Book Reviews: Dead Men's Boots

Dead Men's Boots
by Mike Carey

I like authors who work magic and the supernatural into the everyday mundane affairs of modern humans. Jim Butcher, Nicholas Kaufman and Neil Gaiman are some of the better writers who can do this. Mike Carey also deserves notice as part of that crew. Carey has created a timeline in our world where a great many of the things that scare people are real. Ghosts, zombies, were-creatures, demons, devils, the whole nine yards. Carey's trick is that most people aren't all that disturbed by this, at least after a few years of hysteria. So this series (written in first person) is really more of a detective/mystery series than something which requires a tremendous suspension of disbelief. Carey's sardonic smart mouth world weary hero is straight out of classic noir. He's not particularly wealthy, good looking or fast with his fists. But Felix Castor is one of the UK's best exorcists. He's one of those rare people who are able to see ghosts and what's more bind them or dispel them. Every exorcist does the binding and dispelling in different ways. Some wordy people like to use long incantations. Some more physical people may use interpretive dance. Felix's particular interface with the supernatural revolves around music. He's able to get a fix on a supernatural being through music: rhythm, harmony and melody. Felix likes to use a whistle to play the song to dispel a ghost but in a pinch almost any instrument or surface will do. He can even sing the melody himself. Like most detectives Felix has a strained relationship with the police. One senior detective uses Felix on some important cases but another detective has made it widely known that she would be very happy to use fair means or foul to put Felix in jail. Her dislike stems from a misunderstanding about a murder case which wasn't what it seemed. Even though Felix was innocent Detective Basquiat is not a woman who likes smart-alecks or lets go of grudges easily. And she's surprisingly handy with her fists. Felix can also count on, well at least as long as his interests don't conflict with theirs, occasional assistance from his friends associates Nicky and Juliet. 


Nicky is a hacker's hacker who pretty much believes every conspiracy theory and has proof of a lot of them. If you looked up paranoia in the dictionary there would be a picture of Nicky. And since Nicky became a zombie he's only become more suspicious and watchful. For obvious reasons, zombies usually aren't too friendly with exorcists or the living (as zombies try to avoid all viruses, bacteria and anything else biological because exposure increases the rate at which their bodies rot). Nicky has so far made an exception in Felix's case but that could easily change. Juliet (that's a translation of her real name) is a blindingly beautiful woman who can have any man or woman she wants. She's also a 17,000 yr old demon from hell. Juliet is a succubus who feeds on male lust, bodies and souls. Having sex with her is the most wonderful thing and the last thing any man will ever do. She was originally summoned to kill Felix. After he managed to temporarily defeat her a few times, in desperation Castor cut the chain which bound her to the summoner. As demons always hate the person who enslaved them more than their target, this act somewhat endeared Juliet to Felix. She agreed not to kill and eat him (or other men) and he agreed to train her to be an exorcist. This deal has so far held. In this book Juliet has her own exorcism business. And she has even found something approaching love with another woman. 

All the same, Juliet is not human and has little patience for or understanding of most human emotions or practices outside of lust. And she takes everything very literally. This is both a cause of amusement and fear to those around her. Dead Men's Boots has three seemingly disparate storylines. But you know in detective novels nothing is every truly independent is it. Felix ignored calls for assistance from a fellow exorcist, John Gittings, partly because he never liked the man, partly because he was busy and partly because he used to have a thing for Carla, John's wife. But shortly afterwards John killed himself. And now, a strange lawyer has showed up to claim the body over Carla's outraged objections. Carla asks Felix for help. He can't say no this time, particularly as John's ghost is haunting Carla's home. Felix also gets hired to consult on a murder case in which all the evidence points to an American serial killer who's been dead for years. Felix must stop a possibly innocent man from going away for life. Felix is fighting to keep his friend Rafi (who's possessed by the devil Asmodeus) from being taken away for scientific experimentation. And oh yes, there's the little matter of someone trying to kill Felix. I liked this book. Felix is burning the candle at both ends throughout. The more he peels away the mystery the deeper the foulness seems to go. There's a lot here in this book about the hurt that people do to each other. Juliet in particular gets fleshed out as a character. You may even sympathize with Juliet on occasion as she struggles to understand a particular human custom or practice. Carey provides a lot of back story about ghosts and why they might attempt to hang on to the physical world. The only weakness is that Juliet might be used a bit too much as the cavalry coming to the rescue. The story addressed this somewhat by bringing in other characters from below who are not at all scared by Juliet. This book was pretty good though it occasionally beat you over the head about some social issues. If you are a fan of detective stories this is worth having in your library. It is third in the series but stands alone. You can definitely read this without having read the prior two books. Carey brings you up to speed very quickly.

