her being rescued as a Prisoner Of War being held by the Iraqis. And those are lies! What about the truth?  I’m not even talking about wartime atrocities, I mean the enormous, growing and, heretofore, ignored problem of sexual violence against women and men in the service. Unless we want the truth about the armed forces and are willing to face the consequences, we shouldn’t go peeking into anyone’s record.

     Besides, what alternative is there to saving Sgt. Bergdahl? Leave one man behind? Is that the new army motto? Or is it more personal, leave this guy behind? "I never liked him, anyway." "He's only a sergeant." "He's been a prisoner for five years, he's damaged goods." "Suppose we rescue him and he dies? Then we really look like suckers."

     Unless being a POW is not as bad as it seems. If it were really bad, wouldn't prisoners die instantly? Compared to that, five years looks like a lifestyle. If only there was Senator, a well-known and highly-regarded Senator, who had been a POW for five years. I'm sure he could provide valuable insights. On second thought, maybe not.

     Can any good come from this whole tragic episode? Once you've seen one set of grieving parents try to throw another one under the bus, what can you believe in? Let's assume that the five prisoners released from Guantanamo are guilty. (Not legally guilty, of course. They've never been charged or put on trial, but they look guilty and, let's face it, they didn't check into Guantanamo voluntarily, so someone thought they were guilty, right?) The very idea of finding guilty people in Guantanamo Bay means the system works! Okay, five out of an estimated several hundred is not a great record, but no one bats a thousand. Compared to an average of, say, .200, it' not bad. If we were trading prisons, I'd go for it.

GEORGE PLIMPTON: REVOLUTIONARY 'ROID.

     Judging from Plimpton! Starring George Plimpton as Himself, part of the American Masters 2014 season on WNET, Mr. Plimpton was exactly what he appeared to be: an overhearty Old Boy with a little talent, a lot of personality and no inner life. He was George W. Bush except he became a celebrity instead of President of the United States.                        

     Invited by his childhood friend, Peter Matthiessen, to start a magazine, Plimpton co-founded the Paris Review, with which he was associated for the rest of his life. For almost exactly fifty years, he ran and financially supported the magazine. Even to the extent of using his apartment as the office. It was more than a  cultivated hobby, however. As someone in the film says, George needed the Paris Review as much as much as it needed him.            

     The same, however, can't be said of his two wives, Sarah and Freddy. Both are interviewed for this film and while they admit to marrying George, neither claims to have known him.

     Public life is where George Plimpton made a distinct and lasting impression. There's his famously plummy accent - more upper-class than New England - as if Parker Fennelly owned Pepperidge Farm in addition to being their spokesman. The tall, slender figure topped with a round face, weak chin and mop of boyishly cut hair made him resemble the inverted exclamation point at the front of a Spanish sentence. 

     How about Plimpton as a writer? Was he any good? Ernest Hemingway seemed to think so. The aging author called him, "The real thing." Keep in mind, however, that "Papa" saved his compliments for sycophants and would never praise a writer whose talent in any way approached his own.

     If George enjoyed any fame as a writer, it was due to his non-fiction. Under the rubric of "participatory journalism," Plimpton attempted several professions - pro sports,
circus aerialist, stand-up comic - at the highest levels and reported on his experience. It was a win-win situation, especially in sports. No one expected him to succeed and if he did - bonus! It was always about him, though. You had to like George more than hockey to read about him being a goalie for the Boston Bruins.

     Perhaps the least self-centered thing he did was work on Bobby Kennedy's campaign for President. Not only did it show public spirit,
but when tragedy struck, he was one of the people who wrestled Sirhan Sirhan to the ground. We'll never know for sure, though, because George Plimpton never wrote about it
or spoke about it - to anyone. Ever.

     The film has footage of George during a rehearsal of the New York Philharmonic. Standing in as the percussionist, Plimpton is asked by the conductor, Leonard Bernstein, to repeat a passage several times. The Maestro is non-plussed. "They're all different," says Bernstein, "which one did you mean?" The same could be asked of George Plimpton's life.

FAMOUS FIRST WORDS.

"Some women choose to follow men and some women choose to follow their dreams. If you're wondering which way to go, remember that your career will never wake up and tell you that it doesn't love you anymore."

                                        - Lady Gaga


               Remember Lady Gaga?

