Category: Of Local (Quad Cities’) Interest Page 6 of 53
The category is self-explanatory, but it would include new or old businesses, political elections, trends, restaurants in town, entertainment in town, etc.
CNN Republican Presidential Debate (final one)
I am thinking back to the Iowa Caucus nights in 2004, 2008 and 2012that my college roommate and I went out to caucus at a local Des Moines high school when the temperature was 17 degrees (2004). It was, until now, the coldest caucus night in history. My hope was that Howard Dean was going to prevail, as he had been leading during the “sleepless summer,” as the press called it.
I dropped her off at the doorway and then had to drive blocks away to park my car. During that time, those in charge attempted to close the doors to late-comers, but she stood by the door to allow me to gain access. (They said they were running out of GOP ballots, for one thing.) Then we were thrown into the chaos of the classroom, with Democratic groups milling about trying to achieve the 15% viability that would allow them to continue. (The Republicans use paper ballots, but the Democrats, at that time, simply stand around in small clumps of people and it is sheer lunacy.)
The 2020 SNAFU in Iowa, when the results weren’t know for days, led to the resignation of the guy in charge, even though there still is debate as to whether an app called Shadow, Inc., developed by someone named Tara McGowan, was at fault. There were charges that both the Buttigieg campaign and the Hillary Clinton campaign had had dealings with the company that developed the app. The entire night was catastrophic for the Iowa caucuses and, this year, the Dems did not come. When you read that 8 precinct results went missing in 2012 and were never counted, you begin to get the idea that this entire throwback town hall meeting thing will soon cease. After all, the success rate of predicting who the standard bearer for each candidate will be is not great. The success rate for predicting the Democratic winner nationally is only 55% and for the GOP it is only 43%.
Is it any wonder that voices are being raised saying the caucuses in Iowa don’t “work” and should go the way of the Dodo bird? Illinois Senator Dick Durbin said, “I think the Democratic caucus in Iowa is a quirky, quaint tradition which should come to an end. As we try to make voting easier for people across America, the Iowa caucus is the most painful situation we currently face for voting.” Former presidential candidate Julian Castro said, “It’s a mess. What we saw out there and heard about are, consistently, errors in the way that this process was done, whether in the initial phase or the realignment. Inconsistencies in how it was done across precinct sites. It is a total mess.” And let’s not forget that campaigning in Iowa is probably not real pleasant when the weather in the Midwest doesn’t cooperate. DeSantis and Trump are from Florida. Haley is from South Carolina. Talk about culture shock!
So, how did this “total mess” come to be at all?
Nikki Haley on the GOP debate stage
One book written on the topic (“The Iowa Caucuses and the Presidential Nominating Process” by Peverill Squire of the University of Missouri) says, “Iowa became first in the nation pretty much as an accident of the calendar.” One explanation even blames the entire thing on the slow duplicating machine that Iowa used at the time, which required Iowa to set their voting date up earlier and earlier to make sure that materials could be turned out in time. Supposedly, the party wasn’t really angling to be “first in the nation” but that’s what happened.
As for the GOP, they used to use an August “straw poll” thing, which turned out to be totally unreliable and was discontinued. It became a question of who could buy the straw poll. You could argue that that is also true of the caucuses as they now exist, with huge amounts of money being spent by the candidates running in the state. It is easy to see why a state like Iowa would want to continue being the center of attention and raking in advertising (and other) dollars. But will that happen, given the deep freeze that Iowa is going to be on the night of the caucuses this year? Thirty and Forty below zero is life-threatening. Iowans are hardy souls and take politics seriously, but the turnout is definitely going to be affected.
In 1976 then-candidate Jimmy Carter used the Iowa caucuses to give himself the national recognition that he did not have prior to winning there. In 1972 George McGovern won the caucuses, but they had not yet turned into any kind of national launching pad. After Iowa, Carter received attention and invitations to speak and be interviewed that gave him the momentum he needed to go on to win the nomination and be elected as the party standard-bearer and win the presidency. Since then, candidates have been attempting to duplicate that feat, with Barack Obama actually achieving it in 2008, the year I followed the caucuses for 24 months and wrote 2 books on the experience. The Iowa caucuses actually predicted the eventual national nominee and winner twice: Obama in 2008 and Bush in 2000. In 2004 the caucus winner in Des Moines (John Kerry) did go on to become the national nominee, but he did not win office. It is particularly interesting when you learn that Jimmy Carter only campaigned for 17 days in the state in 1976.
Ron DeSantis.
I did not become involved in following the caucuses in person until 2004, which was the year that John Kerry won the Iowa caucuses, John Edwards came in second, and Howard Dean came in third. The Kerry forces double-miked Howard Dean’s impassioned plea to his followers at the post party (I was there) and made him look totally foolish by replaying it what seemed like millions of times on television.
2008: January 3rd at 7 p.m. Temperature that year was 30 degrees above zero, warmer than in 2004 when it was only 16 degrees. In 2012, my last year of following, the temperature was 40, but it was a very quiet night for Democrats, who had an incumbent president in the White House. This year’s thirty below zero prediction is going to be the coldest on record, and one wonders how many will show up to caucus for their candidate.