Movie Reviews: Playing It Cool, The Impostors

Playing It Cool
directed by Justin Reardon

Romantic comedies are usually pretty cliched. You (with the occasional exception of films like Annie Hall, 500 Days of Summer or Don Jon) pretty much know how these things are going to go down before you even start to watch them. Boy meets girl. Boy loses girl. Boy has to do some serious self-examination and internal rework. Boy has to do something desperate or humiliating to win girl's love again. This last part normally includes a sprint through the train station, bus station, airport or for films set in earlier days, the port so that he can tell his baby just how he feels before something horrible happens and the star crossed lovers are forever separated. So for the most part when you watch movies like this you probably aren't looking for too many surprises, violent conflict or really out of left field writing. Most romantic comedies are formulaic. The skill on display with romantic comedies, as with similar seemingly simple styles such as haiku or blues music, comes with being able to say something new and entertaining while using a relatively limited palette of emotions, story lines and characters. Playing it Cool did this well enough. It will definitely remind you of similar entries in this field. I don't know that it stands head and shoulders above its counterparts. If you can't stand this genre then obviously don't even bother watching this film. I can't stress strongly enough how much this film relies on a number of well worn cliches and tropes. To the extent that it works it does so because of the relentless cheerfulness and completely unconscious narcissism of the lead character, only ever identified as Me (Chris Evans).

He's a screenwriter/novelist who hangs out with a circle of writer friends of varying levels of success. This group includes his depressed and nihilistic ex/friend-with-benefits Mallory (Aubrey Plaza), Lyle (Martin Star), an itinerant who lives in his van, Scott (Topher Grace) a gay man whose gaydar doesn't work as well as it should, and Samson (Luke Wilson), an older writer with some grudges and some wisdom. These people all argue incessantly and don't necessarily always like each other. But they provide advice and commentary for each other's struggles, professional and romantic. When the chips are down they're there for each other...as long as one of them doesn't have a really hot date. Evans' character is not a man who believes in love, primarily because his mother abandoned him when he was a child. Raised by his crusty grandfather (Phillip Baker Hall), he's a resolute devotee of the love em and leave em style. But this starts to change when he meets a woman only ever identified as Her (Michelle Monaghan). She's beautiful, witty, and sexy. The problem is that this woman already has a fiance (Ioan Gruffudd) But does any hero worth the name let a little thing like a woman being engaged to someone else stop him from running his game? And it just so happens that this man, who previously didn't believe in love, has also been tasked by his agent (Anthony Mackie) to write a romantic comedy screenplay. The quality and progress of the screenplay vary with the couple's happiness or sadness.

Humor and cliches ensue. The lead character is only able to listen to other people's stories by imagining himself in their positions. This is funny. Sometimes. He also imagines that his heart is a chain smoking black-and-white film noir tough guy who is always apart from himself. This was a decent movie but certainly nothing earth shattering or that reworks the genre. It throws a few curve balls here or there. If you're in the mood for something light and frothy this might work for you.
TRAILER





The Impostors
directed by Stanley Tucci

Speaking of light and frothy this older homage to 1930s and 1940s screwball comedies is a funny film that I like a lot. It's not perfect but with one or two exceptions has aged pretty well. The writing is tight, the acting delightful and everyone looks like they're having a lot of fun. With so many American comedies trying their best to be as crude and disgusting as possible it is somewhat refreshing to look back to a film like this and realize that there is a different way to get laughs. Now make no mistake, I wouldn't claim that this is a roll on the floor belly laugh type film, though there are one or two scenes that get me, at least. And it is a R rated film though by today's standards it would be PG-13.  But whatever the film misses in outrageous setpieces it more than makes up for in just general craziness. The story is more Laurel and Hardy, Marx Brothers or Charlie Chaplin than Three Stooges. The film is set in the 1930s but with very minor changes it could happen at any time. The stories and situations are timeless. There are always going to be depressed people, people in love, people with secrets, desperate starving actors, silly people, crazy people and people who are completely clueless to everything that is going on around them. Tucci's direction, much like his work in Big Night, (this movie shares some of that film's cast) is that of someone who really likes film. Very little is rushed.

Arthur (Tucci) and Maurice (Oliver Platt) are best friends, roommates and actors whose acting career hasn't really worked out that well. They have little money and less food. And to quote bluesman John Lee Hooker, their landlord doesn't need to be bothering them about the back rent. Heck their landlord is lucky to get any front rent! They protect their egos, as many do in such situations, by reasoning that they are ahead of their time and have too much integrity to lower their acting chops to more pedestrian standards. They also protect their egos by attending performances by much more successful but wholly untalented actor Jeremy Burtom (Alfred Molina) and disrupting them or making fun of Burtom. However Burtom is as unstable as he is untalented. When Maurice makes a particularly broadly humorous interpretation of Burtom's bad acting, Burtom loses it. Seeking to avoid a beatdown or worse and reasoning that they could deal with a change of scenery anyway, Arthur and Maurice stowaway on an transatlantic ocean liner. Of course as it turns out that happens to be the same ocean liner Burtom will be travelling on. Arthur and Maurice try to avoid Burtom. In the meantime they make an ally out of the forward looking feisty ship social director Lily (Lili Taylor). The ship first mate, the German (and Nazi) Meistrich (Campbell Scott) is on the lookout for the stowaways. He's also trying to put the moves on Lili, who has no use for him. There are some funny subplots involving a mad bomber (Tony Shalhoub), a sad exiled queen (Isabella Rossellini), a clinically depressed lounge singer (Steve Buscemi), a gay deranged tennis pro (Billy Connolly), the distracted audition director (Woody Allen), a depressed debutante (Hope Davis), a gangster (Richard Jenkins), and an African prince (Teagle Bougere). Arthur and Maurice aren't the only people pretending to be someone that they aren't. There are any number of plots and plans going on that Arthur and Maurice don't know about. This film always brings a smile to my face when I watch it. The film's fun is not necessarily in its dialogue but rather the situations.
TRAILER

