"A Thumbnail Reaction To Six Summer Movies"

Ant-Man

Harmless summer entertainment.

“Anything else?”

I like harmless summer entertainment.

And there’s this Mexican or something guy in it who’s adorable.

Plus, I was tickled by Paul Rudd’s self-effacing reading of “I’m Ant-Man.”

“Anything else?”

I’m doing “thumbnail.”

“Gotcha.”

Jimmy’s Hall

Supercilious Pronouncement:  Irish filmmakers should be forbidden from making any more movies about “Da Troobles.” * 

(* The Irish rebellion against England and its blood-spilling, internecine aftermath.) 

I get it.  It was terrible.  Move on.  (Try to read that less insensitively than it was written.)

In direct contrast to the innocuous Ant-Man, Jimmy’s Hall triggered an apprehensive foreboding from its earliest moments.  Something horrible was going to happen.  On this green and glorious terrain.  There was no question that Jimmy’s Hall (a community meeting place) was doomed to extinction.  And, dollars to donuts, Jimmy himself’s extinction was a certainty as well.

I made my way to the lobby a half an hour before the inevitable.  I was later informed that Jimmy’s hall had indeed been incinerated, but that Jimmy himself was merely permanently exiled.  The “split decision” did not make me wish I had remained there until the finish.  The outcome was irrelevant.  I was escaping the anticipatory tension.

I have been to Ireland.  It’s magnificent.  There are, I am sure, other wonderful stories to tell.  Note to Irish filmmakers: 

“Tell them.”

Infinitely Polar Bear

An endearing autobiography (written and directed Maya Forbes, whose life it depicts) in which a bipolar father is required to raise his two pre-adolescent daughters on his own. 

Dr. M who deals with mentally troubled people every day was not won over, due to inadequate verisimilitude.  I, on the other hand, was charmed.  I did, however, have one intruding thought undercutting an otherwise positive experience.  That the role of the father, capably if not viscerally portrayed by Mark Ruffalo would have hit the bull’s eye dead center if it had instead been portrayed by the late Philip Seymour Hoffman. 

I have never had a movie experience impaired by a casting concern.  Especially when the alternative has passed on.

The Stanford Prison Experiment   

I went, thinking this was a documentary concerning a subject I was interested in and, though it turned out to be a fictional representation of it, I was surprisingly not disappointed with the result.

Trainwreck – Judd Apatow is Cecil B. DeMille backwards.  DeMille leavened his preachiness with debauchery; Apatow leavens his debauchery with preachiness.  Both commercially successful.  Although morally questionable in their approach.   

Inside Out

Enchanting without being entirely comprehensible.  (I liked it.  I could not follow it.)

A Confession:  I invariably watch movies – and plays and TV shows, for that matter – with my ears.  For me, the story is everything – if I can follow it, if it makes sense – that’s what important. 

The visuals?  If it’s not falling off the side of the screen, I’m fine with whatever they put up there.  That’s why, when someone tells me about the glorious re-mastering of some enduring classic, although I act like I’m interested, my contrarian belief is, “If you can see the thing, why bother?”

For me, everything begins and ends with the story. 

Having said that – a transparent euphemism for “I am about to contradict myself” – I was as lost in the specifics of the storytelling of Inside Out as the movie’s characters were in the protagonist’s brain.  (I understood this much:  They were someplace, they got lost in the “system”, and they finally got back.  Great.  I have the comprehension level of a four year-old.) 

Although I could not connect all the narrative’s dots, I remained charmed by the movie from beginning to end.

High praise from a man who requires things to make sense.

Three other brief points before I depart.

“Awww…”

It’s okay.  I’ll be back.

Brief Point Number One:  Artistically, Inside Out’s softer edges made it feel less as if computers were involved.

Brief Point Number Two:  If I ever decided to break my “No optimists” rule, Amy Poehler’s Inside Out character – or Amy Poehler herself if that’s actually her underneath – is the one optimist I’d be willing to talk to.  This was the first positive personage who did not terminally annoy me.    

Brief Point Number Three:  The surprise contributor to Inside Out’s successful resolution was “Sadness.”  It’s nice seeing an unpopular emotion getting its moment in the sun.

What I like about movies is what I like about the types of people who end up becoming president:

Their remarkable diversity.

I may not enjoy them all equally.

But no two of them are the same.

"Same Story - A Different Interpretation"

An episode of The Mary Tyler Moore Show entitled “Ted’s Change of Heart”, written by Earl Pomerantz:

Narcissist extraordinaire Ted Baxter has suffered a mild heart attack.  Convalescing at home reading a newspaper, he experiences a personal epiphany.

Ted notices and begins watching a nearby spider, weaving its web – patiently, carefully, relentlessly – and he realizes for the first time that life is short and you have to live for today.

