Birth of a Notion: 2000

Showing posts with label 2000. Show all posts

Tuesday, December 22, 2015

Who Knows What the Tide Could Bring?

"We both had done the math. Kelly added it all up and knew she had to let me go. I added it up and knew that I had lost her. 'Cause I was never gonna get off that island. I was gonna die there, totally alone. I was gonna get sick or get injured or something. The only choice I had, the only thing I could control was when and how and where it was going to happen. So I made a rope, and I went up to the summit to hang myself. I had to test it, you know? Of course. You know me. And the weight of the log snapped the limb of the tree, so I couldn't even kill myself the way I wanted to. I had power over nothing, and that's when this feeling came over me like a warm blanket. I knew, somehow, that I had to stay alive. Somehow. I had to keep breathing. Even though there was no reason to hope and all my logic said that I would never see this place again. So that's what I did. I stayed alive. I kept breathing. And one day my logic was proven all wrong because the tide came in and gave me a sail. And now here I am. I'm back. In Memphis, talking to you. I have ice in my glass. And I've lost her all over again. I'm so sad that I don't have Kelly. But I'm so grateful that she was with me on that island. And I know what I have to do now. I gotta keep breathing. Because tomorrow the sun will rise. Who knows what the tide could bring?"

Chuck (Tom Hanks)

If the general story of "Cast Away," which premiered 15 years ago today, seemed familiar to you, it should have. It was based on a poem ("Enoch Arden") that was written more than 150 years ago by Alfred, Lord Tennyson when he was England's poet laureate.

It served as the basis for a number of movie projects long before "Cast Away," which premiered on this day in 2000, was made. In the silent era, D.W. Griffith made a film called "Enoch Arden," as did Christy Cabanne. An Australian movie named "The Bushwackers" was made in the 1920s.

Then, after talkies had been around for about a decade, Cary Grant and Irene Dunne appeared together in a movie called "My Favorite Wife" in 1940, which was being remade with Marilyn Monroe and Dean Martin as "Something's Got to Give" in the months before Monroe's death in 1962. When that project was canceled, a remake was made with Doris Day and James Garner called "Move Over, Darling."

Another movie from 1940, "Too Many Husbands," starred Jean Arthur and Fred MacMurray. It was remade more than a decade later as "Three for the Show" with Jack Lemmon and Betty Grable.

And 1946's "Tomorrow Is Forever" starred Claudette Colbert and Orson Welles — and was the first credited film appearance for Natalie Wood.

All those movies were inspired by Alfred, Lord Tennyson's poem, which was about a fisherman who went to sea and was shipwrecked. He was missing for 10 years, then was rescued, only to find upon his return that his wife (and presumed widow) had married his childhood friend, with whom she had had a child. Not wishing to spoil her happiness, he never revealed his identity to her and died of a broken heart.

Each adaptation had different circumstances — and, in some, it was the wife, not the husband, who was marooned on an island — but it was basically the same story — a significant other was missing and presumed dead.

The story usually picked up after that significant other had been rescued, but "Cast Away" was different. The viewers followed Chuck (Tom Hanks), a FedEx employee whose plane went down in a storm, through his years of isolation on an uncharted island.

The audience had no idea what had become of Chuck's girlfriend, Kelly (Helen Hunt), until he was rescued and brought back to Memphis (which, for those of you who do not know, is the base city for FedEx). It was then he learned that Kelly had married someone else after she had given up all hope of finding him alive. It wasn't a childhood friend. It was Chuck's dentist.

Hanks was nominated for Best Actor, which I thought was appropriate, and he lost, which I didn't necessarily think was appropriate. I thought Hunt deserved a nomination as well — not for Best Actress, because she didn't have nearly enough screen time for that, but as Best Supporting Actress (hey, if Beatrice Straight could win for five minutes of screen time in "Network," why not Hunt?). Her part was important to the beginning and the end of the story.

Of course, Hunt won Best Actress for her work in "As Good As It Gets," and she got a Best Supporting Actress nod for "The Sessions." Many actresses would consider their careers successful if they had those to put on their resumes, and I don't doubt that Hunt is proud of her career, but I have felt strongly about this for a long time now. I really believe she deserved a nomination for "Cast Away."

"I always knew you were alive," she told Chuck when they were reunited. "I knew it. And everybody said that I had to quit saying that, that I had to let you go."

Then she said the words every person would like to hear from another: "I love you. You're the love of my life."

And Chuck replied, "I love you, too, Kelly. More than you'll ever know."

When I saw her deliver this line the first time, I wished the movie had given some attention to what was going on in what had to have been a frantic search for Chuck. That must have been a poignant story. We saw Chuck's transformation from a clock–driven courier to man isolated on an uncharted island where time was, by and large, irrelevant. But we didn't see the emotional roller–coaster ride Kelly's character must have gone through in the search for evidence of what had become of Chuck.

We only got hints of what it must have been like for Hunt's character, first from her husband when he came to Hanks' welcome–home rally and then from Hunt herself.

That part of it was never really explored in those other movies I mentioned, either. That was a missed opportunity.

Not Exactly a Christmas 'Gift'

"Miss Wilson, I don't believe in what you do. I'll just be straight with you. Not only that, I don't like it. But, we've got to the end of the road of our investigation ... and looked under every rock there is to look under ... and we'd like you to tell us what you can to help us."

Sheriff (J.K. Simmons)

"The Gift," which premiered 15 years ago today, seemed to slip in beneath most people's radars. That is a shame because it really was a suspenseful tale.

Many of those who went to see it during the Christmas season in 2000 may well have expected to see a holiday–oriented tale if all they knew of it was its title. Boy, were they in for a surprise.

Cate Blanchett played a young widow, a psychic who did card readings for people in a small town in Georgia. In the early minutes of the movie, audiences must have been certain that Hilary Swank, who played a victim of spousal abuse, would be likely to turn up dead. Instead it was Katie Holmes, the fiancee of Greg Kinnear who was having torrid affairs with apparently everyone, who turned up missing.