Facebook Threat Posts: Pebbles and Bam Bam

Every time someone goes on a shooting rampage the people who knew the assailant are either shocked and heartbroken (usually the assailant's parents) or they are not surprised at all. The people who weren't surprised only wonder why the assailant took so long to crack. These folks are often seen on television interviews smugly declaring they knew so-n-so wasn't right in the head, and never felt safe or at ease around him. Folks who fall into the second category are often the assailant's co-workers, spouse or significant other, or anyone else who is able to evaluate the person without looking through the rosy lens of motherhood or fatherhood. A challenge that we have in a supposedly free society is that we want to protect ourselves and everyone else from crime or violence without arresting and convicting people for what they might do. Our idea of justice normally includes the requirement that we only punish people for what they've done. There is a huge gray area/exception to this, obviously. Planning to perform a crime is usually a crime and something for which you can be arrested and charged. If you and your buddies get together every Thursday after work to plan your multi-million dollar bank robbery but are discovered and arrested, it's not much of a defense to say that sure you might have been planning multiple felonies but you never did them. But is talking junk on Facebook or other social media something which is or should be a crime? If I say someone gets on my nerves so much that I could kill them is that hyperbole or an actual threat? Your perception of that depends on your perception of the person making the statement. The average man or woman saying something like that probably doesn't mean it. But there are some people, either through mental instability or actual past criminal or violent history, who make statements like that and must be taken seriously. And there are other people, who while they may have no rap sheet or known psychological issues, say or do things which are so outrageous that they also must be closely watched if not arrested and charged. Former Washtenaw County mental health/disability worker Grady Floyd falls into that last category.

A deleted Facebook post likely saved a man who brought two handguns nicknamed "Pebbles and Bam-Bam" to his Washtenaw County job from facing any criminal charges, a police report shows. Detectives attempted to retrieve any evidence of a threatening post seen by many of Grady Floyd's co-workers at Washtenaw County Community Support and Treatment Services, but since Floyd deleted it, prosecutors declined to authorize charges.

Floyd admitted to police that he wrote a threatening post so colleagues would stop talking bad about him, according to the police report. He also admitted to changing his Facebook profile picture to one of him holding a shotgun and an AK-47 with a grenade launcher to intimidate co-workers. Floyd was in possession of two handguns when he was arrested the morning after his co-workers contacted authorities about the threatening Facebook post, the report says.These, he explained to detectives, were "Pebbles and Bam-Bam," not the long guns.

While prosecutors declined to authorize criminal charges, Floyd still lost his job, something he is contesting in recently filed lawsuits. Washtenaw County Sheriff's Office Det. Mark Neumann wrote in the police report that when he looked at the Facebook profile on Feb. 11, the picture was still up, but the message had been deleted.

Co-workers who saw it summarized it thusly, according to the report: "I'm just going to put it out to my so-called co-workers at CSTS. I am not putting up with this (expletive) (expletive) anymore. I am tired of people hating on me. I have two kids named pebbles and bam-bam who can deal it. I am going to shut you up permanently. Once they go off you are done, you are dead. You know you are. I do my (expletive) job. You haters need to leave me alone."

LINK

I can certainly sympathize with someone feeling put upon at their job, overlooked, demeaned, discriminated against, bullied or knowing that they just aren't a good fit. But I don't think it's too much to ask that people who have those feelings leave their job, find a way to deal with the issues, work with the appropriate authorities to resolve the problems, talk it out with mental health professionals or do any number of other things short of going on social media to threaten people. Floyd's threat reads depressingly like any number of other paranoid rantings by other workplace gunmen. I am surprised that the county prosecutor is so far not going to authorize charges but I'm more surprised that Floyd is suing to get his job back. To me Floyd's statement is the very definition of a hostile, unsafe workplace. Think of the worst boss, co-worker or direct report you ever had. And then think of them posting a death threat to you on Facebook. Would you want to come into work the next day? Or would you wake up the next morning and get yourself a gun? I don't see this as a free speech issue.

Should Mr. Floyd be prosecuted?

Should he get his job back?

What's the worst experience you ever had at work?