“Ted,” explains an exasperated Mary, “that’s not a ‘Live for today’ story.  That’s a ‘Perseverance’ story.”

“It was a ‘Perseverance’ story, Mary,” replies Baxter. “But it became a ‘Live for today’ story when I smacked that damn spider with my newspaper!”
  

One story which, upon further evaluation, becomes a different story.

That appears to be this one.  Which I believed was a “brave” story, but, upon a subsequent revisiting, became unmistakably something else.

We are on a photographic safari in Africa, visiting, specifically, a handful of game parks in Kenya.  (You have to visit more than one of them because varying game park topographies allow for an expanded range of animal sightings.)

Friends who had experienced this excursion the year before had advised us to fly from one game park to the other rather than drive, flying being the less dangerous alternative.  (We were required to drive during a portion of our journey and when I asked our driver Patrick about the numerous black circles painted conspicuously on the highway, he replied, “Those are the locations of recent traffic fatalities.”)

It was definitely “sky-tripping” for us.

“Us”, in this case, being Dr. M and myself, plus the pilot.  Three people in tiny aircraft.

That’s brave, isn’t it?  (Following up my recent exploration of “brave”?)

At least have always thought it was brave.  As did a confirming Dr. M., who is generally considerably braver than I am.  This time, however, she was detectably anxious up there, whereas I on the other hand looked obliviously out the window, trying to remember the theme song to Sky King.  (A Saturday morning kids’ series featuring a small-plane called the “Song Bird”, piloted by a coincidentally-named “Skyler King.”  I continue to draw a blank on the theme song.  But part marks for pulling up the name of the airplane.)

We have been flying for more than a half an hour, our destination only a few minutes away.  I catch sight of the pilot, reaching for his onboard radio microphone and relaying pertinent information to what I assume is the tower of the airport where we are about to land.

There is no response from the tower.  Though this registers in a segment of my consciousness as disturbing, I remain generally oblivious, reveling in the audacity of our soaring adventure in a miniscule airplane.  

A couple minutes later, the pilot repeats the action, again relaying the pertinent information, but this time it appears, with somewhat heightened intensity.

Triggering a heightened intensity of my own.

What exactly is going on?   Why isn’t the tower responding to his calls?

I instruct myself to relax.  This is entirely routine, a standard aerial jaunt between game parks, flown by an experienced pilot in whom I have total confidence. 
Though I have no idea if it is actually his first day on the job.  And the man in whom we have entrusted our lives is a complete stranger. 

‘Nothing to worry about” I remind myself.  Everything’s going to be okay.

And then he radios a third time.  And once again, there is a silent response.

Gulp.

The traditional “nightmare scenario” in small-plane travel is the “fiery inferno.”  I am thinking perhaps Fate has a more imaginative plan in mind.  My rich and fertile imagination conjures visions of a team of heavily armed insurgents, commandeering the airport, massacring the tower personnel, awaiting the impending new arrivals, appropriating their aircraft for the revolution, adding pilot and passengers to the bloodbath.

Is what I am conjuring. 

No longer entirely courageous.

This was not the first time on this trip that I had feared for our existence.  A morning earlier, breakfasting at our Nairobi hotel, I had been confronted by a giant headline in the local newspaper, reading:

“KENYA CONFIDENT OF CONQUERING ZIMBABWE AGAIN”

The headline was immediately upsetting.  It appeared that our lamentably timed photographic safari had dropped us in the middle of a war zone.

Only later did I discover that I was reading the back page of the newspaper and that they were talking about soccer.

Okay, I was mistaken about the danger that time.

But why weren’t they answering!?!

We finally touch down at the airport.  And we get out of the plane.

There are no rebel insurgents; in fact, there are no people whatsoever.  And no tower, for that matter.  It turns out, it was not “technically” an airport.  It was a rudimentary landing strip, adjacent to the game park. 

I am now terribly confused.

“Who were you trying to contact?”  I inquire of our pilot.

“I was alerting nearby aircraft as to our whereabouts,” he replies.  Then clarifyingly adding, “And apparently there weren’t any.” 

The End.

It had started out as a “brave” story.  But upon further evaluation, it had become something different. 

Involving presuppositions about Africa.

I mean, if we had been flying between National Parks in Utah and there was no response from the tower…

I would have, at worst, thought they were asleep.

"'Brave - An Introductory Inquiry"

Snippets and Snobservations – Not suggesting these are the observations of snobs – it just tickled me to put the two of those words together. 

My step-grandson Milo – three-and-a-half – is taking swimming lessons.  Before the lessons started he wore inflatable plastic “floaties” encasing his upper arms and adamantly resisted jumping off the side of the pool into the water and stubbornly refused to swim under the water as well.  (Note:  I myself am unable to do either of those things.  Though I’ve been swimming without “floaties” since I was fifty.)