It was enough to give anyone a headache — and then there was Blanchett's long–dead grandmother (Rosemary Harris) who popped up to remind her to trust her instincts.

There were enough creepy things going on to make sure everyone knew this wasn't a Christmas movie.

Now before I proceed, I should try to address what I see as a conflict in terminology. I said that Blanchett played a psychic although I suppose when I was a child I would have called her a fortune teller because questions about the future are what card readings always seemed to me to be about when I was growing up. You know, questions like will I fall in love and get married? or will I be successful? Magic 8–Ball stuff.

And I gather that Blanchett's character did her share of that with many of her clients, but the clients the audience saw were always having their pasts revealed — Swank's abuse as well as the abuse of another character, Buddy (Giovanni Ribisi), who had been abused as a child by his father.

My point is that I'm not sure if psychic and fortune teller mean the same thing or different things.

It is in the area of revelation of the past that I associate the term psychic — if only because I hear from time to time of psychics being brought on to help criminal investigators who have run into a wall in their probes into disappearances.

That is what happened in "The Gift."

Holmes' disappearance brought Blanchett into the apparently stalled investigation. She had a vision of Holmes being attacked and killed and then thrown into a pond on property belonging to Swank's husband (Keanu Reeves), and that led to Reeves' arrest and eventual conviction after Holmes' body was retrieved from his pond.

This brings me to one of my quibbles with the movie. It appeared that Reeves was arrested, then almost immediately put on trial. I know the Constitution guarantees every defendant the right to a speedy trial, but that is much faster than the legal process usually works.

(Speaking as someone who, like many novice reporters, covered police and fire beats, things don't happen as quickly as they seem to happen in the movies.)

But Reeves' character wasn't guilty, as Blanchett learned in another vision, and she went to the prosecutor (Gary Cole) to ask him to reopen the case. She couldn't see who the killer was, she said, but there seemed to be no shortage of prospects, including Swank, who knew that Holmes had been sleeping with her husband and, consequently, "she deserved what she got."

Such can be the moralizing posture of a small Southern town.

When I saw "The Gift," I was inclined — and I still am — to think of it as being successful in its bid to be suspenseful, in no small part because of the cast that was assembled. Otherwise, though, I kind of felt it became a rather predictable whodunnit in the second half of the movie.

Film critic Roger Ebert was more glowing in his praise. "The movie is ingenious in its plotting, colorful in its characters, taut in its direction and fortunate in possessing Cate Blanchett," Ebert wrote. "If this were not a crime picture (if it were sopped in social uplift instead of thrills), it would be easier to see the quality of her work. By the end, as all hell is breaking loose, it's easy to forget how much everything depended on the sympathy and gravity she provided in the first two acts."

There is truth in that.

Blanchett's character provided a balance in the telling of the story — at one point Buddy told her she was the "soul" of the town, and I think the same could be said of her influence on the movie.

But what many people — mostly, I suppose, adolescent males — found and still find memorable about "The Gift" was it contained Holmes' first nude scene.

Ebert's opinion notwithstanding, the movie received no recognition from the Oscars — doesn't seem to be too surprising. The Oscars seldom give nominations to comedies or supernatural thrillers.

That doesn't mean, of course, that they aren't worthy of recognition. It's merely a long–standing Academy bias.

Tuesday, December 15, 2015

A Sweet Treat

"Once upon a time there was a quiet little village in the French countryside whose people believed in tranquilite. Tranquility. If you lived in this village, you understood what was expected of you. You knew your place in the scheme of things. And if you happened to forget, someone would help remind you."

Opening narration

Having grown up in a small town (as I have mentioned on this blog before), I can understand how slowly change can be accepted in one. My small hometown isn't so small anymore (as I have also mentioned here before), but it is still small enough that it is probably susceptible to some of the same mindsets that existed there when it was maybe one–fifth its present size.

I can't remember anything as unsettling there as the arrival — on a "clever" wind — of a single mother/chocolatier (Juliette Binoche) and her 6–year–old daughter in a fictional French town that had been stagnating for years, decades, perhaps centuries.

That happened in the movie "Chocolat," which made its debut on this day in 2000. I missed it when it was in the theaters, but I saw it recently on Netflix — and it is one of those movies I deeply regret missing the first time. It was, indeed, a sweet treat.

Small towns are notorious for being centered on one church. My hometown, for example, was mostly Baptists although there was a fairly sizable population of Methodists there. In the village in the movie, it was apparently a Catholic church, and everyone went to church on Sunday. If you didn't, everyone knew.

Everyone in this town, it seemed, had a problem of some kind, and Binoche's arrival summoned all sorts of things out into the open in one way or another. That is something I have noticed about serene small towns — the serenity often hides something more sinister lurking beneath the surface.

It seemed to be common knowledge that Binoche was an atheist and had an illegitimate daughter, and the villagers had seen her wearing dresses that were much more colorful than the ones the local women wore, but the movie never really resolved the question of Binoche's true identity. Some people thought she was a witch; Binoche's character hinted that she was a pagan princess. Presumably that was why she had a "knack," as she put it, for picking out which of the many varieties of chocolates in her shop was a customer's particular favorite — or, perhaps, more to the point, which one would have the greatest effect on a given customer's personality.

Does that seem complicated? It isn't, really.

As film critic Roger Ebert wrote, "'Chocolat' is about a war between the forces of paganism and Christianity, and because the pagan heroine has chocolate on her side, she wins. Her victory is delayed only because, during Lent, a lot of the locals aren't eating chocolate."

Actually, there's more to it than that. (There always is, isn't there?) Binoche rubbed the mayor (Alfred Molina) the wrong way, and he forbade the people of the village from frequenting her shop, vowing that she would be out of business by Easter. She had already influenced two women in the village and changed their behavior, and the comte — whose control of the town was so complete that he wrote the sermons that the priest delivered on Sundays — resented the fact that Binoche was tempting the villagers with chocolate at a time when they were supposed to be abstaining from earthly pleasures.