Book Reviews: Off Color, Impaired Judgment

Off Color: The Violent History of Detroit's Purple Gang
by Daniel Waugh

Although the Purple Gang has passed into infamy and is mostly forgotten now, for a brief period of time it was probably the most violent, if not the most powerful or largest, organized crime group in Detroit and the surrounding areas of south east Michigan. The Purple Gang had a spectacular rise and fall from its post WW1 beginnings to its Prohibition ascendancy and its slow decline in the thirties and forties. This decline was helped along by lethal internal squabbling, the growing power of the Detroit Mafia or "Partnership", and the utter inability of some Purple Gang members to adapt to new ways of doing business. The Purple Gang was a very loose knit conglomeration of primarily Jewish gangsters who engaged in various crimes, including but not limited to burglary, auto theft, hijacking, labor racketeering, bootlegging, narcotics importation and trafficking, murder for hire, extortion, and bookmaking among others. In a time before mass transit by airplane Detroit gangsters were uniquely positioned to bring whiskey across the river and lakes from Canada. Organized crime groups in Detroit supplied high quality (and sometimes not so high quality) liquor to their counterparts across the Midwest and East Coast. They had a few violent conflicts with the Detroit Mafia but many more business dealings. The Purple Gang hijacked more whiskey than they made or imported. Off Color details the genesis of the Purple Gang in Detroit's Little Jerusalem neighborhood where members got their start robbing pushcarts and icemen, doing home break-ins and performing assaults or worse for money. Later the nucleus of what would become the original Purple Gang, centered around the four Burnstein brothers (Abe, Joe, Raymond and Izzy), hooked up with gangsters/disreputable businessmen Charles Leiter and Henry Shorr. Shorr and Leiter, among other ventures, supplied sugar for citywide liquor distillation. Their headquarters was the appropriately named Oakland Avenue Sugar House. To an extent Leiter and Shorr were initially the legitimate leaders or at least less violent faces of the Purple Gang. But if they were ever the undisputed bosses, that era ended in 1934 when Shorr went on a ride with some of his gangland friends but never came back. Though the Purple Gang always had a very loose hierarchy with fluid membership, the Burnstein brothers, especially Abe, became the acknowledged first among equals. It wasn't healthy to cross the Burnsteins.

When people think of organized crime cities like New York, Boston, Philadelphia, and Chicago come to mind. Well those cities weren't the only places organized crime flourished. Off Color details how different the cultural expectations of the time were, not just in the obvious racial or ethnic conventions and protocols but also the gender ones. For example, shortly after a gangland murder when an infamous Purple Gang hit man is stopped and questioned about fresh bloodstains in his car's backseat, he cavalierly explains the blood away by saying it was nothing serious, he just smacked his girlfriend too hard. The police let him go.
Waugh, a Detroit native, has written an extremely detailed book. It's probably a little bit too detailed at times. Sometimes it reads like a version of Dragnet. On such and such a day at 9:23 AM Hyman shot his former friend Paul twice in the stomach and once in the chest before dropping the .32 revolver and proceeding up Woodward to the Blue Cheer diner where his boss Simon was waiting for a report. And so on. But as a Detroiter who grew up in the general area which was once the Purple Gang's home turf, I enjoyed reading about all the things which happened in neighborhoods or streets with which I was intimately familiar. The Collingwood Massacre, which had the same local impact as the more famous St. Valentine's Day Massacre, occurred within a short walking distance of my home. One of the participants in that crime was arrested on the very next block from where I grew up. Off Color also delves into the relationship between the Purple Gang and several corrupt police officials, judges, politicians and prison officials. When one of their benefactors was threatened by the possibility of a state senator testifying, the Purple Gang murdered that state senator. Off Color gives the lie to the idea that Detroit only became corrupt in the seventies. The entire police department was for sale to people like the Purples. The book is just under 300 pages but it is lavishly detailed with a massive number of footnotes and photographs. It can be somewhat repetitive in that one wonders why the various victims of (occasionally literal) back stabbings and one way rides would ever get into a car with certain people or let other people into their home but to paraphrase Henry Hill, your killers come to you with smiles and hugs. This is a worthwhile historical view of departed time. I didn't know that Shorr's son later became the owner of a noted local electronics audio shop. The smarter Purples (e.g Abe Burnstein) went semi-legitimate or completely straight, parlaying their ill gotten gains into stocks, bonds and businesses. Still others became decidedly secondary associates to the burgeoning Mafia. Most of the other Purples wound up where most criminals do, in prison or murdered by their "friends". 