After an astonishingly few number of swimming lessons, however, Milo has abandoned the “inflatable floaties”, jumps enthusiastically into the pool and propels himself under the water like a nuclear submarine. 

In a couple of weeks, “The Magnificent Milo” has moved from the “not brave” side of the ledger to the triumphant home of the aquatically courageous. 

Conclusion:  “Not brave” is hardly a permanent designation.  Under appropriate circumstances, you can comfortably change teams.

What explains Milo’s miraculously speedy relocation?  

Apparently, swimming lessons.

Before them, Milo’s response to his parents encouraging him to jump into the pool and swim under the water had been a tearful, non-negotiable “NO!”  “Teacher I-forget-what-her-name-is” says, “Jump into the pool, Milo” and he jumps.  She says, “Swim under the water, Milo” and he submerges and off he goes.

Why?  Because “Teacher I-forget-what-her-name-is” gave the order.

What it looks like is that being brave alters depending on who it is that’s telling you to.  If an experienced “Authority Figure” tells you to jump in the pool and swim under the water, you jump in the pool and you swim under the water.  If, on the other hand, your parents or proximate relatives tell you to jump in the pool and swim under the water, you do neither and cry.

“Brave”, relationship-driven in that case, seems situationally as well.

I recall a show runner I once worked with – a notorious “Ladies Man” although the appellation may reflect a certain jealousy on my part – returning to work on Monday, suffering from excruciating lower back pain. 

Inquiring into the origin of his discomfort, the show runner explains that, over the weekend, he had participated in an informal softball game and he had wrenched his lower back performing a heroic maneuver at shortstop.

For reasons I cannot adequately explain – or justify – I continue badgering the man, insisting he come clean concerning the real reason he incurred his injury, which I already suspect, but I need him to acknowledge it out loud.

The beleaguered invalid parries my aggressive probing with evasive clarifications, concerning having forgotten to “warm up” before the game, admitting to age-related vulnerability, stressing the importance of that play to the encounter’s ultimate outcome.

Instinctually, I am certain there is more.

“What was the real reason for your heroics?” I proceed doggedly, convinced that there’s a secret he is reluctant to reveal. 

It turns out I am correct. 

Heaving a sigh of frustration at my unwillingness to “let it go”, the man finally – and truthfully – reveals why he had athletically overreached and had contorted his lower back.    

“Because there were girls watching, okay?!?”

“Bingo.”  Viola.  And “Case closed.”

Another factor underlying courageous behavior:

There were girls watching.

Neither (post-swimming lessons) Milo nor that libidinous show runner may, in reality, be inordinately brave.  What they both did, however, was overcome their trepidations, one in response to professional direction, the other, risking it all for the attention and admiration of gender-specific onlookers.

This observation, I believes, gives hope to us all.  Because it proves that…

You do not necessarily have to be brave to behave bravely.

In fact, frankly, I find the “un-brave” behaving bravely substantially more admirable. 

Assuming the existence of a naturally brave personality, a “naturally brave” individual behaving bravely is equivalent to an inordinately tall person behaving “tall…ly.”  This is hardly “Stop the Presses!” newsworthy.  That is generically what they do. 

A generically cowardly person behaving bravely? –  Now you’ve got something!  That’s a “Dancing Chihuahua.”  That’s something for the archives.  (Or “Social Media”, which are the archives of today, until malevolent hackers jump in and make them abruptly disappear.  You cannot “disappear” archives.  Though they are uncomfortably dusty.)

Do I have an appropriate example of a generically cowardly person behaving inordinately bravely?

Funny you should ask.  (Tipping an acknowledging chapeau to comedian Morrie Amsterdam.)

A visitor to a beach town in coastal Turkey (pardon the redundancy – where else would they have a beach town?) enters a local barbershop, to enjoy the uniqueness and exoticness of a Turkish shave.  There, he discovers that, as a “finishing touch” to the straight-razor procedure, Turkish barbers traditionally burn the hair off the edges of the customer’s ear peripheries with fire. 

Though this final procedure is optional, the visitor – on whom the smart betting money overwhelming favors “coward” – courageously bellows, “Let’s go!”

Yes, there is another man taking his picture.  But the visitor has no idea he would be doing so.  (Otherwise, he would have definitely covered his bald spot.)

No.

There was an unexpected “Moment of Truth.”

And staring that “Moment” directly in the face…

The visitor had accessed the strongest and grittiest part of himself…

And he was brave. Snippets and Snobservations – Not suggesting these are the observations of snobs – it just tickled me to put the two of those words together. 

