Wednesday, April 11, 2012
"If we can just get rid of these actors and directors, maybe we've got something here."
"It's just a satire on the way people behave in the movie studios. There was such a fuss started about it. People started saying, 'Oh people are afraid you are going to do this and do this.' So the more afraid they got, the more ideas they gave me. Looking back on this whole picture, it's a pretty tame satire. It's no big indictment. Things are much, much worse than this picture seems to say." — Robert Altman on the DVD commentary for The Player
By Edward Copeland
To begin a post on the 20th anniversary of Robert Altman's film The Player by showing the clip of his fabled eight-minute, one-take opening and then waxing rhapsodic about all manners of ingenuity in that shot puts me at risk of sounding like Fred Ward's character in that sequence, railing about how everything in movies these days is "cut cut cut cut" and teaching Jimmy the bike messenger (Paul Hewitt) about Orson Welles' famous tracking shot that started Touch of Evil (Unlike Ward's studio security head Walter Stuckel though, I would recognize Absolute Beginners when Jimmy brings it up). Despite any negative connotation I may endure for choosing the most obvious part of Altman's 1992 film to launch my tribute to The Player, I stand by my decision and commence my piece discussing those eight glorious minutes, not only because the work that went into creating that sequence still amazes me two decades later, but because that bite-size morsel of cinematic art serves as a microcosm of the entire film. As Altman himself said in a video interview on the DVD, "The film actually is like a snail — it kind of turns in on itself and becomes itself." When Francis Ford Coppola held a news conference at the Cannes Film Festival to tout Apocalypse Now, he famously declared, "My film is not about Vietnam. It is Vietnam." You could say that Altman's film isn't about Hollywood either — it is Hollywood — and who truly can determine on which battleground more blood has been shed. Watching The Player now, you discover (as you find in many Altman films) that wily director had been operating on several planes at the same time during filming and, as funny and dead-on as its humor may be, The Player doesn't exist exclusively as a satire. An audience's boisterous laughter distracts a viewer from noticing Altman's use of some directorial sleight-of-hand. When the humor subsides, a surprised viewer realizes that the film now plumbs much darker depths. That Altman successfully coordinated all these disparate instruments into the orchestral composition we know as The Player remains miraculous. Now, about that opening shot…
Assuming anyone reading this watched the clip or has seen The Player, the actual preparations that Altman, his crew and the actors involved in the sequence took required planning — lots of meticulous planning. Often, you hear people mistakenly
refer to this eight-minute take as a tracking shot when that isn't the case. A camera didn't run on rails as Akira Kurosawa did for The Woodcutter's long walk in Rashomon and isn't exactly equivalent to the move Martin Scorsese loves to do as in Raging Bull and Goodfellas, to name just two of his. Even a casual observer, seeing how the camera moves in those eight minutes, would realize that laying down tracks for all those angles and positions without any being caught on film by the camera as it switched heights and directions would be damn near impossible. No crews could remove or replace tracks that fast. On the DVD commentary track, Altman explains the steps he went through to achieve the scene. The director actually built a scale model of the studio set along with a scale-size crane that allowed him to see where he would be able to travel and reach and where he couldn't go. Using the model, he visualized roughly how the crane would circulate based on which characters and cameo players should appear in what order. "I had to set up the movie studio
and I wanted to set up the characters that we were going to be dealing with and I wanted to get the audience's attention," Altman said. The director went to the real set with the real crane and choreographed the take. While he knew who would be in the scene, Altman hadn't the slightest idea what words would emanate from their mouths as everyone with a speaking part in the opening improvised his or her dialogue. The amount of time on a single reel of film determined the take's total length, so they had to plan how much time to spend at each spot. Altman said everyone rehearsed for a day while the actual filming took half a day, employing 11 microphones and a mere 15 takes. For such a complicated undertaking, while it required intricate preparations, they managed to lock it down rather quickly. It's far from the only time The Player displays a self-reflexive moment — that happens in the film's first image as a hand enters the frame with a clapboard (and if that's an honest clapboard, it means take 10 ended up being used in the film) as you hear offscreen voices asking for quiet on the set, marking the scene and, finally, calling, "Action" so the film can begin — and similar instances occur all the way to its final frame. For his part, Altman emphasized the show in his showpiece. "It's a very conceited thing — this shot with no cuts in it.…It draws attention to it. It's showing off.…It got attention to the picture," he admits. 