2012: January 3rd. Supposedly, Romney won by 8 points, but then a recount showed that Rick Santorum might have won by 34 votes and Ron Paul came in third. This was the year that 8 missing precinct reports caused problems and the “win” was also taken from Santorum and awarded to Paul at one point. Not reliable, in other words.
2016: In the Democratic race, Hillary got 45% of the vote and Bernie Saunders came in second. Ted Cruz won the GOP contest, with votes going to Trump, Marco Rubio and Ben Carson, as well.
Vivek Ramaswamy on the GOP debate stage.
2020: Monday, February 3rd. This was the year of the Shadow, Inc. app that was, apparently, never reliably field-tested. Then, the phone number that was supposed to be used as a fall-back method for voting was totally jammed up with calls. Days went by where national talking heads could not report who had won, and the person in charge resigned.
Results over time:
1972 – McGovern
1976 – Jimmy Carter
1980 – Jimmy Carter (Ted Kennedy got votes)
1984 – Walter Mondale
1988 – Dick Gephardt (who withdrew from the race shortly thereafter)
1992 – Tom Harkin (a native son)
1996 – Bill Clinton
2000 – Al Gore
2004 – John Kerry (38%) John Edwards (32%). Howard Dean (18%). Dick Gephardt (11%). Dennis Kucinich (1%). GOP – George W. Bush
2008 – Barack Obama – 38%, John Edwards – (30%), Hillary Clinton (29%) Elliot Richardson got 2% and Joe Biden got 1%.
2012 – Obama – 98% (a very quiet night in Des Moines) Mike Huckabee on the Republican side, prompting my headline: “Huckaboom or Huckabust?”
2016 – Hillary (50%). Bernie Saunders (49%) Ted Cruz on the GOP side.
2020 – Trump
With Monday’s Iowa caucuses scheduled to go forward despite wind chills that could be as low as -30 below zero, the last polls I saw put Trump ahead but DeSantis and Nikki Haley separated by only one percentage point.
The real test on Monday, January 15th, is going to be “Whose ground organization is strongest and can guarantee that the caucus-goers will actually trot out to caucus for their candidate?” Is Trump’s ground organization better (or at least equal to) DeSantis’? What about Haley’s?
I have actually attended the Iowa caucuses. It was winter and it was cold, but this time is going to be the coldest on record. The night I attended the caucuses in Des Moines in 2008 I was not an Iowa resident and, therefore, not there to actually line up behind a particular candidate. In fact, when they learned that I had been a teacher, they put me in charge of a random pack of children whose parents were actually voting. [That was fun for no one.]
When the Republicans caucus, they vote on paper ballots. The Democrats, however—who are not involved in this year’s caucus season in Iowa—did not use ballots. Instead, it was sheer un-orchestrated chaos with all kinds of voting and lobbying for viability and many other things that seem(ed) to belong in an elementary school election. Its refreshingly primitive. The cameramen from Sweden could not believe how basic the process was. Because the process is that basic, I would not be surprised if Iowa loses out on holding these things completely. There have always been complaints that Iowa is too white-bread and not diverse enough. Then there was the complete SNAFU season. Then there is this year’s weather. I’m thinking that the caucuses in Iowa of either party may well go the way of the dodo bird in 2028.
I watched the Town Hall meetings that focused on DeSantis and Haley and the things covered there were much like the final debate that involved just those two candidates. Until the offhand remark from Haley about New Hampshire voters “correcting” Iowa’s missteps, she was surging. She seems sane and has a far less authoritarian demeanor than the two men with whom she is competing.
DeSantis
There is little I like about Ron DeSantis. The “Sixty Minutes” special that detailed how he screwed over immigrants in ferrying them to Martha’s Vineyard showed a despicable lack of human compassion and empathy. It’s one thing to give the northern states a little taste of what the border states like Texas are dealing with; it’s totally another to have glossy brochures made up that promise desperate immigrants jobs when they land in Martha’s Vineyard. Maybe this would be the point to say WWJD (What would Jesus do?) Certainly not that. The fight with Disney over their position on homosexuality. The “don’t wear masks” attitude during Covid that DeSantis displayed (with masked high school students in the background). The preening over how he “took on” the teachers’ unions (and George Soros), as though that were something to be proud of. The inability to smile like a normal human being, which has been commented on by every late-night host. Why do I dislike him? Let me count the ways. Or not. He’s easy to dislike on sight. (That’s a large part of his problem.)
Haley
Nikki Haley.
Nikki Haley comes off as more reasonable on the issue of abortion. She is a female, after all, and a mother.
Her position on supporting Ukraine is a good one. As the former Ambassador to the United Nations she understands and articulates well the basic fact that, right now, Ukraine is doing the fighting and dying in opposing Putin, who might well set his sights on other European nations. DeSantis (and other GOP leaders) want to tie support for Ukraine to better border control. That phrase about being against it before I was for it (or something close) applies more to DeSantis’ positions than those of Haley.
I was bothered by the fact that neither candidate would answer the question posed by Jake Tapper about whether Donald J. Trump has the moral character to be President. It was just about as bad as the Ivy League Presidents testifying before Congress who couldn’t answer easy questions about anti-Semitic behavior on their college campuses. (Both lost their jobs).We lost Chris Christie in the mix, and he seems to be the only one who had the guts to call out his former friend of 22 years. It seems as though Christie—who helped prep Trump for the debates in 2020—is trying to make amends for his past misdeeds. I will miss Christie onstage calling out the obnoxious Vivek Ramaswamy as the most obnoxious blowhard in America. You don’t get truthful answers like that during political debates very often.