One of the women Binoche influenced was her landlady (Judi Dench), whose daughter refused to permit her to see her grandson. The other woman (Lena Olin) was a victim of spousal abuse. She summed up the reality of a small town in a simple — yet elegant, in its way — sentence: "People talk."

Yes, they do. About all kinds of things. And people. That is, by far, their favorite topic of all.

The comte had problems of his own. The movie never really let the audience know what the situation was with his wife, but there were plenty of indications that she had left him. He would only admit that she was visiting Venice — but, as Dench's character remarked, she had been there for months. And everyone seemed to know she had left him. Everyone but the comte, who probably knew but refused to admit it, even to himself.

Well, Binoche's shop did not go out of business, but she found herself in a holy war with the comte.

And in this holy war she enlisted the help of a gypsy (Johnny Depp).

Ebert wrote that the movie was "charming and whimsical," and I agree. There were places where the movie could have turned even more serious than it did, especially when the clash between the church and the atheist came to the forefront. But it kept its rather bemused distance and made no judgments.

It followed the Joe Friday storytelling approach — Just the facts. Even if it is a fictional tale. (If you're old enough to remember Dragnet, you'll know what I'm talking about. If not, never mind.)

"Chocolat" was nominated for five Oscars — Best Picture, Best Actress (Binoche), Best Supporting Actress (Dench), Best Adapted Screenplay and Best Original Score — but lost all five. Pity.

Saturday, November 21, 2015

Frasier's Unexpected Surprise

Niles (David Hyde Pierce): Frasier, I'm sorry I ruined your evening.

Frasier (Kelsey Grammer): It's all right, Niles. It's a small price to pay to finally see you and Daphne together.

I guess it was around this time in the Frasier timeline that my interest in the series began to wane — mostly because I found the relationship between Niles (David Hyde Pierce) and Daphne (Jane Leeves) implausible.

They had been going through a very difficult time trying to be a couple after Daphne left her fiance at the altar and Niles left his wife of just a few days. The two jilted lovers were all too eager to make life difficult for their exes, and the story really was a nice one about the commitment and love Daphne and Niles shared.

At the time this episode was shown, I suppose — to my great regret — that I was being very superficial. I couldn't comprehend why Daphne would want to be with Niles, and I began to lose interest in the series.

Later, I caught up on the episodes I missed and discovered that the episodes about Daphne and Niles were very inspiring.

The episode that aired on this night in 2000, "Taking Liberties," was a tantalizing taste of things to come. Having watched all those episodes in syndication, I must say that Daphne and Niles were great role models. It's a pity there aren't more like them today.

The episode opened with Frasier (Kelsey Grammer) searching for a housekeeper to replace Daphne. Now that she was Niles' girlfriend, Frasier felt uncomfortable asking her to do household chores around his apartment.

Niles was having his own problems. His wife Mel (Jane Adams) was stringing him along, trying to lay the foundation for a face–saving way for her to exit the marriage by having Niles act boorishly in public. She promised that, within a few weeks, he would be free to pursue a public relationship with Daphne. But she kept pushing back the deadline, and Niles was getting frustrated.

The latest indignity had come at a prominent colonel's funeral. Niles' cell phone rang during the service, and Mel would not permit him to answer it. The ringer had been set to play "La Cucaracha."

While describing the service, Niles mentioned that the colonel's butler had been there, and Frasier interrupted him for more information.

Frasier contacted the butler (Victor Garber) and hired him to fill the role that Daphne would be giving up — and then some.

The butler, whose name was Ferguson, took considerable liberties, making suggestions for Frasier's self–promotion — not that Frasier objected although, eventually, he chastised Ferguson for "taking far too much liberty with the liberty taking."

But Ferguson was generous. He was prompted to take liberties not for his own sake but for the sake of others.

In Frasier's ongoing campaign to climb the Seattle social ladder, Ferguson suggested a pre–opera party for the folks who could make a difference in his bid for a spot on the opera board. Many of the board members were elderly and a post–opera party might be too late for them.

Things seemed to be going very well — the party was a success, and Niles and Daphne had plans to go out — until Mel unexpectedly showed up.

To Daphne's great pleasure, Niles stood up to Mel and proclaimed his love for Daphne for the room full of people to hear.

It appeared that Frasier's bid for the opera board was suddenly brought down in flames, though. But he claimed not to mind, that it was worth it to see Daphne and Niles free to live and to love each other in the open instead of the shadows.

Over and over in its last few seasons, Frasier pleasantly surprised me like it did 15 years ago tonight. Or it would have if I had been watching the series in 2000. But I wasn't — darn it!

Tuesday, June 30, 2015

The Perfect Man Vs. Nature Movie

Bobby (Nark Wahlberg): I got a woman who I can't stand to be two feet away from.

Captain (George Clooney): Congratulations.

Bobby: Then again, I love to fish.

Captain: Son, you've got a problem.

I enjoyed "The Perfect Storm," which premiered on this day in 2000.

I didn't see it at the theater but on TV about two years later. I remember it vividly. It was the Fourth of July, slightly more than two years after its theatrical debut.

And I remember when that storm struck the northeast in October 1991 — because I took that week off from my job to review for and take my comprehensive exams, which I had to pass to receive my master's degree. I did pass my exams — in spite of periodic breaks in which I followed the progress of the storm. It was a big news story that week. It slipped my memory in the next few years, but the memory came rushing back when the movie was in the theaters 15 years ago.

It even seems to me that I heard reports at the time of a fishing boat that was lost in the storm — and her crew was presumed lost as well. Perhaps that is something of which I have persuaded myself since seeing the movie. Perhaps I didn't really hear such reports. But I definitely remember hearing about the storm and seeing footage on the news of the battering the northeast coast took.

The odyssey of that fishing boat — the Andrea Gail — formed the basis of Sebastian Junger's best–selling book and the film adaptation that was directed by Wolfgang Petersen (director of 1981's "Das Boot").

Of course, by the time people saw the movie, everyone had been reminded of the storm. The trailer made sure of that.