What Altman set out to do in that scene — the setting-up-the-characters-and-the-studio part, not the garnering-attention-for-the-film part — he accomplished quite efficiently. We begin with the woman who, truth-be-told, keeps the studio running through who knows how many regimes, the studio president's executive secretary Claire (Dina Merrill) telling the studio president's receptionist Sandy (Leah Ayres) the proper things to say about the boss's whereabouts; we hear the first mention of a name of a rival that will haunt our protagonist, Larry Levy; Speaking of our protagonist, he arrives. One of the top executives, Griffin Mill (Tim Robbins) pulls on to the lot in his Range Rover and we get an immediate sense of his importance as he gets a movie pitch from real-life writer-director Adam Simon before he's even closed the vehicle's door. Griffin tells Simon to talk to his assistant, Bonnie Sherow; next we see Walter and Jimmy have their tracking shot discussion and pass Griffin's office window where he gets updates from his secretary Jan (Angela Hall) and receives his first official pitch from Buck Henry and we get our first reference to a possible part for Julia Roberts; Adam Simon reappears and we meet Bonnie (Cynthia Stevenson) who begs him to slow down and write it down for her. A shriek is heard and they run over to find that a man driving a golf cart has run over Jimmy on his bicycle, scattering a huge pile of mail. On top of one stack, a postcard with drawings of old movie stars and the words YOUR [SIC] HOLLYWOOD IS DEAD; a young man (Randall Batinkoff) in a sports car pulls up to a young blonde sitting on the hood of a car and purposely mistakes her as Rebecca De Mornay in an attempt to pick her up; a low level exec (Jeremy Piven) sucks up to a group of Japanese visitors touring the studio; studio president Joel Levison (Brion James) arrives, driving to the door of his office and asking Sandy
to park his car for him; three other executives talk about the bank that owns much of the studio "putting the screws" to them and sending the owner's son out from Boston. They talk about how it happens at all studios every few years and rumors that Griffin may be replaced by someone else, maybe even Larry Levy; Griffin hears his second pitch of the day; Director Alan Rudolph asks Jimmy where Griffin's office is and Jimmy tells him and also mistakes him as Martin Scorsese. Rudolph goes in the door as Jan comes out and collects Griffin's mail from Jimmy; Walter now bends Buck Henry's ear, this time going on about Hitchcock's Rope while continuing to gripe about all those cuts. Henry brings up Bernardo Bertolucci's great tracking shot to Debra Winger in The Sheltering Sky. Walter, of course, hasn't seen it; Bonnie chastises her assistant Whitney Gersh (Gina Gershon) for having coffee with Alan Rudolph; Rudolph sees Griffin and gives him his final pitch of the opening scene as well as the film's first mention of Bruce Willis. Mill receives his mail, including that postcard which reads on the other side, "I HATE YOUR GUTS ASSHOLE!" Rudolph hasn't stopped pitching about his cynical political thriller comedy that's "got heart in the right spot" but he gets the last line of that bravura opening, "Of course someone dies in the end. They always do in thrillers." Beyond the technical virtuosity displayed in that opening
take, what an efficient introduction of most of the important characters and plot strands for the film. The single take goes beyond being a clever filmmaking stunt and prepares a viewer for most of what will be coming. If they didn't know what a movie pitch was, now they do. The film establishes the basic hierarchy of the studio's power structure. We know that shaky financial times embroil the studio and that its top development executive, Griffin Mill, could lose his job over it, perhaps to an executive who works elsewhere named Larry Levy. We've learned that someone representing the bank that owns most of the studio will be arriving to look things over. Griffin also has to contend with someone sending him threatening postcards. The movie even has laid the groundwork for the joke that leads to the final punchline. More ominously, as Rudolph says in the context of his movie idea, "Of course someone dies in the end. They always do in thrillers" as Griffin stares out the window after receiving his hate mail, the first scene of The Player doesn't end on a satirical note, but a suspenseful one, indicating the thriller blood flowing through its celluloid veins. Rudolph's description of the movie he wants to make inspires laughter, but it comes damn close to describing The Player as well: a cynical political thriller with its heart in the right spot, only its office politics and while the film does have heart in the right spot, the right spots occur only in isolated moments and not in the film overall.One final paragraph related to the opening, since it affords me the opportunity to share an anecdote from my days long past as a pseudo-professional film critic as well as illustrates that some of the funniest dialogue that just screams satire — well, as animated Springfield mob boss Fat Tony (voiced by Joe Mantegna) once said on The Simpsons, "It's funny 'cause it's true." Altman says in his commentary that the performers improvised all the dialogue in that sequence, including creating their own movie pitches. It shouldn't be surprising then that Buck Henry delivers the funniest one with his idea for a sequel to The Graduate. The other two pitches speak the ridiculous language that most assume has to be exaggerated. In Griffin's second meeting, he listens to writer-directors Patricia Resnick (on left in photo), and