Border Control
Ron DeSantis.
The Big Issue that the Republicans will be trotting out in the months to come will be the border. The Democrats will be making just as much noise over the roll-back of Roe v. Wade. Nikki Haley offered a much more realistic and even-tempered attitude for the GOP to promulgate in a national election. Everyone agrees that the border is now (and has been for decades) a big problem that needs to be solved. But Congress needs to be involved in completely overhauling our immigration system. It looks, right now, as though the current Secretary of Homeland Security Alejandro N. Mayorkas is being set up to take the fall for what most Americans view as a failure at the border. Biden’s attempt to portray America as that shining beacon on the hill that both Reagan and Romney alluded to may (or may not) be the reason for the influx of illegal immigrants, but you can be sure that the GOP will portray him as practically the sole cause of our recent border crisis. It is true that the border situation needs to be solved. It may be true that Biden’s words made the influx worse. (Trump’s separation of small children and infants from their parents and then losing them was not Great Policy, but that goes unremarked in Iowa.) However, totally blaming Biden for this unprecedented horde of immigrants ignores the many economic and political reasons that drive residents of Central and Latin America to risk death to come to this country. We need to be welcoming, but practical. Restructuring our immigrations policies and laws is necessary, just like we need to address gun control (which also hasn’t occurred) and we needed to overhaul health care (which hasn’t totally happened, but least the Affordable Care Act has survived, despite repeated GOP attempts to dismantle it) A physical wall, DJT’s solution, was never going to work without additional reforms of a more substantial sort. In regard to Mayorkas, it is fairly interesting that he has been notably absent from the Sunday morning talk shows and the Republicans now want to impeach him. Mayorkas seems to have missed out on the media training. He isn’t able to demonstrate progress on the border and he has the diplomatic skills of a basset hound. He neither looks nor acts the part he has been assigned to play.
Monday Predictions?
Until Nikki Haley’s misstep (verbally) in New Hampshire and the last debate, where she kept referring listeners to DeSantislies.com website (14 times by one talking head’s count), I thought she was going to top DeSantis on January 15th. She is currently focusing her efforts on suburban areas in the state of Iowa, while DeSantis did “the full Grassley,” visiting all 99 Iowa counties, and is counting on rural support. DeSantis also out-spent Ms. Haley and, until the final debate, was doing much less well during televised Q&A opportunities.
However, DeSantis has picked up his game on the occasion of the final debate (as well as the Town Hall that preceded it). I agree with David Axelrod who has said that the True Test of who Triumphs at the caucuses will be which team can actually mobilize its committed delegates to turn out in frigid sub-zero weather. Pollsters say it will be Trump’s MAGA hordes coming in first.
The second place finish in the last poll I saw was 11% for Haley and 12% for DeSantis. It could go either way. I’d like to see a woman President, so I’m pulling for Nikki Haley. There are things about her policies (she is very pro gun) that I disagree with, but she seems more reasonable about hot-button issues, and certainly has stood up well under pressure. Plus, she has a nice smile, which puts her head and shoulders above DeSantis. Haley has far more international experience. It seems unlikely that the GOP would nominate a woman for the top of the ticket; I am not happy that she has dodged the question of whether she would run with Trump. She and DeSantis have not exactly been straightforward in their responses to questions that are touchy. True of all politicians, it seems. Makes me think of the poem I wrote at the tender age of 16, which I shall print below these ramblings.
I would like to know if Vivek Ramaswamy is the “secret” VP pick that Trump has alluded to; he seems like a very “out there.” He has gone off on various conspiracy theories ad nauseum. Maybe Trump has promised the second spot on the GOP ticket to a female Governor who will probably be about as good a pick as Sarah Palin was (which means a very bad one).
My Poem “Words” (written in 1960, the year I campaigned for JFK):
If fewer words were spoken,
If fewer words were said.
If deeds, alone, were the mark of a man,
Not the “catch” of an eloquent pledge.
If fewer words were spoken,
If fewer words were said
If, for all the fake forensics,
There were simple words, instead.
And a man stated just what he started to state,
Without false fuss or further ado,
If you weren’t a politician
I’d probably listen to you
The Golden Globes are now in the books and critics are critical of the host ( I thought he did okay).
I was not totally surprised that “Oppenheimer” had a sort of minor sweep going on in various areas. It was an important film and Christopher Nolan has been nominated six times and never won for Best Director, so perhaps it was “his” time.
I, however, feel that Martin Scorsese—given his prominence in the field and his iconic status—has also been passed over far too many times, especially in the category of Best Director at the Oscars. I think he has only won the Best Director award once (“The Departed”) and yet his films through the years are classics. He deserves better.
The films or television series that seemed to have mini runs were “Succession,” “Poor Things,” and “Oppenheimer,” but “Barbie” and “Killers of the Flower Moon” had moments, as well.
The recipient that stays in my mind the most was the Best Supporting Actress (Da’Vine Joy Randolph) from “The Holdovers.” I was pleased that she won, but she almost fell out of her dress (cleavage) while accepting her award, and I’m pretty sure that she thanked the wrong organization, as the HFPA (Hollywood Foreign Press Association) fell from grace a year or so ago and the awards ceremony is now owned by Dick Clark Productions.