Film critic Roger Ebert conceded that. He wrote that the movie was "about ships tossed by a violent storm. The film doesn't have complex and involving characters, but they are not needed. It doesn't tell a sophisticated story and doesn't need to; the main events are known to most of the audience before the movie begins. All depends on the storm. I do not mind admitting I was enthralled."

So was I, in the same way that I am enthralled by dramatizations of other historic events, especially ones in which the force of nature simply overpowers humans. I suspect that was part of the attraction to "Titanic." More than 1,500 people were doomed when that ship left on its maiden voyage even though it had not struck the iceberg yet. Four days passed between the time Titanic set sail and the time it struck the iceberg. The audience knew it was simply a matter of time.

Just about everyone who saw that movie knew the story of the Titanic. They knew that most of the people on that ship would die — and anyone who had done any research into the story knew the names of most of the primary characters who would die.

"The Perfect Storm" was the perfect suspense story. The audience knew the crew of the fishing boat had been struggling, and the captain was making one last roll of the dice, trying to bring home a catch that would allow them all to live comfortably through the winter months. And they were remarkably successful on that fishing trip. But, in the movie, a critical event occurred. The refrigeration on the ship conked out, and the choice was simple. They could go full speed ahead, hoping to outrun the storm they had been hearing about and make it back to land before the catch was spoiled, or they could wait out the storm — and almost certainly lose all of the swordfish they had labored to catch.

I don't know if the crew really was that successful. The need to get back to land to cash in on a big catch added some dramatic urgency to the story, but it all could have been as simple as the crew having another poor experience and just deciding to call it quits and trying to make it to shore ahead of the storm. But no one would pay to see that.

Such stories — if they're done well — make me want to call out to the characters to go back before it is too late. "Stay where you are!" I wanted to shout at my TV screen the last time I watched "The Perfect Storm."

"The storm's like the shark in 'Jaws.' It is A LOT bigger than you think it is."

It was what appealed to me about an alternate account of the John F. Kennedy assassination from the mid–1980s Twilight Zone series.

Some of the story was based on verifiable facts. When the storm hit and who was on board the Andrea Gail are part of the record. The parallel story — about a sailboat caught in the storm — is also part of the record.

But the things that were said and done on those vessels are not known to those who were not there, particularly in the case of the Andrea Gail. There were survivors from the sailboat; there were none from the fishing boat.

"The film's best scenes are more or less without dialogue, except for desperately shouted words," Ebert wrote. "They are about men trapped in a maelstrom of overpowering forces. They respond heroically, because they must, but they are not heroes; their motivation is need. They have had a bad season, have made one risky last trip, have ventured beyond the familiar Grand Banks fishing grounds to the problematical Flemish Cap."

It probably didn't require much imagination to figure out the kind of frantic scenes that probably were played out on board the Andrea Gail in her final minutes and hours. It required more creativity, I guess, to set the stage for ultimately futile heroics. For example, there was conflict on the boat between characters played by John C. Reilly and William Fichtner. Jealousy over Reilly's character's wife was strongly implied as the reason, yet Fichtner dove into the sea to save Reilly, who had been caught in a fishing line and yanked into the water, where he surely would have drowned if he hadn't been helped.

As dramatic as the fictionalized scenes on the Andrea Gail were, it seems to me the most dramatic moments may have been the Coast Guard's actual successful efforts to save the folks on the sailboat — and the unsuccessful attempt to save one of the Guardsmen who was lost in the choppy seas.

Whether the scenes were true or not, the heroes were the men. The women were supporting characters, even a woman on the sailboat (played by Karen Allen) and a colleague (Mary Elizabeth Mastrantonio) of the captain of the Andrea Gail (George Clooney).

So the audience had to know that some of the movie was made up. Heck, even movies that tell familiar dramatic stories find ways to ramp up the drama even more. But I think that the legitimately dramatic elements — even if partially made up simply because the whole story is not known — were dramatic enough. Ebert wrote that he was "wrung out" by the end of the movie.

I felt much the same way.

A word or two should be said about Diane Lane, an actress I have been watching for a long time. Hers was a supporting character, the girlfriend of Mark Wahlberg's character who was left behind when the Andrea Gail set sail on her final voyage.

She provided a face and a voice for many of the emotions that were undoubtedly surging through the audience — her frustration at the lack of information, her concern for the crew's safety.

I've been observing her career for many years — since her debut in 1979's "A Little Romance" — and I don't think Lane's role in "The Perfect Storm" was her best — but she is consistently good. Her role probably could have used a bit more depth — but, as Ebert observed, depth of characters wasn't necessary to tell the tale of the perfect storm.

"It's possible to criticize the sketchy characters," Ebert wrote, "but pointless. The movie is about the appalling experience of fighting for your life in a small boat in a big storm. If that is what you want to see, you will see it done here about as well as it can be done."

Monday, April 27, 2015

Things Aren't Always What They Seem to Be

"Be who you are and say what you feel because those who mind don't matter and those who matter don't mind."

Dr. Seuss

There were certain things that TV's Frasier (Kelsey Grammer) craved — like fame, fortune, power (later in the series, he disclosed that he preferred to look at it as influence), prestige — and everyone knew them. Well, the audience certainly knew them. He didn't crave regular–guy stuff — but, as TV viewers found out 15 years ago tonight, he craved acceptance from the regular guys.

He didn't really want to be a regular guy. He just wanted to be thought of as one. Frasier went through periods like this during the series' 11–year run. He really liked being an elitist, but sometimes his fussy nature got in the way.

Like when Daphne's (Jane Leeves) fiance Donny (Saul Rubinek) needed someone to throw him a bachelor party, and Frasier volunteered, but Donny insisted that Frasier not do that.

"I don't think we're talking about the same kind of party," he told Frasier.

Or when Frasier bumped into his winsome neighbor Regan (Gigi Rice), with whom all his previous attempts to establish relationships had failed. In fairness to Frasier, it wasn't always his fault. The most recent time, it turned out she had a boyfriend.

But Regan was no longer with her boyfriend, the handsome professional athlete — who, like Niles' first wife, Maris, was never seen — and Frasier felt encouraged to pursue a relationship with her once again.