Joan Tewksbury try to sell an idea about a television actress who takes a trip to Africa where a local tribe begins to worship her as an idol. "Kind of like The Gods Must Be Crazy, only instead of a Coke bottle, you have a television actress," Griffin says when he finally catches on to their concept. "It's like Out of Africa meets Pretty Woman," Resnick sums up. When Alan Rudolph spells out the basics of his story concerning a senator who develops the power to see what's inside a person's mind, his pithy summation of the film describes it as "Ghost meets The Manchurian Candidate." On Jan. 31, 1992, less than four months before The Player opened, another film finally made it to movie theaters. Originally scheduled as one of its studio's big year-end releases, the studio punted it to the January dumping ground because even they recognized how bad it was. If you review films outside of major markets, studios either contract local agencies to handle publicity and press relations or use regional offices, if they have one in close proximity. (At least, they did this once upon a time. Now, smaller markets get frozen out, if their newspapers haven't axed their film critics first.) In late summer 991, this studio's regional rep drove up to give me and my paper's other reviewer a preview of the studio's fall and winter releases. As he flipped through large photos featuring images from the films, he came to Shining Through starring Melanie Griffith and Michael Douglas. After a brief synopsis, the man described Shining Through in a way that forced me to summon every ounce of strength in my 21-year-old body not to burst into tears of laughter. "It's like Working Girl goes to war," he said with a straight face. Yes Virginia, movie folk do talk this way.
"As a screenwriter, one gets used to sitting in the backseat on a film. One reason the writer is usually banned from the set by directors is so the writer's screams aren't heard on the soundtrack when they listen to all the changes being made," said Michael Tolkin, who wrote the screenplay for The Player, on the DVD commentary. Tolkin wasn't just writing the script for The Player, he was adapting it from his own novel and serving as one of the film's producers as well. Neither Altman nor Tolkin mention a Tolkin ban from The Player set on the DVD (in fact, he appears late in the movie with his brother Stephen as screenwriting siblings trying to make a deal). I guess Michael Mann kicking David Milch off the Luck set wasn't that unusual, but they both held executive producer titles, so how did that work? Oh well — horses under the tarp. While Hollywood at large goes beneath the microscope in The Player, how the film industry treats writers garners the bulk of the feature's focus — somewhat ironic given how often
Altman allows improvisation or creates scenes on the fly. (I just noticed how easily I slip into present tense when I write about what Altman "does." He died more than five years ago, but when you watch his best films again, the man seems so vibrant, vital and alive.) In the sidebar I posted Tuesday called Untold Stories of Robert Altman's The Player or Who the Hell is Thereza Ellis?, I covered many details of this, especially concerning the great scene at the Pasadena police station between the police (Whoopi Goldberg, Lyle Lovett and Susan Emshwiller) and Griffin that Altman acknowledges the actors worked out on their own and that Goldberg should be credited as the scene's writer and director. Despite the fact that Griffin keeps getting threatening notes from a pissed-off screenwriter whose calls he didn't return, his reputation has earned the label of "the writer's executive" in Hollywood. Though Griffin ends up physically killing a screenwriter, the rival executive, Larry Levy (Peter Gallagher) plays the role of the man who would kill them all symbolically if he could. One fateful night, Griffin drives to Pasadena looking for screenwriter David Kahane (Vincent D'Onofrio), the man he believes to be behind the threats. Mill learns he's gone to a movie theater to see The Bicycle Thief from his girlfriend June Gudmundsdottir (Greta Scacchi), who Griffin shares an odd and
voyeuristic phone call where he watches her through her windows while talking on his unbelievably large 1990s-era cell phone. He asks why she didn't go with David, but June doesn't go to movies. "Why?" Mill truly wants to know. "Life's too short," she answers. Griffin tries to calm Kahane after he locates him, dangling the possibility of deals and apologizing for not calling him back. Kahane won't allow Griffin's belated asskissing — June told Griffin on the phone his nickname for him was The Dead Man. Since Griffin found Kahane at the movie theater, he deduces June told Mill where he went. "Talk to the Ice Queen? You'd like her Mill — she's a lot like you — all heart," Kahane says before walking out on Griffin. Mill gives up and heads toward his Range Rover when Kahane, pissing in a corner, calls to him and taunts him about Larry Levy, who he has heard will make meaningful films again, and the impending loss of Griffin's job. His paranoia drives Griffin to follow Kahane to his parking lot in an attempt to get him not to tell anyone at the studio they spoke and to stop the postcards. "I don't write postcards! I write scripts!" Kahane yells when Griffin grabs his car door and Kahane shoves him, sending him sailing over a railing onto a loading ramp. Kahane checks to see if Griffin is OK, but Mill snaps and starts bashing Kahane's head into the cement, holding it beneath the water until the bubbles stop, quietly sneering, "Keep it to yourself! Keep it to yourself!" As Griffin snaps back into focus, realizing what he did and trying to fake a robbery, dialogue from the next scene, which takes place the following morning, bleeds into the murder cleanup. "Who wrote the new ending to Fatal Attraction?" Larry Levy asks. "The audience did," he responds to his own question.