Impaired Judgment
by David Compton

Sometimes you can find books in used bookstores that while they aren't exactly the missing Great American Novel, certainly are worth picking up. Impaired Judgment is a political thriller/mystery/legal procedural novel which probably won't make you bounce out of chair in surprise but will keep you turning pages to see what happens next. It's a great book to read while you're waiting to get your hair cut, have work done on your car or pick someone up at the hospital or airport. It was a little over 400 pages but it was a pretty quick read. Although it was written way back in 2001, the characters, especially some of the men, are written such that they could easily fit in today's headlines. Jim Candler is the newly elected President of the United States. He's a Virginia native who has big plans for the country. He's nothing if not a straight shooter. President Candler's wife Paula is a federal judge. Paula, with Jim's fierce support, has declined to resign from her position as judge. She doesn't think women should give up their careers for their husbands, no matter what the husband's job may be. Del Owens is President's Candler's primary political adviser, his Karl Rove, his Valerie Jarrett, his Walsingham all rolled up into one. Del doesn't like the idea of Paula keeping her job. He thinks it sets a bad precedent and makes the President look weak. Del can't really express this to the President any more but still lets Paula know every chance he gets. Del knows where all the bodies are buried. And he always has one eye on the latest polls. Tony Remalli is a fugitive Mafia boss who's wanted for labor racketeering and the murder of a female federal judge. When he's arrested and arraigned most people in law enforcement consider it a forgone conclusion that he will be found guilty and receive the harshest sentence possible. This is even more the case when Judge Candler, not known for being soft, is assigned the trial.

But although Remalli may look like a dumb thug you don't reach his level of power without having more than muscle in your toolkit. Remalli's ace in the hole is the defense attorney Don Russ. Russ may be a "mob lawyer", but he tries to tell himself that he's upholding a more important principle. In any event both Russ and his beautiful investigator Julia Menendez will stop at nothing to win their cases. And they've found some dirt on Judge Candler, something so explosive it could destroy her husband's Presidency before it even has a chance to start. Battle is joined. And some secrets will be revealed. As mentioned, the story moves pretty quickly. This may be fast food but it's good fast food. If you like thrillers or mysteries this is a decent book to have in your library.

Ben Carson is a bigot

Black conservatives often complain that people, by which they mean liberals and/or other black people (and those two groups are not mutually exclusive), try to question their blackness or expel them from the black community because they have conservative views. Well all "blackness" really means in the American context is that you are apparently descended in whole or in part from people who recently originated in what's commonly known as "Black Africa". It's a circular definition. Blackness, however defined, definitely doesn't automatically imply anything about an individual's voting patterns, his views on sexuality, religion, preferred music, stance on economics, feelings about whether nature or nurture are more important in human development, favored sports teams or anything else. So I agree that one shouldn't assume that blackness automatically means you are or should be beholden to a specific political theory, party or way of life. On the other hand, given the black experience in America, which only in the past fifty years has fitfully moved beyond formal exclusion, it is a little jarring to see a black person enthusiastically take up bigoted ideas that were just recently used against him and his. Dr. Ben Carson, famed surgeon, Republican presidential candidate and nutcase extraordinaire, has been providing us a clinic on this sort of dissonance.

Washington (CNN) Ben Carson says the United States should not elect a Muslim president.

"I would not advocate that we put a Muslim in charge of this nation. I absolutely would not agree with that," the retired neurosurgeon and Republican presidential candidate said Sunday on NBC's "Meet the Press."
Carson, meanwhile, was asked Sunday whether a president's faith should matter to voters. "I guess it depends on what that faith is," he said. "If it's inconsistent with the values and principles of America, then of course it should matter. But if it fits within the realm of America and consistent with the Constitution, no problem." Asked whether Islam is consistent with the Constitution, Carson said: "No, I don't -- I do not."

This isn't the first time that Carson has said something stupid and/or offensive. I didn't expect too much intelligent discourse from someone who believes that the theory of evolution was inspired by Satan. I will say that every individual voter can decide on his or her own whether to vote for someone based on any number of reasons or characteristics, be they petty, bigoted or downright silly. You get to decide. Judging by their commentary, jokes, emails, letters, placards, and insults over the past seven years a sizable proportion of conservatives weren't thrilled with having a black man serve as President. No the real problem with Carson's declaration is not just that he reveals his inner bigot. No it's that Carson and his defenders don't seem to understand that Carson's implicit endorsement of a religious test for the office of President is directly contradicted by the United States Constitution, Article VI, paragraph 3: The Senators and Representatives before mentioned, and the Members of the several State Legislatures, and all executive and judicial Officers, both of the United States and of the several States, shall be bound by Oath or Affirmation, to support this Constitution; but no religious test shall ever be required as a qualification to any office or public trust under the United States.

So that is that. It looks like it's not Islam that is incompatible with the Constitution but Carson. But there are some questions for Carson and those of like mind. If they think the Presidency should be off limits to Muslims shouldn't citizenship also be off limits? Should Muslims have lower expectations for privacy and civil liberties? Should Muslims be deported? And if so where? If Islam isn't compatible with the Constitution, should conversions be banned? And what about interfaith marriages? Shouldn't we stop those as well? We certainly don't want our fair Christian maidens marrying those devious Muslims SOB's. Right?  And if, by contrast, Christianity and Judaism are compatible with the Constitution does Carson think that a Christian President should live by Jesus' directive to resist not evil? I guess we could get rid of the Defense Department and all local police departments. If a Jewish President has a drunk disrespectful son is Carson going to be the first to call for a stoning, as is explicitly ordered in Deuteronomy? Hmm. Or maybe, just maybe Carson recognizes that a Christian or Jewish person is not a mindless automaton who lives by every last single word in their holy book. Or maybe Carson does want to live by the Holy Bible and is projecting his desires onto Muslims.