Speaking of Maris ...

Niles (David Hyde Pierce) was in a new relationship. His divorce from Maris had been official for awhile. Now, he was dating Maris' plastic surgeon (Jane Adams), and the two of them were being mentioned (and photographed) at all sorts of functions around town.

Anyway, one day, Niles rushed into the cafe, where Frasier was having a conversation with his producer Roz (Peri Gilpin), and urged them to come to the window to see something, but he wouldn't tell them what it was.

"You see that rotund woman coming out of Chock Full of Doughnuts?" he asked. Frasier and Roz indicated that they did. "Before she gets to her car, she will finish that bear claw and then go back in. This is her third time."

Frasier and Roz were appalled that, as Frasier put it, Niles had brought them to the window to "gawk at some poor woman's struggle with junk food."

"It's rude," Roz said, getting up to return to her table.

"It's childish," Frasier contributed, following her.

"It's Maris," Niles observed.

That brought them back to the window in a hurry.

"It's hard to believe," Frasier said, "that's the same frail woman who once sprained her wrist from having too much dip on a cracker!"

Niles revealed that Maris had been a chubby child, which had made her obsessive about keeping weight off as an adult.

"Something must have snapped," Roz said.

"Literally," Niles agreed. "When she saw me, she swallowed, and her necklace exploded from the pressure."

The psychiatrist brothers then began to analyze the situation, and they concluded that Maris' eating binge may have been triggered by Niles' blossoming relationship with Maris' plastic surgeon.

Frasier continued to obsess about Donny and his bachelor party so he called Donny and promised to throw a memorable party, complete with at least one stripper — although Frasier confessed to Roz that he didn't have the first clue how to find a stripper.

Somewhere — and probably from someone — he got the idea that a good place to start would be the local SexPress so he tried to acquire a copy but got his tie caught in the display box. It was unfortunate that this happened in front of a florist, out of which came Regan, and Frasier had to try to explain his way out of an incriminating situation. He wasn't very convincing; he freed himself from the newspaper box, apparently causing some damage in the process, and went home.

To rub salt in an open wound, when he got there, Daphne told Frasier how happy she was that he would be throwing Donny's party. "Your party will be over by 9:30," she remarked. "We can all go out for dinner afterwards."

That wasn't what he had promised Donny.

Things turned around quickly, though, when a female police officer (Rachel York) appeared at Frasier's door and said she was investigating an incident of vandalism to a newspaper vending machine.

Turned out, though, that she was a stripper who went by the name Officer Nasty, and she was auditioning for the gig at Donny's party. Martin (John Mahoney) had arranged for her to come over.

"You hire her for Donny's party," Martin said, "he'll put you in his will!"

Then things got busy around Frasier's apartment. First, Niles and Mel the surgeon came by. Mel was upset because Maris apparently was blaming her for her weight gain, saying Mel had nicked her thyroid during a procedure. Then Maris herself showed up (still unseen). Mel was in another room so Niles hurried Maris to a different room, from which Frasier had just emerged with Officer Nasty. Frasier, who always seemed to fancy himself as something of a frustrated showman, had been giving her tips for her act, and they had been locked together by her prop handcuffs. She didn't have a key.

As they were about to leave the apartment in search of a locksmith, Frasier encountered Regan coming out of the elevator. She carried a sack that was loaded with groceries. She dropped the sack, and the contents came spilling out.

Frasier was still handcuffed to Officer Nasty — Regan couldn't see her from the hallway unless Frasier pulled her out there, which he probably would have done if he had reached for the head of lettuce that rolled over near him. So, instead of doing that, he rather ungallantly kicked it soccer–style in Regan's direction.

Ultimately, Frasier had to confess to Regan what he had been doing, and he mused that they probably had to acknowledge that a relationship between them just wasn't in the cards. He mused further that he doubted that anyone would want to go out with him, at which point Officer Nasty said, "I would."

So Frasier and Officer Nasty went out, and Frasier learned a couple of valuable lessons — about being true to yourself and not judging books (and people) by their covers.

Sunday, April 26, 2015

Letting Bartlet Be Bartlet

Mrs. Landingham (Kathryn Joosten): You don't get enough roughage.

Bartlet (Martin Sheen): I know I'd like to beat you senseless with a head of cabbage. I know that for damn sure.

Mrs. Landingham: Once again, you display an immaturity about vegetables that I think is not at all presidential.

I cannot honestly say that I know who said, "Let Reagan be Reagan," or what the circumstances were when it was said. I want to say that it was said when he was trying get Robert Bork on the Supreme Court — but I really don't know that for certain.

Perhaps it originated even earlier.

Whenever it was said, it was almost certainly said by one of Ronald Reagan's advisers at a time when Reagan's supporters were under the impression (whether rightly or wrongly) that he was being stymied by some people, and they wanted him to be free to say what he really believed.

It was a rallying cry that I heard from time to time during Reagan's presidency in the 1980s; in the intervening years, it has become something of a cliche, suggesting that a chief executive — a governor or a president — needs to be more assertive and proactive in his advocacy of (or opposition to) something or someone. Anyway, it was a pretty good inspiration for an episode of the West Wing that first aired 15 years ago tonight.

The overall theme of the story was the White House wasn't accomplishing much, and the West Wing staff was drifting into a malaise, just sort of spinning its wheels. At one point, Josh (Bradley Whitford) observed to Toby (Richard Schiff), "Our second year doesn't seem to be going a whole lot better than our first, does it?"

"No," Toby replied.

That really summed things up.

The episode began disarmingly with the president about to speak before an organization of trout fishermen, and speech writers Toby and Sam (Rob Lowe) discussing whether to change a reference to a "magnificent vista" that the president was supposed to be seeing at an outdoor event — because of what appeared to be an increasing chance of rain that might force the event indoors.

As it turned out, it did rain, and the event was moved indoors — but, after all their talk, neither Toby nor Sam changed the reference, and the president said it, anyway.