Levy's conversation turn out to come from his first meeting as a newly hired executive at the studio. It hasn't quite started as Levison waits in his office and Griffin hasn't shown up on the lot. Claire tells Levison that with or without Griffin, they should begin and he agrees, telling Walter, whom we've learned by now runs the studio's security department to "keep our noses clean, Walter." Levy complains to everyone about the high fees paid to writers and how they should make pictures the people want not the type writers want to give them when Griffin shows up. Levy asks everyone when was the last time they paid to see a movie. "Last night. The Bicycle Thief," Griffin replies. "It's an art movie. It doesn't count. We're talking movie movies," Levy says dismissively. As an exercise, Levy passes a newspaper to different executives and tells them to pick a story. Steve Reeves (Jeremy Piven) reads, "Immigrants protest budget cuts in literacy program." "Human spirit overcoming human adversity. Sounds like Horatio Alger in the barrio. Put Jimmy Smits in it and you've got a sexy Stand and Deliver," Levy smiles. It goes on for a while, but a headline that says “Man Found Dead in Theater Parking Lot” distracts Griffin. When
they capture his attention, he focuses enough to zing Levy back at least. "I was just thinking what an interesting concept it is to eliminate the writer from the artistic process. If we can just get rid of these actors and directors, maybe we've got something here," Mill suggests sardonically. The frightening thing to me comes from the possibility that with the state of digital effects now, getting rid of the actors could be highly plausible. After the meeting, when Griffin returns to his office where Walter confronts him about David Kahane, he receives a fax with bad news. "SURPRISE!" it reads. Kahane wasn't
the screenwriter sending him the postcards. At another time, Griffin again shows himself to be a bit of a writer's defender when he sends Bonnie to New York to look at the new Tom Wolfe novel and discern if it could be a movie. If it does, he tells her to offer $1 million, which makes Levy choke over the price. "It's Tom Wolfe," Griffin says, as if that's the only explanation needed. There's a catch that comes with Griffin's "writer's executive" reputation. The script still must fall within the proper parameters. He isn't a risk taker. When he becomes involved with June, she asks him what he needs to make a good movie and he rattles off a list of attributes. "Suspense, laughter, violence, hope, heart, nudity, sex, happy endings. Mostly happy endings," he tells her. Damn if Altman — the maverick, the Hollywood outsider — doesn't manage to include every single one of those elements in The Player. "When people ask me, 'How much did Altman change the script into the movie?' I would honestly say if anyone betrayed me, it was me. As the screenwriter, I betrayed the novel much more than the director," Tolkin admits on the DVD. Altman also offers some words on his reputation as an outsider.and the kind of movies that I can make and like to make and make are not the type of films they know how to distribute.
So basically, we aren't in the same business. There's no point in calling me to make a pair of gloves for you when I make shoes."
