Monthly Archives: September 2020

The Well-Dressed Bulldog

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Movie Night!

Monocles, tuxedos, feathered boas (are there any other kinds?), three-piece tweeds, hats & scarves (on the guys!), pencil-thin mustaches (on the guys), pin curls (NOT on the guys), thirty-foot-high interior doors, whiskey ‘n’ soda’s, evil doctors, femme fatales, tie bars (open bars, hotel bars, and prison bars, for that matter), private libraries with gothic doorways and fireplaces you could walk into upright, pubs as big as the General’s dining room at the end of White Christmas…

What style! What total foolishness!!

The action is implausible and non-stop.

The plot is implausible and non-decipherable.

The repartee is brittle, the accents are vaguely British, and all the upper lips are stiff.

It’s the 1929 version of Bulldog Drummond with Ronald Colman and Joan Bennett.

I’m loving it!

Four Ways Out

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Movie night!

So many odd delights on tonight’s bill.

First up; a preview of Eegah!

Yes, the legendary Eegah! – one of the 50 worst films of all time.

I’m sure we all share warm and fuzzy feelings of Richard Kiel’s poignant and teeth-flashing portrayal of “Jaws” in several James Bond films. It’s always been intriguing to me that while he played Jaws the character, he wasn’t the title character in Jaws the movie. Well, he had already accomplished that feat years earlier in Eegah!. Mr. Kiel was perfectly cast as Eegah, the last of the Incan cave men (who knew the Incans even had cave men?), which admittedly, is not as noble an accomplishment as the being the last of the Mohicans.

There is even some doubt in the film as to who IS the most credible cave man.

Arch Hall, Jr. makes his teen idol ala Ricky Nelson debut in this film. He actually rivals Richard Kiel in coarseness. Our buxom damsel in distress, Marilyn Manning, has a tough choice.

If I were her, I’d punt.

Dune buggies, sappy and soulful songs on a guitar (where’s John Belushi when ya need ‘im), cacti, and a low budget swimming party, struggle to replace surf boards, Annette and Frankie, and the Pacific Ocean…and sappy and soulful songs on a guitar.

I almost found myself rooting for Eegah.

This cinematic lagniappe is followed by Four Ways Out, an Italian film from 1951.

By the way, this double-feature beats my previous champion for weird movie combos. I believe Charles Edward Pogue was with me one afternoon at the Opera House (back when it was a dollar-matinee second-run movie house) for a double-feature of the Barbra Streisand musical On a Clear Day You Can See Forever with the historical battle-flick Waterloo. That was a jolt to the senses but this exceeds that experience.

Four Ways Out features a script co-written by Federico Fellini. The man is a god to me, but remember; this is 1951. Amarcord was still 20+ years in the future.

This is a criminous tale of the heist of a big soccer game’s receipts and the ultimate destruction of the four thieves that pull it off.

The film has several interesting things to recommend it; a thief named Guido (you can’t go wrong with a thief named Guido), a crude devouring of pasta (you can’t go wrong…), and a scene wading in a fountain (always a winner in Italian film, though frankly, Anita Ekberg did it so much better).

That’s all nice. But the reason to watch the film is much simpler; beautiful Italian women acting their hearts out. A very young Gina Lollabrigida smolders as she dials up the police to obliterate her boyfriend and a zaftig Cosetta Greco (I don’t know who she is – nor do I know the Italian for “zaftig”) giving a performance like a cross between Lauren Bacall in Key Largo and Joy Page in Casablanca.

You can probably guess…I liked it.

Baseball 2020

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Tonight’s home plate umpire has an entertaining and malleable strike zone, but the beloved (and bemused) Reds are currently ahead. I’ve seen a good bit of 2020’s baseball-in-the-time-of-the-cholera.

Some thoughts occur;

Papering the house?
  • I like the rule change starting each extra inning with a man on second base. It maintains the clock-free bliss that is baseball while intensifying the action in the extra innings of a game that has stretched over the years. The strategy of waiting around for a home run isn’t so sound under these new conditions. With a runner on second and nobody out; singles, doubles, and (God forbid) sacrifices are back in play. You might still be sittin’ and watchin’ a tie game for the rest of your life, but you’ll be seein’ some action.
  • Ditto for the rule change requiring a relief pitcher to pitch to at least three batters or to the end of an inning. It adds a dollop of strategy to the game and it eliminates seeing four pitchers warm up in one half-inning.
  • The jury’s still out for me on the designated hitter, but I’m not as opposed I was. Tonight, it’s a lot more entertaining to see catcher Curt Casali batting in the ninth slot than wailing at Luis Castillo’s inept whaling.
  • The crowd sounds being pumped into the empty stadiums need to go away. It’s a hoax. It sounds like a hoax. It makes me wonder if the game is really real. It makes me wonder if we really did land on the moon.
  • The two-dimensional fans in the stands are odd, but at least they’re not all looking at their phones.
  • I like Sam LeCure’s increased participation with the broadcast team. He is more relaxed this year and has an interesting wit and perspective. I’m also happy to see more of Lexington-born Jeff Piecoro…but then, I’m an unabashed homer.
  • The Reds are flat-out disappointing. The highest batting average in tonight’s starting nine belongs to Nick Castellanos. He’s batting .237…pitiful. New additions to the team have not delivered. Moustakis has neither impressed at the plate, nor in the field, and has been often injured. Shogo Akiyama is just now fighting his way through a tough transition to US baseball. Matt Davidson has been released from the team. Pedro Strop, and now Wade Miley – injured. And then there’s Nick Senzel, clearly our answer in center field for the foreseeable future, injured and now injured again. This team should have been in the playoffs this year. It looks highly unlikely now.
  • On the happy side, the pitching has been strong and deep, and all should be Reds next year. A corps of young potential stars are interesting to watch. José Garcia, Tyler Stephenson, Aristide Aquino, and Nick Senzel all should be Reds next year.

I do dearly love the game, though it has and will change. So must I.

But the strike zone…that should be immutable. Someone tell tonight’s umpire.

May your launch angle be correct, your exit velo be 110+, and your spin rate be dazzling.

And this one belongs to the Reds! (Despite the shimmering strike zone)