That was one side story. There were always side stories in West Wing episodes. Sometimes you really had to be on your toes to figure out their relevance to the overall theme before that relevance was revealed to the audience. In the interim, though, there was always snappy dialogue, like the exchange between Josh and his secretary Donna (Janel Moloney) after Josh had been informed by House Republicans that, if the president nominated the people he was likely to nominate for two openings on the Federal Election Commission, not only would they reject the nominees but they would send all sorts of pet bills to the president's desk, bills that he was sure not to like ... starting with one making English the official language of the United States.

"Are we for it or against it?" Donna asked.

"Donna ..." Josh began.

"I mean, we're not in favor of making another language the official language, are we?" she asked. "Like Dutch or something?"

There was also a side story about gays in military — a topic which may seem a little dated now but was straight from the headlines in the morning paper in April 2000. The White House and the military representatives who were assigned to come to some sort of agreement were at an impasse when Admiral Fitzwallace (John Amos) dropped by.

Fitzwallace asked the military reps what they thought about gays in the military, then proceeded to answer for them — or at least finish their answers for them. One said, "We're not prejudiced toward homosexuals."

"You just don't want to see them serving in the armed forces," Fitz said.

"No, sir, I don't," the military rep said.

"Because they pose a threat to unit discipline and cohesion."

"Yes, sir," the other rep said.

"That's what I think, too," the admiral said. "I also think the military wasn't designed to be an instrument of social change."

"Yes, sir," the first rep said.

"Problem with that," the admiral observed, "is that's what they were saying about me 50 years ago. Blacks shouldn't serve with whites. It would disrupt the unit. You know what? It did disrupt the unit. The unit got over it. The unit changed. I'm an admiral in the U.S. Navy and chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff. Beat that with a stick."

But the main story had to do with media consultant Mandy (Moira Kelly), who had written a memo concerning the weaknesses and vulnerabilities of the president and the White House staff when she worked for one of the president's party rivals. The memo had been leaked after she went to work for the White House; she had no idea who had it, only that it was out there somewhere.

C.J. (Allison Janney) tried to find out who had the memo — and discovered that White House reporter Danny (Timothy Busfield) had it and was planning to write about it. It was clear early in the series that Danny had feelings for C.J., and I would venture to say that most West Wing viewers knew that C.J. harbored a simmering attraction to Danny beneath the surface.

But I really admired the writers on this episode. Danny and C.J. had a frank conversation about the relationship between the White House and the reporters who cover it, about what news is and is not — and, as a journalist, I appreciated it and found a lot in it that was true. It probably would have been easy for the writers to allow Danny to compromise his principles in order to curry favor with C.J. — and I have no doubt there are journalists who would do that.

Instead, both Danny and C.J. responded the way I would hope people in such a position would respond. Neither backed down, and both left the conversation with some grudging respect for the other.

The whole thing reached critical mass in the last scene, a showdown between the president and his chief of staff, Leo (John Spencer) that re–defined the objectives of the fictional Bartlet administration.

"We're going to change the level of public debate in this country," Leo told the staffers. "And let that be our legacy."

And the stage was set for the first of the West Wing's incomparable season finales.

Sunday, April 05, 2015

It's Been A Busy Day

Even by the West Wing's own often frenetic standards, the episode that first aired 15 years ago tonight was very busy. I guess you could sort of get that idea from the title of the episode, "Six Meetings Before Lunch."

It is a good thing when the title of an episode gives you an idea of what to expect — but really only becomes clear in hindsight. It shows that the writers are big–picture guys. And the West Wing's writers definitely were big–picture guys.

Anyway, after an unproductive first year for the administration, speech writer Toby (Richard Schiff) refused to let anyone celebrate the nearly certain confirmation of a Supreme Court nominee until it was in the bag; that wasn't one of the meetings, just the way the episode began, but he was also the target of some rather intense lobbying from media consultant Mandy (Moira Kelly) who wanted two new pandas from China for the Washington zoo. Josh (Bradley Whitford) was interviewing a black candidate for assistant attorney general for civil rights who had been quoted about reparations for the descendants of slaves on a bookjacket, and the White House expected some problems with the conservatives on the House committee. Sam (Rob Lowe) was meeting with his sometime girlfriend (as well as full–time teacher and daughter of Leo [John Spencer]) about a position paper he wrote on school vouchers.

The other three meetings involved press secretary C.J. (Allison Janney), who had to meet with first daughter Zooey (Elisabeth Moss) who had attended a frat party where a drug dealer had been arrested; then Zooey had a run–in with a reporter. Then C.J. had to meet with Zooey's Secret Service bodyguard Gina (Jorja Fox), who had gotten between Zooey and the reporter, to get her side of the story — and, finally, she had to meet with the president (Martin Sheen). Gina couldn't tell her much; agents aren't allowed to discuss the behavior of their clients. "I can't do my job if she thinks she has to go behind my back," Gina explained.

C.J. still found time to entertain the staff during their watch party for the Supreme Court vote with her lip synching to Ronny Jordan's "The Jackal." I later learned that Janney lip synched to songs to entertain her fellow cast members during production lulls. The writers decided to incorporate it into this episode. If you haven't seen it, watch it. Here.

In the West Wing universe, C.J. had a reputation among the staffers. Her renditions of "The Jackal" were the stuff of legend, and I gather they frequently took precedence over everything else. In fact, while she was doing it, Josh tried to approach Toby about being given the task of working with the assistant attorney general nominee. "You're talking to me during 'The Jackal?'" he asked incredulously.

The episode that aired 15 years ago tonight was a great example of one of the things I really liked about the West Wing. Even with as many story lines going on at once as the show had in this episode, even though there were moments when it seemed chaotic (as it must seem at times to the real staff of the West Wing), everything came together nicely at the end.

C.J., having gathered all the information she could about Zooey, kept the president from storming down to the press room and turning a non–story into a big story. Only four people knew what had happened, she told the president. There was no reason it couldn't stay that way.