Labels: 90s, Altman, Buck Henry, Coppola, Debra Winger, Fiction, Hitchcock, Julia Roberts, Kurosawa, Luck, M. Douglas, Michael Mann, Milch, Movie Tributes, Scorsese, The Simpsons, Tim Robbins, Welles, Willis
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Monday, April 02, 2012
The Larry Sanders Show Season 3 Ep. 10: Like No Business I Know
By Edward Copeland
Forgive my tardiness. So many projects and real-life issues injected themselves in the way that now, nearly a year later, I'm finally getting around to recapping the second half of the third season of The Larry Sanders Show. I've set a deadline for myself, so I WILL finish this and the remaining three seasons before August. It's been such a long time since I recapped a Larry Sanders season, I can't remember if I made this point before: How can anyone who watched this show then go on and on about the pale imitation that's called 30 Rock? Since it has been a long time, you can read Part I of Season 3 by clicking here. Also, I'm shaking things up a bit. Instead of trying to cover an entire season in one post, I may cover a single episode or just a few episodes, as I'm doing with this first one back, the memorable "Like No Business I Know" that plays off the then-recent incident of comedian Bobcat Goldthwait setting the guest chair on fire on The Tonight Show With Jay Leno at the same time that Hank's wife Margaret pushes him to look toward greener pastures when Regis Philbin tries to steal him to be his sidekick on a late night talk show that Philbin has been offered. It's yet another great third season showcase for Jeffrey Tambor with a lot of classic Artie moments for Rip Torn to bite into as well. That way, for the particularly great episodes — which we see with increasing frequency as the show goes on (something rare for most series) — I can go into more detail instead of the paragraph or two summaries I had to make do with in the recaps of Season 1 and Season 2 but which I'd moved away from in the first half of Season 3. It won't take me any longer (as when I do a detailed Boardwalk Empire or Treme recap or what I could have done with Luck recaps if the behind-the-scenes situation wasn't such a chaotic mess that I lacked the necessary support to do them the way I like) and probably will encourage me to conclude them faster.
We open with the TV in Larry's office playing the May 1994 Tonight Show With Jay Leno incident when Bobcat Goldthwait (once Larry's choice to host the talk show that follows him, if you recall) set the guest chair on fire and Leno tries to force him to sit in it. Larry comments with a smile on how pissed off Leno seems to be. (The YouTube clip above covers most of this.) "That Bobcat has serious mental problems," Artie says. "I think he's got incredible balls," Paula adds. "He's got something," Artie replies as he stops the tape and turns to Paula and urges her not to say "balls." "Men find that off-putting," he advises. (YouTube clip ends here.) Larry posits that what happened was that Goldthwait went on Arsenio, ransacked the set and the show received lots of press and that's why Leno booked him. Paula begins as each of the trio refers to the NBC show's staff as "whores" winding up with Artie asking, "Is Bobcat here yet?"
It's that rhythm, timing and straight-faced hypocrisy that continues to make this series my favorite comedy of all time. Certainly some of the specific references might have grown dated, but because the actors develop actual characters, if you don't know the incident in question, it doesn't matter. As Rex Reed tells Larry King on the radio at the opening of Albert Brooks' Lost in America, "If it's really funny, I'll laugh." This episode was co-written by Peter Tolan, executive producer and writer or co-writer of many of the classic episodes, and Mike Martineau, writing only his second teleplay ever, the first being the episode "You're Having My Baby" from earlier in the season. The show's most frequent director, Todd Holland, handled the helming duties.
Continuing the conversation, Paula informs Artie that Goldthwait has arrived as well as the night's other guests — Michael Bolton and Regis Philbin. Artie sternly wants to make sure that Paula emphasizes to Bobcat to behave himself and she tells him the comic promised he'll be zany and wacky but the sets will remain intact. "Well, I like pranky stunts — you know that — but if I wanted to see furniture destroyed or our set ablaze, I'd go over to Jimmy Caan's place," Artie declares, prompting a quizzical look from Larry.
What would an episode of Larry Sanders be without at least one classic Hank Kingsley line delivered by the masterful Jeffrey Tambor. Hank has enlisted some of the crew to inspect the couch on the set because, according to Kingsley, last night during the middle of the Helen Hunt segment a spring "went straight up my ass." Hank finds it and asks the men to fix it for him before the night's show. "Thank you. My ass is my fortune," he tells them. Hank then goes to complain about the microphone he uses to
warm up the audience before the show starts, claiming there's a lot of treble, but no bass. Before he can go off on the sound guy, Regis Philbin wanders onto the stage to greet him. Regis asks if he can speak with Hank somewhere privately. Once the two get behind the seats, Philbin inquires as to how things have been going for Hank on the show. "Well, I'm the luckiest man in show business. Everyone says so and I have to agree," Hank responds. Regis informs Hank that he's been offered his own late-night talk show because his demographics rank better than any of these "young punks" such as Leno and Letterman and it would be a network show covering 85% of the country in three weeks. Hank congratulates him, but Philbin hasn't finished — he wants Hank to be his sidekick. Hank reluctantly declines, telling him that he's honored even when Philbin tells him that he can top whatever he makes with Larry. Hank gets nervous and tells Regis that he's running late for lunch with his better half. "Larry?" Regis assumes. Hank corrects that he meant his wife, Margaret, who gets mad, which he quickly amends to disappointed. Philbin asks him to keep thinking about his offer.