Seeing the nominated films and categories (they put in a new one for Box Office and a new one for stand-up comedians) made me compose my own Top Ten Films of 2023.
Let me first preface this list by saying that it is not in any particular order, but simply the films I enjoyed the most this year. (I hated “May/December,” so….). It’s pretty much alphabetical.
I think my two favorite discoveries were “Dream Sequential” and “Poor Things” because they were so extraordinarily original (and off-the-wall.)
Here is my list, in alphabetical order:“Air”
- “American Fiction”
- “Barbie”
- “Dream Sequential”
- “The Holdovers”
- “The Killer”
- “Killers of the Flower Moon”
- “Oppenheimer”
- “Poor Things”
- “Saltburn”
Director of “Dream Sequential.”
There is one documentary that I thoroughly enjoyed, and that is “The Disappearance of Shere Hite.” It isn’t a “movie” in the sense of the films on the list above, but it was quite well done and I enjoyed it a great deal. I also should explain that I alphabetized films that started with “The” by the important word (“Holdovers”).
I realize that there are other films that have made many lists, including “Maestro,” “May/December” and “Past Lives,” but no. Just no.
I have a few (I’m always late to the animated films) that I may wish to mention later, but I am giving you my list of the Ten Best or Ten Most Enjoyable. Most of them have reviews earlier on my blog, so enjoy.
Yorgos Lanthimos is known for helming movies that are bizarre and weird. Once you’ve seen Colin Farrell in “The Lobster” (2015) you get the idea that Lanthimos’s films will be far-out. That is certainly true of “Poor Things.”
Having said that, it is such a pleasure to have an original concept that is so well executed. This film (and Nicolas Cage’s “Dream Sequential”) are two of the most original films of the year 2023. In a world of Marvel comics and endless sequels, the originality of Lanthimos is refreshing; this film is truly entertaining, if you’re open to the weird. (I write this from Austin where the town motto is “Keep Austin weird.”)
This adaptation of Scottish author Alasdair Gray’s novel “Poor Things” was something that Lanthimos had been working on even before the author’s death in 2019. Poor Things (1992) discusses Scottish colonial history using a Frankenstein-like drama set in 19th-century Glasgow, where Gray spent his entire life. Godwin ‘God’ Baxter is a scientist (Willem Dafoe) who implants Bella Baxter with the brain of her own unborn child after Bella’s suicide.
“Poor Things” was Gray’s most commercially successful work. The London Review of Books considered it his funniest novel. It won a Whitbread Novel Award and a Guardian Fiction Prize. There is Oscar buzz for the adapted screenplay by Tony McNamara. And there should be, as he has done a fantastic job of creating just the right blend of language for the child-becoming-adult-female. Listening to the scripted lines reminded me of hearing your child “create” language of his (or her) very own. It’s amusing, until you think about the wisdom that the lines convey. At that point you realize that this script is perfect for the material (which doesn’t always happen) , just as your son’s “pasghetti” misstep is precious and somehow perfect.
The opening scene is a close-up of an embroidered satin blanket, which, in itself, is unusual. After that, we see Emma Stone jump off a bridge. Just as Gray’s work was compared to that of George Orwell and Franz Kafka, this off-beat novel is a logical fit for Yorgos Lanthimos (although some Scottish folk may not care for the director’s poetic license). The film put Willem Dafoe in a make-up chair for 6 hours as his character’s Frankenstein-like facial scars were applied for 4 hours and then removed at the end of the shoot, during an additional 2 hours.
With the plot concept of a fully-grown female’s body, but the brain of an infant, Emma Stone was given the role of a lifetime. Her childlike infatuation with life is conveyed through her sparse vocabulary (she is learning 15 new words a day) and her awkward, ungainly gate, is almost like a newborn deer.
Bella Baxter articulates thoughts like, “Bella nowhere girl.” (Kudos to McNamara,) Her fresh, unjaded perspective on life and society makes Bella yearn to experience everything. She has been told by her guardian (Godwin “God” Baxter) that she should “push the boundaries of what is known. That is the only way to live.”
A pure-hearted admirer, Godwin’s assistant Max McAndles, played by Ramy Youssef, proposes to Bella, but she runs off with Duncan Wedderburn (Mark Ruffalo). Their time together leads Bella to say, “What a confusing person you are, Duncan Wedderburn” and, ultimately to conclude, “I shall need a husband with a more forgiving personality.”
As for Duncan’s assessment of Bella after they travel the world engaging in “furious jumping” (a euphemism for non-stop fornicating), Duncan says, “You don’t know what bananas are and yet you know what empirically means.” Both Mark Ruffalo and Willem Dafoe deserve praise for their Oscar-caliber trio. Ruffalo has already won for Best Actor at at least two film festivals, including the National Board of Review awards and the Santa Monica Film Festival.
Lines like “Your sad face makes me discover angry feelings for you,” “We are all cruel beasts,” and “Protect yourself with the truth” are fresh, original, timely, and display childlike wisdom. Watching Bella’s growth as an adventurous adult female is inspiring to other adult females; each male she encounters seems to represent yet more ways of keeping the female of the species down and preventing Bella (as their representative) from reaching her full potential.