Sam and Mallory wound up going to lunch together when Mallory learned that Sam really wasn't a supporter of school vouchers. She didn't believe it until her father told her — he also told her the paper she had seen was "opposition prep," in which the smartest guys were tapped to make the argument the opposition would make in a debate. Those guys make the president grow and improve.

And Josh learned some things about America.

The nominee for assistant attorney general essentially told him that America was meant to be a work in progress, a country always striving for but never quite reaching perfection. It seems to me that the last five or six years have shown those words to be prophetic. I can think of no comparable five–year period in my lifetime — or at any time in American history — when as many changes have been occurring in America as we have witnessed in these last five or six years.

Such a situation can bring pain and polarization, as it surely has, but it can also bear witness to good things, fragile things that need to be nurtured and encouraged to grow. It depends upon whether the people involved can rise above the pain and polarization.

The nominee for assistant attorney general showed Josh the back of the $1 bill, which shows an unfinished pyramid and the watchful eye of God hovering over it.

"We're meant to be unfinished," he said, explaining that we're meant to continue striving for — but never reaching — perfection. Then he told Josh that he would be an excellent assistant attorney general for civil rights, and he would work hard for all Americans. "Do you have any trouble with me saying that to the committee?" he asked.

"No," Josh replied.

I admired the West Wing's idealism. Like so many other works of fiction, though, it doesn't seem to translate well to the real world.

Tuesday, February 24, 2015

Is Blood Thicker Than Wine?

Fifteen years ago tonight, Frasier explored relationships. Well, in a way, I guess it always examined relationships in one way or another. Usually it explored Frasier's love relationships — which tended to be short–lived — but the episode that aired 15 years ago tonight dealt with more permanent relationships.

Frasier (Kelsey Grammer) was depending on his brother (David Hyde Pierce) to nominate him for corkmaster of their Wine Club. Ordinarily, Niles was a dutiful brother and would have gladly done that favor for Frasier. He was willing to do so, anyway, but he was under the spell of his latest love interest, Mel Karnofsky (Jane Adams), who had coaxed him into seeking the post himself.

When the club met to decide its next corkmaster, Niles told Frasier he would nominate him — adding that he hoped Frasier would return the favor, which Frasier grudgingly did.

Frasier didn't realize that Mel had been pressing Niles to pursue the post of corkmaster when he spoke to Roz (Peri Gilpin) of his misgivings about Niles' and Mel's relationship. When Roz asked him on what his misgivings were based, he confessed that he really didn't know Mel very well — and decided to have a Sunday brunch for her to meet the family and vice versa.

By that time, Frasier hoped to be the corkmaster–elect, and the brunch could serve two purposes — introduce Mel to the family and celebrate Frasier's triumph.

To Frasier's surprise, though, Niles explained that he wanted Frasier to reciprocate — "unless you're afraid of a little competition."

Predictably, I suppose, the vote ended in a tie. To resolve the tie, there had to a blind taste–off with five bottles of wine.

It remained deadlocked until the final bottle, which turned out to be a blend. Niles won because he identified the wine that represented 55% of the blend whereas Frasier identified the wine that represented 45%.

So Niles was corkmaster–elect, setting up one of my favorite moments in Frasier's 11–year run — Niles doing the British monarchy wave while the club members serenaded him to the tune of "Rule, Brittania."

"Hail, Corkmaster!
The master of the cork
He knows which wine goes
With fish or pork."

Anyway, it was at the brunch for Mel that Frasier learned she had been the catalyst for Niles' apparently sudden interest in the post of corkmaster. Things seemed to go downhill from there.

But not so that Niles or Mel noticed. Mel was called away, and Niles stayed behind to find out how everyone felt about her. Frasier and Martin (John Mahoney) tried to be nice, but words slipped out, first from Daphne (Jane Leeves), whose tongue was loosened by one too many Bloody Marys, then from Roz who had left the room to liberate Eddie the dog from his exile to the balcony.

Niles was shocked by the revelation that no one in his family unit liked Mel, and he stormed out of the apartment.

Oh, yes, there was a side story in this. Martin had been sleeping with the recently widowed wife of an old friend — and feeling guilty about it. He confided in Frasier, who thought it was cute, but that wasn't what Martin needed to hear.

At the end of the episode — in dialogue that rapidly foreshadowed her changing relationship with Niles — Daphne learned about Martin's relationship with the widow and chastised him for it. We all have impulses, she told him, but we don't explore them, no matter how tempted we may be.

Before long, though, Daphne would be pursuing her temptation.

Monday, February 09, 2015

An Eye for an Eye ...

"You remind me of the man that lived by the river. He heard a radio report that the river was going to rush up and flood the town and that all the residents should evacuate their homes. But the man said, 'I'm religious. I pray. God loves me. God will save me.' The waters rose up. A guy in a rowboat came along, and he shouted, 'Hey, hey, you, you in there. The town is flooding. Let me take you to safety.' But the man shouted back, 'I'm religious. I pray. God loves me. God will save me.' A helicopter was hovering overhead, and a guy with a megaphone shouted, 'Hey, you, you down there. The town is flooding. Let me drop this ladder, and I'll take you to safety.' But the man shouted back that he was religious, that he prayed, that God loved him and that God will take him to safety. Well ... the man drowned. And standing at the gates of St. Peter, he demanded an audience with God. 'Lord,' he said, 'I'm a religious man. I pray. I thought you loved me. Why did this happen?' God said, 'I sent you a radio report, a helicopter and a guy in a rowboat. What the hell are you doing here?'"

Father Thomas Cavanaugh (Karl Malden)

The episode of the West Wing that first aired 15 years ago tonight was one of those episodes that I regard as one of the series' finest hours — and it had many of them that season.

The topics that were addressed in this episode were the death penalty and presidential pardons.

To set the scene: A man had been sentenced to death for murder, and his latest appeal, to the Supreme Court, had been denied late on a Friday. His execution was set for the following Monday just after midnight so his defense team began trying to contact someone in the White House who could lobby the president for a pardon. Time, obviously, was of the essence, and the president was out of the country — due to return on Saturday morning.

Leo (John Spencer): Sam?