Larry and Artie take turns coming in to kiss Bobcat's ass in his dressing room. Sanders wants to know all the gritty details about The Tonight Show incident and Goldthwait shares them, including some slight burns he got on his ass. "I don't want to toot my own horn, but I was pretty proud that I could get some jokes off while all this was going on," Goldthwait admits. Larry asks if he'll want to talk about The Tonight Show incident on the show and Bobcat tells him that his lawyers have advised him that he shouldn't say anymore about it. Larry claims that he understands and doesn't get what the big deal was anyway, though he can't help but ask how pissed Leno got. "He fuckin' snapped," Goldthwait tells him. Rip Torn does his best twirling Artie, buttering the comic up one minute about how he loved his movie about the clown. "I'm just a sucker for drunk clowns" before switching emotional gears and threatening him because the fabric on the guest chairs isn't manufactured any longer, those giant letters that spell out LARRY cost more than you'd think and "Don't get near my fuckin' plants. They're my babies." Then, in a split-second, glad-handing Artie returns to exit the room with a cherry, "See you on television," leaving the comic on the couch stunned and muttering, "Jesus Christ."
Hank, of course, dances his way to his office thinking he could be king of the world and we get another great appearance by the late longtime character actor Phil Leeds (78 when this episode aired) as Hank's agent Sid Bessell. Hank sings his way to his agent and kisses him. "Hank, please, I'm your agent, not your mother," Sid protests. "You're my mother," Hank responds. "OK, I'm your mother," Sid relents. Hank asks why Sid has made an appearance and the agent tells him that Kingsley's wife Margaret called and said
that he wanted to see him. Hank pauses before unconvincingly claiming that he asked her to do that. He then fills Sid in on Regis' job offer, but Hank isn't considering taking that. He suggests to Sid that if Regis leaves his morning show maybe it could become Live With Hank and Kathie Lee. Sid tells him that wouldn't be a smart move since The Larry Sanders Show is his base. "Where did you come up with such a farkuckt idea?" Sid asks. Hank tells Sid he came up with it over lunch and Sid guesses correctly that Hank's wife was present. "The last time I had lunch with my wife we ended up redoing the living room in a pattern that I'm not allowed to sit down on," Sid tells him. Hank insists that the decision comes from him when his phone beeps and Darlene announces that Margaret is on the line. Hank tries to whisper to her, but then asks Sid for privacy. "You realize I'll have to get up," the old man complains, but Hank makes Sid go and the agent slowly treks to the office door.
Artie briefs Larry before the show with some classic Artie lines. "If he touches my plants, he dies. I will move swiftly. He will be dead," Artie tells Larry. "Good. So you gave him just the normal welcoming speech," Larry says. Artie then lets Larry know that he has Hank news to share. "What's wrong with him?" Larry asks. "Not enough oxygen to the brain as a fetus. That's my first guess," Artie replies before telling him the real story about Regis trying to steal him away because of Margaret's meddling. Larry, always content to stay out of the loop, tells Artie just to handle it. "You don't want to know how I handle it?" Artie asks the host. "No — just handle it," Larry replies as he steps into the makeup chair, having finished one of the show's almost-patented
(for TV at least at that time) tracking shots. Larry wonders aloud what happened to Margaret — he thought she was quiet and sweet. "She was," Artie agrees. "What changed?" Larry asks. "He married her," the producer answers. Artie then calls Hank into Larry's office (without Larry) and demonstrates his amazing ability to know everything that's going on with Hank, much to Hank's amazement. Kingsley keeps trying to leave, but Artie continues to order him to sit back down. Anytime you get one-on-one scenes between Torn and Tambor, the viewer knows that hilarity, often painful hilarity, awaits. I imagine writers on the show felt blessed anytime they could put these two actors in a room together alone. "If I was pussy-whipped, you'd be talking to me the way I'm talking to you
now," Artie tells Hank, setting Kingsley off. Artie doesn't relent, admitting he never liked Margaret. "She looks at you like you she has X-ray vision. Gives me the creeps," he tells Hank. Hank defends Margaret, saying she loves him very much and thinks he deserves more than he's getting and he thinks she's right. "And that thing with her eyes — that is a severe astigmatism, OK?" Hank proclaims. "I'm sorry. Don't get me wrong. She's a lovely girl — but I can't allow her to lift her skirt for every other show that comes along!" Artie shouts. Hank quits. He says he'll do that night's show because he's a pro but then he's gone. "And let me tell you another thing. You do not apply the term pussy-whipped to Hank Kingsley. He has never been nor never will be whipped by anything — let alone a pussy," Hank declares just as Beverly hands Kingsley a note from Margaret that she says is urgent. Artie grins widely. Hank crumples the note and throws it on the floor. "See that? I'm really pussy whipped," Hank says to Artie before quietly asking Beverly if Margaret called from home or the car then saying loudly, "Like I give a shit."