The Republican Party has relied overmuch on hating the other. It has relied overmuch on wedding itself to a specific type of pugnacious evangelical. No matter how much Carson and his fellow candidates such as Huckabee might wish otherwise, the United States is not a theocracy. Taking gratuitous shots at an entire religion simply alienates members of that religion who might vote for you. And for someone like Carson, who was born before Brown v. Board of Education, when segregation and white supremacy was the law of the land, to engage in religious bigotry to seek favor with people who haven't wholly left behind racial bigotry, is beyond pathetic.

Movie Reviews: Dirty Weekend, Kill The Irishman, Bad Teacher

Dirty Weekend
directed by Neil LaBute

OK judging by this film Matthew Broderick may need to do some running, cut back on the carbs and hit the weight room. But you could say that about a lot of people couldn't you. Father Time eventually catches up with us all.There are very few people in their fifties who look as they did when they were in their twenties. Perhaps I am just a little taken aback at watching an actor I long identified with youth or young adulthood move into AARP eligible status. Oh well. It happens to everyone if we're lucky enough I guess. Alice Eve continues to take quirky roles which downplay her physical attributes and show a gift for snark and comedy. Nevertheless I didn't like this film all that much. There is a much anticipated twist that while it doesn't come out of nowhere (it's all but shouted out in the first twenty minutes) was sufficiently odd enough to put me off the film. YMMV but this wasn't really the movie I was expecting. I kept hoping that the film wasn't going to go where I thought it was going to go but it did just that. If this film were a basketball player it could be said to have faked left and went left. This is a film which occasionally gives the impression both from casting and the cinematography that it was directed by Woody Allen. Of course as it turns out this movie was directed by Neil LaBute, who also directed such films as Your Friends and Neighbors and In the Company of Men. I didn't know Labute directed this film before I started watching it but as soon as you listen to the characters talk it becomes supremely obvious who created this film. LaBute has the ability to produce some incredibly emotionally harsh scenes, something which, at least in the two other movies mentioned above, caused some people to dismiss him as a misogynist and/or misanthrope. That trait is somewhat muted in this movie. Nevertheless Dirty Weekend could still come across as an unpleasant Seinfeld episode or a less restrained Woody Allen film. I did like the introductory 60s style colorful credits with the smooth jazz soundtrack.

American Les Moore (Broderick) and British woman Natalie Hamilton (Alice Eve) are sales executives for the Los Angeles branch of an (IIRC) unnamed business conglomerate. Les is the duo's senior member but it's not clear that Natalie actually reports to him, as deference doesn't really inform their relationship at all. The two workers are taking a business trip to Dallas which becomes unavoidably delayed in Albuquerque. Les is a whiny little nebbish who virtually defines the term passive aggressive. Nothing is ever his fault. Self-centered Les tends to see the worst in people. He also has a verbal style that makes you wonder why someone hasn't punched him in the mouth yet. After five minutes with Les, even Gandhi would be looking for some brass knuckles. Les insults people without even thinking about it. Buttoned up Natalie is marginally less irritating but has a superiority complex about American conversation styles in general and in particular about what she sees as Les' cold emotional style and moral hypocrisies. Once they're stranded, Les almost immediately tries to ditch Natalie so that he can go into the city alone. Natalie finds this suspicious both because it is suspicious and because she feels that they need to remain together at the airport to catch the next available flight and arrive in Dallas. Natalie doesn't feel capable of doing the sales presentation by herself even if showing up Les would be a highly beneficial competitive side benefit. So to Les' barely concealed annoyance, Natalie stays close to him. And Natalie notices things about Les. She may not say too much but there's not much she misses.

Neither co-worker knows the other very well but it rapidly becomes apparent that both of them, especially Les, have some secrets which they'd just as soon not share with the other person. And both people initially feel morally superior to the other for what appear to be different reasons. There is something to the old joke that two women can work together for one week and end up knowing each other's detailed personal, romantic and medical histories while two men can work together for one decade and be oblivious to details of each other's lives other than marital status or sports team affiliation. This movie plays with that a bit as Natalie surgically drills down to bring out Les's hidden fears and secrets. From a combination of revenge, self-defense and possible actual interest, Les tries to do the same with Natalie. As with many LaBute films Dirty Weekend feels very stage like. With only a few exceptions the film is very static. Broderick and Eve have almost all of the dialogue. The other characters only speak in order to help us learn something about Les or Natalie. There is often an artificial stilted nature to the verbiage. My issue was that I simply wasn't interested in Les or his problems. Dirty Weekend is not really a light humor sort of film though I suppose for LaBute it may be as close as he cares to come to such fare. I'm leaving aside the trailer as it reveals the film's primary twist. This film may have been more transgressive had it been made two decades ago though I still wouldn't have cared for it all that much. You may feel differently. If you're unfamiliar with LaBute's work I guess this could be a dip into the shallow end of the pool.