Sam (Rob Lowe): Yeah?

Leo: Why Monday morning?

Sam: What do you mean?

Leo: The Court denied his appeal. Why isn't he being executed at midnight tonight?

Sam: We don't execute people between sundown Friday and sundown Sunday.

Leo: Why?

Sam: Hard as it is to believe ...

Leo: You're kidding me.

Sam: No.

Leo: We don't execute people on the Sabbath.

Sam: No.

Leo: Well, that's about the most bizarre thing I've ever heard.

Sam: Leo, I think you're going to find as you go through this weekend that there is virtually no part of this discussion that isn't bizarre.

Now, I don't intend to make this a conversation about the pros and cons of death penalty law — and, for that matter, neither did the writers for the West Wing. The focus was on the question of granting a presidential pardon, not the right or wrong of the law.

Still, it couldn't help provoking some debates the night it aired.

In the finest tradition of the West Wing, there were other stories going on at the same time — and one guesses that must be what life at the White House is like. The big story is the one that requires the involvement of the most West Wingers, but the others must go about their jobs and put out the fires they encounter there.

On this night, for example, Josh (Bradley Whitford) had to meet with a disgruntled campaign manager who didn't feel the White House was giving her congressional candidate enough support.

But the side story in this episode didn't really demand as much attention as side stories usually did on the West Wing. In this episode, the side story about the campaign operative (Marlee Matlin) only served to introduce her character to the audience. She would be back.

The emphasis was primarily on the death penalty and the question of issuing a pardon to someone convicted of murder — and the political aspects that are impossible for those who work for politicians to ignore.

One of the things I always appreciated about the West Wing was its unflinching candor. In one of the best, most honest — yet most understated — scenes of the season, the president had a conversation with his young aide, Charlie. Charlie's mother had been a police officer who was shot and killed in the line of duty, leaving Charlie to care for his younger sister.

His conversation with the president showed all too clearly the kind of passion that surrounds this issue on both sides.

President Bartlet (Martin Sheen): Charlie, I'm going to ask you a question. And this is one of those times that it's OK to tell me I've stepped over the line, and I should shut my mouth, OK?

Charlie (Dule Hill): OK.

President Bartlet: What happened to the guy who shot your mother?

Charlie: They haven't found him yet, sir.

President Bartlet: If they did, would you want to see him executed? Killing a police officer is a capital crime. I figured you must have thought about it.

Charlie: Yes, sir.

President Bartlet: And?

Charlie: I wouldn't want to see him executed, Mr. President.

[pause]

Charlie: I'd want to do it myself.

Fair enough. No matter on which side of this issue you stand, I think most (if not all) of us can agree on that.

Earlier in the episode, the president had asked Charlie to arrange for his priest (Karl Malden) from New Hampshire to come visit him in the White House. The president wanted to talk with him about the death penalty and whether he should pardon the killer.

The priest didn't show up until a few minutes before the scheduled execution — I don't recall any explanation why.

The execution went ahead as scheduled. There was no pardon.

It was a remarkable, thought–provoking episode. It pulled no punches, and I think it was fair to all sides.

That was the West Wing standard.

Monday, January 26, 2015

Revelations While Taking Out the Trash

Fifteen years ago tonight, The West Wing took an interesting approach to the subject of hate crimes — which, as I recall, was only emerging as a social issue at the time. Another instance of The West Wing being ahead of the curve.

It also examined the practice of dumping a bunch of unappealing stories (from the White House's point of view) on the press on Friday afternoon. The timing is purely political. As Josh (Bradley Whitford) observed, "No one reads the paper on Saturday." One such story, apparently, was to be the signing of a hate crimes bill that had been inspired by the murder of a gay teen whose parents would be in attendance. C.J. the press secretary (Allison Janney) was warned that the parents might be a problem — the father, really. The mother seemed to be on board with the law, but the father was said to be uncommunicative. C.J. concluded that he was grieving for his son — until it was suggested to her that he might be embarrassed by the knowledge that his son was a homosexual.

If I hadn't been a teacher — and had to answer similar questions — I would have found it hard to believe that C.J. had the following exchange with White House reporter Danny (Timothy Busfield). But I had a conversation with one of my college students several years ago who was genuinely surprised to learn that many religious leaders — of all faiths — had so little tolerance for those who did not share their views.

C.J.: "Is it possible that a father could be embarrassed about his son being gay even after his son was murdered?"

Danny: "Yes."

C.J.: "Possible to the extent that he would be disinclined to support a law that would impose stiffer penalties on the perpetrators of hate crimes, including the ones who tied his 17–year–old son to a tree and threw rocks at his head?"

Danny: "Yes."

C.J.: "It eludes me."

Danny: "I know."

So C.J. met with the parents and tried to confront the issue — and she and the viewing audience were stunned to learn that they had misunderstood the father's response. He was angry that the government and, in particular, the president hadn't done enough for gay rights.

The West Wing was good at that — throwing you a high hanging curve like that when you were looking for a fastball.

There was also an amusing side story about a report on sex education and sexual behavior among young people and a proposed program that encouraged abstinence among young people. A more liberal slant was given the program by renaming it "Abstinence Plus," which apparently encouraged everything except activity that could lead to the conception of a baby. Sam (Rob Lowe) was said to have nicknamed it "Everything But."

There were always several stories going on in an episode of The West Wing, especially in that first season when it was building a devoted audience base; eventually, though, they were all shown to be relevant to each other.

An ongoing topic in the series in that first year was the revelation that the president's chief of staff (John Spencer) was a recovering alcoholic and drug abuser. The information had been leaked to leaders of the Republican Congress.

Turned out that a young intern had been the source of the leaked information, and Sam had her fired.

But Leo (Spencer) asked for her to be brought to his office before she left. He wanted to talk to her, to get to know her, to find out why she had leaked the information. When they were done, Leo gave her back her job — another interesting twist that probably wouldn't happen in a modern White House. I'm not so sure it would have happened then, either, but it is nice to think that there was a time in our history when people of principle still held positions of power in America.