Of course, the funniest recurring gag of the episode turns out to be making Bobcat Goldthwait appear to be the most normal person in the Larry Sanders studio and offices. As Hank storms back to his office, Phil and Bobcat walk in and Goldthwait innocently asks Hank how it's going and how his wife is. Hank stops. "You're the one who plays a real kooky guy, right? In your act? Now, you wanna see something really kooky? Ask me about my lady again," Kingsley snarls at him and stares for a moment before walking off. Bobcat whispers to Phil, "Guy's a fuckin' wingnut." In his office, Sid gives Hank the bad news that he phoned Kathie Lee and she doesn't think their pairing would work because she hates Hank and she made reference to a 1979 auto show in Buffalo where Kingsley locked her in the trunk of a Camaro "for laughs." Hank melts down because he thought that was Cathy Lee Crosby. Hank tells Sid he already quit, so his agent suggests that he go to Regis and take the sidekick job. "Can you live with that? More importantly, can your wife live with that?" Sid asks his client.
Backstage, preparing for the show, Bobcat entertains Beverly and Darlene informing them that he may face community service such as visiting children in a burn ward to warn them about the dangers of fire. Wouldn't I be the last person you'd want to see coming down the hall if you are in a burn ward, the comic suggests when Larry drops in on the gathering, sending the female staffers scattering. Goldthwait notices that Regis also will be a guest and mentions that he really wants to do his show. Larry asks why. First, Bobcat claims it's because he's a morning person. "No. Actually I want to do the show because I have this idea. What I want to do is I'm gonna have a big meal — a big Denny's Grand Slam — eat as much as I can. Eat some pork and everything 'cause I'm a vegetarian. And then the idea is I'm gonna have some ipecac in a coffee mug — that's the stuff that induces vomiting, So the first time, you know, I hear 'Cody,' I'm just gonna take a big fuckin' swig off it and boom! I'm gonna projectile-vomit all over Kathie Lee," he explains to Larry. "Hilarious," Larry says nervously. Aside from the basic thrill it would be to see that happen, Garry Shandling actually rules this scene by his reactions which begin as polite listening then slowly turn to a horror that he tries to mask behind his smile. Shandling's wordless acting makes me laugh almost as much as Bobcat's proposed prank. Goldthwait adds that he wants to hit Regis as well so he isn't perceived as sexist and Larry suggests trying to get Gelman while he's at it. "No, I don't have that kind of range," Bobcat admits.
Sanders wanders over to the other Sid, his cue card guy, to go over the monologue and again touches base with Artie on how things seem to be going. "Michael Bolton has a slight head cold. He's going to sing anyway," Arthur informs him. You really had to endure the awfulness of Bolton's songs to get the subtlety of that joke. Imagine if American Idol had existed when Bolton tried to leap from songwriting to performer. How fast do you think his ass would have been kicked out? William Hung would have lasted longer. Larry asks about the Hank situation and Artie cryptically tells him the situation has been resolved. "He offered a solution. I accepted," Artie says. Larry inquires about anything else and Artie informs him that his fly is open. Larry thanks him as he zips up. "Don't mention it. Part of my job," Artie declares. "Looking at my crotch?" Larry responds. "I consider it a perk," Artie replies before disappearing behind the curtain. Hank comes skipping by and lets Larry know that what has transpired has nothing to do with the two of them and he will go out there and give it his all. Larry, clueless as to what's really going on, tells Hank that he knows that there was a problem but a solution was found and he couldn't be happier with the outcome. "You are cold, baby," Hank declares before heading through the curtains.