Kill The Irishman
directed by Jonathan Hensleigh

Although you would never know it from most Hollywood crime movie output, organized crime existed and thrived outside of cities like New York, Boston, Philadelphia or Chicago. The syndicate was nationwide. Everywhere you go there are people who like to gamble, consume illicit substances or buy goods with no sales receipts. And everywhere you go there are people who enjoy hurting people, are too lazy to work for a living or want to lend money at higher rates than the law allows. Kill The Irishman tells the tale of such people in the city of Cleveland during the fifties, sixties and seventies. In particular it tells the real life story of Irish American labor leader/mob leader Danny Greene (Ray Stevenson). Greene, as played by Stevenson, was something of a likable nut. He was a Irish history fanatic who drove a green car, dressed in green clothes, and painted the walls and steps of his union office green. For a mobster he was quite well read, often relaxing by perusing works by famous Irish poets and authors. Even more unusually Greene was a health and fitness enthusiast who eschewed alcohol, tobacco and meat. He regularly jogged and exercised. But of course one doesn't get a street rep in the Cleveland underworld merely by being a well read vegetarian who knows a lot about his ethnic background. Although Greene had a long standing disdain for Italians that probably went back to his experiences being bullied at high school, he nonetheless often worked with them in his loan sharking, extortion, labor racketeering and other criminal ventures. Greene makes a name as someone who is not to be trifled with. Greene gets to know Cleveland Mafioso John Nardi (Vincent D'Ononfrio), a frustrated middle manager who doesn't like the current Mafia hierarchy much more than Greene does. The unlikely duo become close though that doesn't prevent either of them from cracking friendly and sometimes not so friendly slurs about the other's background. When Nardi loses an internal power struggle for leadership of the Italian crime group both he and Greene are upset.

But when the Cleveland Mob tries to take over all of Nardi's and Greene's businesses the two friends resist violently, kicking off a mob war that will have far reaching and permanent repercussions for all sorts of different people. This should have been a better movie. The casting is pretty good, with the exception of Val Kilmer's wrong turn as a police captain who attended school with Greene all those years ago. You will recognize a great many character actors and big name actors who often show up in mob movies, including but not limited to Paul Sorvino, Christopher Walken, Mike Starr, Tony LoBianco, Steve Schirripa (Tony Soprano's hapless brother-in-law), Robert Davi, and Vinnie Jones. Linda Cardellini and Laura Ramsay are Greene's wife and girlfriend, who get to see a more tender side of him. Fionnula Flanagan is Greene's crusty old widow neighbor who initially dismisses him as a dumb thug but later gives him a religious token and urges him to remember their Irish ancestors. This movie wants to be Goodfellas so badly but it can't. And it can't because the budget, special effects and ultimately writing fail to support a more than decent cast. Because the Cleveland Mob war was fought with bombs as much as with bullets the low budget really detracts from the story. And although I loved his work in Tombstone, in this movie Val Kilmer is charisma free. His intrusive voiceover detracts from the film. I wish someone would remake this movie with about 4 or 5 times the budget and do it right. There were a few too many times this looked like a made for TV film. Stevenson did really good work here. He plays Greene with a real twinkle in his eye. He's a tough guy but is rarely depicted as a mean guy. Greene showers the neighborhood with food and gifts at Christmas and Thanksgiving. He is kindly and chivalrous to women. Greene goes on television after a failed attempt on his life to give his enemies his address and dare them to try again (this happened in real life). Stevenson's Greene is a real man's man. He enjoys loyalty unto death from his friends and love from his women (well one woman anyway). Fun fact: much if not all of this movie was shot in Detroit because present day Cleveland had changed too much from the sixties and seventies to be believable in a movie depicting that time. Walken's minimalist offbeat acting style is a delight to watch here although he could probably do roles like this in his sleep. This was an okay film but not necessarily one you should seek out unless you're a genre fanatic. Obviously there is violence but the camera glides over such scenes quickly. There is no close up lingering over bloodshed.
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Bad Teacher
directed by Jake Kasdan