COSTUMES
At the beginning of the story, Bella dresses in more traditional clothing of the Victorian era. Following her transformation, begins to dress herself in more bizarre clothes or more corseted styles. Costume designer Holly Waddington should snag an Oscar nod, but she will have some competition from “Napoleon’s” costumes.
SETS
The set designs are also Oscar-worthy, with a pastel sci-fi steampunk fantasy look created by set designer Zsuzsa Mihalek. There are, literally, eleven other art direction folk credited, and they deserve accolades for the entrancing sets meant to represent a variety of cities that Bella and Duncan visit, including time spent on an ocean liner.
CINEMATOGRAPHY
Principal photography took place in Hungary. It began in August 2021 at Origo Studios in Budapest. The film wrapped in December of 2021 having coped with preparation during the pandemic. According to cinematographer Robbie Ryan, Francis Ford Coppola‘s Bram Stoker’s Dracula served as the main source of inspiration for many things in the film.
Poor Things had its world premiere at the 80th Venice International Film Festival on September 1, 2023, and was also screened at the Telluride Film Festival, the New York Film Festival, the BFI London Film Festival, the Busan International Film Festival, and the Sitges Film Festival.
CONCLUSION
The film is an over-the-top, creative criticism of how men try to keep women in their place. Even the good-hearted Max attempts to curb Bella’s adventurous spirit. Considering the message which we also saw in this year’s “Barbie” (and in last year’s “Women Talking”) this Oscar-worthy acting tour de force from Emma Stone is going to be tough to beat at Oscar-time this year, although I’d expect “Maestro’s” Cary Mulligan to be nominated, as well.
It’s such a hilarious romp and packs so much wisdom into the brilliant and amusing screenplay, but be warned if you’re squeamish about nudity and sex, because, during her adventure with Duncan, Bella works as a prostitute in a brothel. There is also a fair amount of gore, including surgery on dead bodies, as Willem Dafoe as a sort of mad scientist surgeon is constantly operating in his Frankenstein-ian lab.
But the film’s happy ending sees Bella returning to the terminally ill Godwin and preparing to marry Max McCandles. Does that work out? You’ll have to watch the film to the end to find out. It’s definitely one of the year’s Ten Best, so, for me, it was a pleasure.
As a fan of Michael Mann’s work (“The Insider,” “The Last of the Mohicans,” “Heat”), I ventured out to see Adam Driver as Enzo Ferrari in the December 25th release “Ferrari.” Mann has long been well-acquainted with racing and with Ferrari. Mann was one of the executive producers of “Ford v Ferrari” (2019), the superior film with Christian Bale and Matt Damon. The current Adam Driver movie is a long-time labor of love for the 80-year-old director. Christian Bale was attached as the lead at one point, and, after him, Hugh Jackman.
The budget for the Christmas day release is listed as $95 million to $110 million. Sadly, it has earned less than 10% of that amount back since its recent release. It was #9 in domestic charts, well behind all 6 of the other domestic recent releases and was not doing that well on Netflix, either. One wonders if Mann’s proposed plans to release a sequel to “Heat” will suffer as a result of this misstep with “Ferrari.”
THE GOOD
I had heard that the racing scenes were good. Certainly the phenomenal crash that ended the Mile Miglia race forever in 1957 was impressively staged. Nine people died in that 1,000 mile race when driver Alfonso de Portago struck something in the roadway. The tire blew out, and the car crashed spectacularly, killing a total of 9 people, including the driver and onlookers, 5 of whom were children. The way it is staged in this film, the audience might well think that it might have been sabotage. The crash spelled the end of the Mile Miglia race forever. A lengthy court case dragged on with manslaughter charges finally being dismissed by the courts in 1961.
The acting from such stalwarts as Adam Driver, Shailene Woodley, Penelope Cruz, Jack O’Connell and Patrick Dempsey is fine. One reviewer gave Cruz special praise for displaying fire in her role as Laura Ferrari, Enzo’s wife. To me, she seemed quite one-dimensional, presenting a sour and intense presence throughout, even when just walking along a city street.
Laura Ferrari had many reasons to be depressed and bitter. Her son, Dino, died of muscular dystrophy the year before the Mile Miglia race (1956) at the too-young age of 24. Laura also learns that her philandering husband has a second family, including a young son, midway through the movie.
Adam Driver as Enzo Ferrari. (Photo Credit: Lorenzo Sisti).
I was struck by the sheer physicality of Adam Driver. An ex-Marine, is 6 feet 2 and ½ inches tall. How tall was Enzo Ferrari? In photos of Driver with other cast members, he seems to definitely be the tallest one in the room. While Enzo Ferrari looks slightly taller and bulkier (in old photos) than the Italian males he is standing alongside, Driver just doesn’t seem like the ideal choice to portray an Italian male. My impression of European men, in general, (during my stint as a foreign exchange student abroad), is that they are not physically as large as their American counterparts.
Other than his sheer physical size, Driver seems very controlled and “stiff upper lip-ish” when onscreen. The catastrophic crash, the arguments with his wife over his mistress (and with his mistress over his wife), the scenes where he visits his son’s crypt: he is controlled throughout and doesn’t display much emotion. Troy Kennedy Martin wrote the script, based on the 1991 Brock Yates biography “Enzo Ferrari: The Man, the Cars, the Races, the Machine.” Is the script at fault for this impassive nearly one-dimensional presentation.