PAY RAISE.

(Sung to the tune of "Heat Wave" by Irving Berlin)

He's getting a pay raise
Executive pay raise.
It isn't surprising
Lloyd Blankfein is smiling
The way that he ran Goldman.

The ethically blind rave
It wasn't a crime wave.
He's simply much bolder
Enriching stockholders
Than any lawyer can understand.

See how his cash reward 
and his salary
and his bonus soared. Good Lord!

He's getting a pay raise
Executive pay raise.
The only pay package 
That's more of an outrage
Is Dimon's who ran Morgan.

AMY CHUA: THE KARATE AND STICK APPROACH.

  If Horatio Alger is the poet of upward mobility in America, then Amy Chua is its tabloid editor. Her previous book, Battle Hymn of the Tiger Mother, found childrearing wisdom in the brainwashing techniques of China’s Cultural Revolution. (TFT 1/25/11) Her latest work is The Triple Package and - according to short excerpts and published descriptions - reduces the former book’s content to a formula, applies it to society as a whole and seasons generously with the bad taste of counting other people’s money.

The sub-title for Ms. Chua’s tome is “How Three Unlikely Traits Explain The Rise and Fall of Cultural Groups in America.” If that seems familiar it’s because it echoes those cheesy, small-space ads on the internet: “One Really Weird Trick For Losing Belly Fat.” If it seems obscure, blame it on the phrase, “cultural group.” By that, the author does not mean The Chamber Music Society of New York. She means what other people call racial, ethnic and religious minorities. If you hear goosestepping in the background that’s because the “rise” of minorities in America is not always viewed positively. Henry Ford, for instance, was preoccupied with the success of a certain “cultural group.” This may be a good, though not the best, place to mention Amy Chua’s co-author, Jed Rubenfeld. Not only is he the author’s husband and a fellow law professor, Mr. Rubenfeld maintains a respectable side career as a mystery novelist. Since there is no polite way to speculate on his involvement in this project and, judging by his name, we share a “cultural group,” I will refrain.

Any further discussion of this book must wait until it’s published on February fourth. If you can’t wait, however, and absolutely must know what three qualities constitute “The Triple Package,” then – again, based on short excerpts and various published descriptions - I would sum them up as: strong group identity, weak personal identity and brutal, internalized discipline. Of course, if you’re part of a certain, very large “cultural group,” you already know that.

J. P. MORGAN CHASTENED (AGAIN!)

(Sung to the tune of “A Foggy Day.” Music by George Gershwin)

Will Jamie pay

For what he’s done?

His bank’s been fined

Twenty billion.

A full year’s profits

Are now down the drain.

Their full faith and credit

Are now that of Spain.

How long he wonders

Can his job last?

How long can they blame

The bank not the brass?

Add legal fees

Ad infinitum

And the chairman,      Mr. Dimon,

Looks more like zirconium.

THE TOASTED OF THE TOWN.

Since it is now legal to buy marijuana for recreational use in Colorado, the following scene is, no doubt, being repeated all over the state.

A woman walks into “Bong For Glory,” a legal marijuana dispensary.

Good morning, madam.

         

Good morning, sir. I’d like an ounce of your best “shit,” please.

I just got some “Maui Zowie” in this morning and I think you’ll find it particularly pungent.

He lets her smell it.

         

Mmmm. How many . . . “doobies” to the ounce?

         

Depends how you roll them.

         

I’ve never done that. I don’t suppose you could do that for me?

         

No, but you could use a pipe.

         

Far too masculine.

         

How about a “bong?”

         

Excuse me?

         

A water pipe.

         

Like a hookah?

         

No, madam, like this.

He takes out an object that looks like plumbing on, well, drugs.

It cools the smoke before you breathe it in and avoids the Mammy Yoakem effect of a pipe.

Very civilized. Do I have to wear a Grateful Dead shirt while using it?

No, but it helps.

No, thanks. I’ll take the, uhh, “bong” and the . . .

“Maui Zowie.”

The clerk rings it up.

         

That will be eight hundred and thirty two dollars.

         

Very expensive. I was led to believe it was a nickel a bag.

         

Not literally, madam. Never literally.

         

Very well.

She charges it.

Here is your receipt, your bong and your “stash.” Have a mellow afternoon.