This movie was thoroughly predictable but in a good way. It was funny. It's a reverse Cinderella. Instead of a poor but honest girl being mistreated by maleficent female rivals and winning the heart of a prince the movie imagines a foul mouthed lazy golddigger middle school teacher Elizabeth Halsey (Cameron Diaz) whose first, last and only goal is to marry a man who earns more money than she can spend. If you're not a man who fits that criteria the only thing you can do for her is tell her which way that rich man went. And if you are a remotely attractive single woman then you just need to stay out of her way. Plain or ugly women can hang around her as long as they realize that it's Elizabeth's world. They're just living in it. Elizabeth can be very nasty to rivals and unconsciously patronizing to just about everyone else. Having failed to snare a NBA player for marriage or failing that child support (she's foiled by their assiduous practice of birth control) Elizabeth thinks she's finally hit the big time with upcoming nuptials to a rich heir. But in a theme that's repeated throughout the film women are a little quicker to see through Elizabeth than men are. Elizabeth's would be mother-in-law demonstrates to her son that Elizabeth cares nothing about him, only his money. Elizabeth doesn't even know her future husband's birthday. Well that ends that relationship. Elizabeth must go back to her day job as a middle school teacher. She had just recently ostentatiously quit the job. She's a horrible teacher. Saying she doesn't care about her students gives her too much credit. If she's not sleeping in class she's giving the students movies to watch instead of doing any teaching at all. Elizabeth is not a motivated or dedicated teacher. Another teacher, Amy Squirrel (Lucy Punch), who is quite motivated and dedicated, starts to become more and more annoyed by Elizabeth's open lack of professionalism and crass behavior. This dislike erupts into outright hostility when both women try to put the moves on the new substitute teacher, Scott (Justin Timberlake), who just happens to be from a very rich family. It doesn't help matters that Scott apparently likes top heavy women, which Amy definitely is and Elizabeth is definitely not.

So the film's balance concerns the romantic rivalry between the two teachers, Elizabeth's inappropriate teaching methods, a crush that a gym teacher (Jason Segel) has on Elizabeth and growth by Elizabeth and Amy, who discover that in some aspects they might be mirror images of each other. Neither woman is happy to learn this. You can see something ugly in Amy's personality pushing its way to the surface via Punch's nervous expressions and crazy eyes when she's sharing a scene with Diaz. Good stuff. There's a fair amount of slapstick comedy. I love that stuff. Don't look for deep musings about the meaning of life or thoughtful writing. This is pure low comedy. It doesn't try to be too much more than that. And it works. Punch is British but you wouldn't know it here because her American accent is pretty good. John Higgins is the harried school principal who just wants everyone to leave him alone. Diaz does a great job portraying Elizabeth's initial indifference to and even horror at the idea that other people can make demands on her time and her feelings. If you need to relax and laugh without needing to concentrate too much this is a good movie to watch.
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Illegal Search or Unreasonable Citizen: California Family

Below the break you will see a video of a family declining a vehicle search by some sort of California Agriculture inspector. They are later pulled over by California State Police and arrested. The proximate cause of the arrest was the driver's (Brad Feinman) refusal to accept a ticket or provide identification. Of course once the police broke the vehicle window and hauled the family out, they searched the vehicle anyway. This video was hard to believe. Not because of the escalation of force by police officers. That part was easy to believe, especially the part where the Caucasian-American police officers did not immediately shoot or beat or tase the Caucasian-American citizens. No what I didn't know is that apparently the State of California has taken the power upon itself to search, excuse me, inspect vehicles entering the state. This appears to me to be an end run around the Fourth Amendment. It's being done under the bailiwick of the Agricultural Inspection station but to me it doesn't really matter why it's being done or under what supposed authority it's being done. I think it's wrong and should not be tolerated. What sort of country are we living in if government authorities can just search your vehicle without warrant or probable cause anytime they want to do so. Now there are smarter people than I and people who know the law much better than I who read this blog. I would be interested in knowing what they thought of this. But ultimately it doesn't matter does it. If someone is asserting authority to search your vehicle merely because you're entering the state and/or look suspicious it seems to me that California is giving a huge middle finger to the Fourth Amendment and associated civil liberties. This, among other reasons, is why I think the security apparatus that has grown up around airline travel post 9-11 is so pernicious. There really is no reason why such (VIPER) procedures can't be put into place for travel by train, bus or as we saw here, automobile. 

The idea that the search is "voluntary" because you don't have to enter into California seems to me nonsensical. Why not just get rid of the Fourth Amendment entirely? After all, imagine how much crime the state could deter or prosecute if police officers could enter your house any time they wanted to search it. Would I have done what this man did?  Would you have? I don't like needless confrontation, but I hope that I would have the stones to stand up. But is it my right to endanger a wife and child? I'm positive that a higher level of state violence would have been used against me and mine MUCH earlier in the process. I'm as sure of that as I am that the sun is going to rise tomorrow. So who can say what I would have done. As the song says you have to know when to hold them AND know when to fold them. I think that the citizen decided not to comply with any of the requests because consent at any point would seem to reduce his chances of fighting it later in court. But again I am not a lawyer. Maybe my fears and irritation are unwarranted and these "inspections" are just fine legally and constitutionally. If so then we need to change the laws and the constitution. Anyway, check out the long video below and share your thoughts. You may think that the man is a jerk or a zealot. You may think that he's playing with fire. I don't say no to that. But something is wrong if any state or federal agent is asserting a right to search your car without some sort of probable cause. And it seems to me that's what's happening. The video starts in real time roughly at 1:32.