Staging the race scenes and the crash was a fantastic achievement. The countryside is beautifully photographed by cinematographer Erik Messerschmidt. Getting the period details (including the many period cars) “right” must have been daunting. The music (Daniel Pemberton) is good; music is always key for Michael Mann.
Newcomer Gabriel Leone as Alfonso de Portago. (Photo Credit: Lorenzo Sisti).
The young boy playing Ferrari’s illegitimate son (Guiseppi Festinesi) does a fine job. The actor portraying the doomed Alfonso de Portage, Gabriel Leone, bears a close resemblance to the actual driver, who was Spanish nobility and once competed with the Spanish bobsledding team at the Olympics.
In the film de Portage’s romance with actress Linda Christian (Sarah Gadon) is highlighted. She is said to have broken up with actor Tyrone Power to date the race car driver. One of the better lines in the script is Ferrari’s comment to the press, after laying down the law to his new race car driver that he must not have starlets joining him at the garage because the press then spends all of their time taking pictures of the actresses and not the cars. Says Enzo to the assembled press: “When we win, I can’t see my ass for starlets’ asses. When we lose, you’re a lynch mob.”
Other famous folk routinely frequented the Ferrari showroom. Roberto Rossellini and Ingrid Bergman are mentioned by the real-life son of Ferrari as frequent regular customers. Prince Bernard of the Netherlands was also a recurring customer and a close friend of Ferrari during life. Neither of these real-life facts makes it into the film, but the completely fabricated autograph request from Enzo’s young son does, repeatedly, even though it never happened (according to the now-grown younger son.)
THE BAD
“Ferrari” the film is dead on arrival. Most of the audience probably does not know the history of the Mile Maglia race. Whether they care is also up for debate. It is not made very clear that the accident that creates the film’s most spectacular (and very gory) scene means that the race will never be held again. The many Italian characters and race-car driver names come and go without much impact; they are difficult to remember and/or understand and none has much of a part.
Shailene Woodley as Lina Lardi. (Photo Credit: Lorenzo Sisti).
I’m still wondering what Shailene Woodley’s ethnicity is supposed to be, since she does not seem very Italian. Was Lina Lardi a local girl? Why is she so passive about Enzo’s dragging his feet on acknowledging her and, more importantly, acknowledging their son Piero (who now runs the company). Lina is definitely a constant presence in Enzo Ferrari’s life. After wife Laura’s death in 1979, the elder Ferrari could finally publicly acknowledge his surviving son. The couple were together until Ferrari’s death in 1988 at the age of 90. However, Enzo’s reputation as a philanderer was well-established before his first wife Laura learned about it.
Most of the audience probably doesn’t have the depth of knowledge about or interest in the Ferrari dynasty that Director Michael Mann has had for years. Somehow, the director needed to be able to convey this extensive information to the audience quickly and intelligibly. That doesn’t happen here. Many questions linger and the parade of various drivers (Jack O’Connell and Patrick Dempsey among them) that are mentioned and paraded out like pawns in a chess game get very little that makes any of them come to life, with the possible exception of the doomed Alfonso de Portago. (Gabriel Leone) who does get a racy bedroom scene with his girlfriend Linda Christian.
While the love triangle involving Enzo Ferrari’s two families is interesting, it doesn’t come off as very true-to-life. Real women put in the position of this secret love triangle might not be as reasonable nor as calm as Lina and Laura seem most of the time. The plot also conveniently fails to mention the numerous other women in Ferrari’s life.
CONCLUSION
Adam Driver conferring with Director Michael Mann on “Ferrari.” (Photo Credit by Lorenzo Sisti).
“We all know it is our deadly passion, a terrible joy.” (Line from the script).
If racing is your passion, you will enjoy this 2 hour and 10 minute film. The crash is great (if gory, be warned), and the examination of Ferrari’s love triangle, while unrealistic IRL, gives us knowledge about the man. But, overall, this time at bat was not a home run for Michael Mann, the esteemed four-time Oscar-nominated director.
Stacey & Scott Wilson.
These are my two children, Scott (now aged 55) and Stacey (now aged 36).
Yes, I understand that that is a long time between children, but there you have it: a son who was going off to college when he learned that his parents were having a second child.
I still remember Scott looking at the sonogram of the sister then residing in my 42-year-old womb. He was unsure of the sex and said, “Oh, great! I can throw a football at him!”
I said, “At HER.”
So, Stacey Kristin Corcoran Wilson joined our family in 1987 and we would be poorer for it if she had not.
Scott (and his wife and twins Ava & Elise, now aged 14), reside in Austin, Texas, as of this writing, and we all—minus Stacey— had a family dinner last night.
(L to R) Scott, Stacey, Connie, Ava, Jessica, Elise, Craig.
Meanwhile we are eagerly awaiting Stacey’s arrival for the Christmas holiday, but her duties as a flight attendant for SW airlines will take precedence until she can break free and join us. During the pandemic we all hunkered down in Austin (Stacey normally resides in Nashville) and it was a wonderful treat to have my original nuclear family all together for an extended stay because, keep in mind, Scott was raised as an only child until he left for college and Stacey came along after that (and went off to college, herself, in 2005).December 19th Thoughts on the Passing
So, it is almost 20 years since my nuclear family expanded to one son and one daughter and I couldn’t be happier that I have one of each.