My step-grandson Milo – three-and-a-half – is taking swimming lessons.  Before the lessons started he wore inflatable plastic “floaties” encasing his upper arms and adamantly resisted jumping off the side of the pool into the water and stubbornly refused to swim under the water as well.  (Note:  I myself am unable to do either of those things.  Though I’ve been swimming without “floaties” since I was fifty.)

After an astonishingly few number of swimming lessons, however, Milo has abandoned the “inflatable floaties”, jumps enthusiastically into the pool and propels himself under the water like a nuclear submarine. 

In a couple of weeks, “The Magnificent Milo” has moved from the “not brave” side of the ledger to the triumphant home of the aquatically courageous. 

Conclusion:  “Not brave” is hardly a permanent designation.  Under appropriate circumstances, you can comfortably change teams.

What explains Milo’s miraculously speedy relocation?  

Apparently, swimming lessons.

Before them, Milo’s response to his parents encouraging him to jump into the pool and swim under the water had been a tearful, non-negotiable “NO!”  “Teacher I-forget-what-her-name-is” says, “Jump into the pool, Milo” and he jumps.  She says, “Swim under the water, Milo” and he submerges and off he goes.

Why?  Because “Teacher I-forget-what-her-name-is” gave the order.

What it looks like is that being brave alters depending on who it is that’s telling you to.  If an experienced “Authority Figure” tells you to jump in the pool and swim under the water, you jump in the pool and you swim under the water.  If, on the other hand, your parents or proximate relatives tell you to jump in the pool and swim under the water, you do neither and cry.

“Brave”, relationship-driven in that case, seems situationally as well.

I recall a show runner I once worked with – a notorious “Ladies Man” although the appellation may reflect a certain jealousy on my part – returning to work on Monday, suffering from excruciating lower back pain. 

Inquiring into the origin of his discomfort, the show runner explains that, over the weekend, he had participated in an informal softball game and he had wrenched his lower back performing a heroic maneuver at shortstop.

For reasons I cannot adequately explain – or justify – I continue badgering the man, insisting he come clean concerning the real reason he incurred his injury, which I already suspect, but I need him to acknowledge it out loud.

The beleaguered invalid parries my aggressive probing with evasive clarifications, concerning having forgotten to “warm up” before the game, admitting to age-related vulnerability, stressing the importance of that play to the encounter’s ultimate outcome.

Instinctually, I am certain there is more.

“What was the real reason for your heroics?” I proceed doggedly, convinced that there’s a secret he is reluctant to reveal. 

It turns out I am correct. 

Heaving a sigh of frustration at my unwillingness to “let it go”, the man finally – and truthfully – reveals why he had athletically overreached and had contorted his lower back.    

“Because there were girls watching, okay?!?”

“Bingo.”  Viola.  And “Case closed.”

Another factor underlying courageous behavior:

There were girls watching.

Neither (post-swimming lessons) Milo nor that libidinous show runner may, in reality, be inordinately brave.  What they both did, however, was overcome their trepidations, one in response to professional direction, the other, risking it all for the attention and admiration of gender-specific onlookers.

This observation, I believes, gives hope to us all.  Because it proves that…

You do not necessarily have to be brave to behave bravely.

In fact, frankly, I find the “un-brave” behaving bravely substantially more admirable. 

Assuming the existence of a naturally brave personality, a “naturally brave” individual behaving bravely is equivalent to an inordinately tall person behaving “tall…ly.”  This is hardly “Stop the Presses!” newsworthy.  That is generically what they do. 

A generically cowardly person behaving bravely? –  Now you’ve got something!  That’s a “Dancing Chihuahua.”  That’s something for the archives.  (Or “Social Media”, which are the archives of today, until malevolent hackers jump in and make them abruptly disappear.  You cannot “disappear” archives.  Though they are uncomfortably dusty.)

Do I have an appropriate example of a generically cowardly person behaving inordinately bravely?

Funny you should ask.  (Tipping an acknowledging chapeau to comedian Morrie Amsterdam.)

A visitor to a beach town in coastal Turkey (pardon the redundancy – where else would they have a beach town?) enters a local barbershop, to enjoy the uniqueness and exoticness of a Turkish shave.  There, he discovers that, as a “finishing touch” to the straight-razor procedure, Turkish barbers traditionally de-folliculate the aural peripheries with fire. 

Though this final procedure is optional, the visitor – on whom the smart betting money overwhelming favors “coward” – courageously bellows, “Let’s go!”

Yes, there is another man taking his picture.  But the visitor has no idea he would be doing so.  (Otherwise, he would have definitely covered his bald spot.)

No.

There was an unexpected “Moment of Truth.”

And staring that “Moment” directly in the face…

The visitor had accessed the strongest and grittiest part of himself…

And he was brave. 

 

(An Alternate Explanation:  I was embarrassed to "wimp out" in front of the barber.   But I prefer the first one.)