Gained a new grand niece today (Ruthie Kay Wilson) when nephew Michael Wilson and Rachel in St. Louis had a brand new baby girl, who will grow up alongside Winnie Wilson, age 2, the daughter of Megan and Aaron Eddy,
Welcome to the world, Ruthie Kay!
Madison, Tennessee Tornado of December 10th.
We received a phone call about 5 p.m. from our daughter, Stacey, in Madison, Tennessee, on December 10th; she was absolutely terrified. Her terror was justified. The EF-3 tornado that struck Nashville went right over/past her house. It was pitch black. She doesn’t really have a basement, but only a crawl space. She was huddled in the tub with the neighbor’s cat, whom she has dubbed “Squeaky.”
Madison, TN, Dec. 10 Tornado
I had seen that this storm was (possibly) going to hit both Memphis and Nashville while doing my nightly Wordle, Spelling Bee, Connections and Quordle night time ritual, so I wrote her about the horrible weather that, it said, was going to start outside Houston and then cross the Midwest in a sort of diagonal before heading out East.
Tornado in Madison, Tennessee.
nyway, she was really upset, and with good cause. The air became pitch black and the wind did damage to her singles and her chimney.
Florida Governor Ron DeSantis speaks at the Republican Jewish Coalition Annual Leadership Meeting in Las Vegas, Nevada, on November 19, 2022. (Photo by Wade Vandervort / AFP) (Photo by WADE VANDERVORT/AFP via Getty Images)
We watched the debate between Gavin Newsom, Governor of California, and Ron DeSantis, Governor of Florida, and, the entire time, what was going through my mind was, “Why?”
The debate was staged by Fox News and Sean Hannity was the moderator, but the obvious take-away, up front, is that this thing is not going to be “fair and equal” because it is being run (some would say “rigged”) by Fox News.
After the debate was over there were charges that DeSantis had been fed the questions ahead of time, that he was talking with his “team” during the debate (accusations made of both), that a screen was slanted towards DeSantis and not towards Newsom. After the debate had lurched to a close, the moderator said the mismatched duo were going to stay on and continue.
Jennifer Siebel Newsom.
But that didn’t happen. There were reports that Newsom’s wife, Jennfer Seibel Newsom, marched onstage and barked “We’re done.” Some reports said that she was particularly ticked off that her father (Newsom’s father-in-law) was cited by DeSantis as having introduced himself to the Florida governor and endorsed Florida’s superiority to California as a state in which one wished to live, having just relocated from California to Florida himself.
I keep asking myself why Newsom would agree to participate in what was most certainly going to be a rigged presentation, with Fox News attempting to bolster DeSantis’ race for the White House and Newsom not even being a candidate this election cycle. Or is he?
DeSantis kept referencing Newsom’s “shadow campaign” for the White House, while each liberally insulted the other. Meanwhile Hannity threw up a variety of charts and graphs that favored Florida, as you just knew it would.
For this reason my spouse (who says he is Independent but is from good Republican stock) declared DeSantis to have been “the winner.” I felt that the statistics would favor Florida, everyone’s favorite retirement destination. However, I felt that the presentation and command of the stage and facts win went to Newsom.
I admit to being quite concerned about Newsom’s judgment when I think about the fact that he was once married to Kimberly Guilfoyle, now Donald Trump, Jr.’s main squeeze, but his new blonde wife looked like a massive step up. Wife #2 recognized that this debate would feel so good once it ended and helped facilitate that, which was probably smart.
One of the contentious things that came out of the debate was DeSantis holding up a picture of a graph he claimed represented the most heavily feced areas of San Francisco. Later, Newsom said this was a violation of the rules agreed upon beforehand. The placards and other such debate aids that Hannity put up onscreen were also being argued about, after the debate had concluded. Supposedly, they were not to be allowed, although Hannity disputed this contention. (Don’t they all?)
California Governor Gavin Newsom.
I just kept wondering, “What’s in this for Gavin Newsom? Who thought up this entire idea?”
One idea that did make sense was this one: If Biden were to pull out of the presidential race at the last minute for any reason, who would the Democrats belatedly run? Naturally, one thinks immediately of Vice President Kamala Harris, who is, if polls are right, is even less popular right now than Biden himself.
She is from California. So is Gavin Newsom. According to the 12th amendment to the Constitution, electors may not vote for presidential and vice-presidential candidates who both reside in the elector’s state—at least one of them must be an inhabitant of another state.
Is all of this part of some behind-the-scenes plan to hedge all bets and find a way to exclude the unpopular Harris? Who thought up the entire ordeal that Newsom just endured ?
We are a house divided and, while I agree that the placards carried the day for Florida over California, DeSantis’ sickly smile and poor debate skills couldn’t hold a candle to the much smoother Newsom. DeSantis kept trying to “diss” Newsom as “slick.” If you think back, that perjorative term was applied to Bill Clinton and, later, to Barack Obama. I’m perfectly fine with “slick” if it means competent, poised and articulate. The fact that Newsom is so poised is surprising considering his life-long history of dyslexia, which continues to the present.
Setting aside my reservations about Newsom’s poor judgment in selecting a Screaming Mimi as his first wife in 2001 and being married to her until 2005, there is also this. He had an ill-advised affair with Ruby Rippey-Tourk, the wife of his good friend and Chief of Staff, Alex Tourk, a woman who worked for him. Newsom met and married film-maker Jennifer Siebel in 2007 and the couple has four children.
Former New Jersey Governor and potential presidential hopeful (2024) Chris Christie.
The bench for successor to Biden is not currently very deep. The GOP party is a shadow of its former self and Nikki Haley is looking like a more viable candidate than DeSantis, while preliminary reports are that Chris Christie may not even make the ballot in one state. (Who knows if he’ll make another debate stage?)
Whatever Democratic strategist gave the go-ahead for Newsom to take a thrashing, factually, but prevail in the personality department should be brought forth to explain to the rest of us what is really going on here.
Ridley Scott’s 238 minute opus, “Napoleon,” is a crash course in French history. But how accurate is it?
I always appreciate directors who try to “get it right.” I kept wondering, throughout the lengthy film, whether this or that really happened. Let me be clear right now that I have investigated with the goal of finding out whether the film is substantially true or false. Read no further if you are saving the viewing of the film to learn the specifics of the plot.
THE GOOD
The costumes are wonderful—even the tri-cornered hat that Napoleon wears. By the way, the actual height of Napoleon was five feet seven inches, which was not that short for the time.
The staging of the battles is amazing. There are many battles and they are all extremely well-done and riveting.
Most of the acting is fine, although the dialogue is often jejeune (to steal a French phrase, which seems appropriate).
THE BAD
The things I know to be false:
- Napoleon was not present in the crowd that witnessed the beheading of Marie Antoinette.
- Napoleon never met with the Duke of Wellington on a boat (the Bellerephon)
- The time-line for Napoleon’s marriage to Josephine is not exactly right
- Napoleon may well have been completely besotted with Josephine, but each of them had other affairs and Napoleon had several illegitimate children. Did newspaper headlines of the day say things like, “Napoleon’s Bony Old Bird Caught Out of the Nest Again”? Don’t know; can’t tell you.
- One child that the movie dwells on is the heir apparent that Napoleon divorces Josephine to have with his wife, Mary Louise, the Arch Duchess of Austria, and great-niece of Marie Antoinette. We never see the child after Napoleon shows the newborn to Josephine in one scene, but the answer to “Whatever happened to Napoleon’s son?” Wikipedia tells us this:
“Napoleon and Marie Louise remained married until his death, though she did not join him in exile on Elba and thereafter never saw her husband again. The couple had one child, Napoleon Francis Joseph Charles (1811–1832), known from birth as the King of Rome. He became Napoleon II in 1814 and reigned for only a fortnight. He was awarded the title the Duke of Reichstadt in 1818. He died of tuberculosis at the age of 21, with no heirs.”
You might wonder, as I did, whether the highly cinematic battle of Austerlitz (Aug. 2, 1805) involving cannons breaking the ice on which the advancing army is approaching, killing them in vivid visual style, really happened that way. The answer is yes, there was a battle where the approaching army approached on ice; however, the ice was evident to both sides. When an investigation of the body of water took place years later, there were only roughly 12 bodies buried beneath the surface.
Napoleon did not fire a cannon into a pyramid while in Egypt.
THE MEDIOCRE
To me, the worst thing about the film was the script, written by David Scarpa. The laughter of the audience, hearing some of the pot-boiler lines in this film, may be intentional. I found it jarring in the context of this epic.
Here are a few of those lines:
Napoleon: (about the British, spoken very petulantly): “You think you’re so great because you have boats!”
This was shouted with a childish tone, indicating that Napoleon was very annoyed by the British Navy. It may not be totally fair to blame the screenwriter, as one of the reasons it came off as humorous was the manner in which it was delivered. For that matter, the scene where Napoleon is shown stomping his foot like a horse in anticipation of sex with Josephine (who is reluctant because she has just had her hair done). I’m being generous in calling it mediocre; it’s pretty bad.
Another such line, spoken by Rupert Everett as the Duke of Wellington, before he rides off to battle in the rain: “I never get wet if I can help it.” O……K…..
Just prior to uttering that line, we see Napoleon getting ready to lead his troops into battle. When he is asked, “What shall I tell the men? He responds, “Tell them to make the rain stop.”
During one state dinner, Napoleon shouts, “Destiny has brought me this lambchop.”
Yikes.
Again, the delivery of these bon mots is also part of the problem. While there were some lines that sounded as though they might have been spoken by Napoleon or taken from his letters and writing), there were way too many that were laughably bad.
The acting by Joaquin Phoenix and Vanessa Kirby was adequate, but they were given lines like the above examples. I don’t see any acting nominations coming out of this one, but she (Vanessa Kirby) was better than he was.
The music also good at times and mediocre at times. When Napoleon mounts up and rides forth as the Prussians have arrived, the music was weird. It was inconsistent throughout, just as Joaquin’s acting is only as good as the lines he is given to say.
Here’s a line that does try to give us insight into the character of the one-time Emperor of France: ”The most difficult thing in life is accepting the failures of others.”
THE VERDICT
I enjoyed the film from 85-year-old Ridley Scott and was amazed at his staging of the battles. What an accomplishment! May he stage many more!
[I also noticed that the Stunt Department Coordinator was Natalie Wood. No. Not THAT Natalie Wood, but if only she were still alive and still with us.]