Larry finishes his segment with Regis and makes a beeline to Artie at his monitor. He tells his producer that Philbin made him really uncomfortable and he doesn't want to have him on anymore if he's going to come and try to steal Hank. Artie seems more concerned that Bobcat is up next and could be "a loose cannon." He seeks permission to "get my baby elephant palm off the set. I raised it from a mere nut." On the couch, Hank tells Regis he's been thinking about it and he's in. Regis is thrilled. Hank asks when he's signing the contract and Regis says next week as Artie appears behind them half-listening, half-arriving to secure his plant. Once Artie exits again, Hank says he's ready to start as soon as Philbin wants him. "That's great. We're going to start in fall of '97," Regis informs him as Hank gets a stricken look on his face (this was taking place in 1994). Hank asks when he's leaving the morning show and Regis answers when his contract expires — in the fall of '97. Regis wouldn't leave now — that's his base. Hank, looking sicker and sicker, inquires if Regis' wife ever gives him advice and Philbin replies, "No, never. Why?" Hank wanders off the set looking as if he's about to vomit — which he does — right in Artie's precious elephant palm.
They return from commercial and Bobcat has taken his place in the guest chair. Of course, despite what they agreed upon earlier, the first thing Larry brings up is The Tonight Show. "Well, to be honest, I'm facing a year in jail and I didn't really think you were going to bring it up," Goldthwait responds. "Well, we don't have to if you don't want to," Larry says. "No — I distinctly said I didn't want to," Bobcat declares, sounding angrier — or is it an act? Larry smiles and suggests they talk about something else then but still adds, "I was just curious why you did that thing on The Tonight Show." Goldthwait starts rolling his eyes. "Well, it worked.…That's why you have me here now," he says. Larry swears that's not true and that they are big fans of his. "Oh, that's bullBLEEP," Bobcat replies. You gotta love it. The show's language has no boundaries but since this takes place during the mock talk show part, they do censor the shit. Goldthwait starts knocking a plate off Sanders' desk. "See that's why you had me on. Here go crazy. Go nuts," he yells as he overturns Larry's desk. "Dance for us, monkey boy, dance!" he sings as he bounces around sending Larry to the edge of the set and getting Regis to his feet. Bobcat then throws Larry's chair through the set's backdrop, but when he grabs one of the plants, Artie appears like a lightning bolt and tackles the comic to the couch. "This is usually when they go to a commercial," Goldthwait declares as Artie glares down at him. "We'll be right back with Michael Bolton. Right after this break, Michael Bolton," Larry announces.
Backstage, Larry lectures Bobcat, telling him that Leno was right. He thought he would stick to the questions. Someone could have been hurt. Goldthwait apologizes, saying he thought it would be funny. "Here's the man you should be apologizing to," Artie tells Bobcat as Hank brings Sid up in a wheelchair. "I'm sorry. I didn't know you were there," Goldthwait admits to Sid. "One minute I'm standing behind the curtain eating a mint. The next thing I know I've got a cardboard mountain up my ass. You young people don't know what funny is. Eddie Cantor was funny. If I didn't have arthritis, I'd knock you right on your ass," Hank's agent declares, pointing a judgmental finger at Bobcat. Artie decides to escort Bobcat to his dressing room "in case you get the urge to push a Coke machine over on Michael Bolton." Goldthwait, still shy and regretful, admits, "I wouldn't do it if it wasn't televised." After they leave, Sid tells Larry that Hank has something to say. He tries to get words out about being a mess and about his marriage but Larry tells him everything is fine and he'll see him tomorrow night, still completely in the dark as to what has transpired. Hank asks Larry to tell Artie for him.
When Larry gets to his office, Artie awaits. "So you know Hank is staying. Does that mean something to you?" Larry asks. "I'll bet he is. He found out Regis' show doesn't go for three years. What did you do — hire him back?" Artie inquires. Larry stops for clarification and Artie
explains that Hank quit earlier that morning. Larry complains that he didn't know that. Artie reminds him that he didn't want to know about things like that, though Larry amends that to people quitting. When Artie starts to give the pussy-whipped play-by-play, Larry doesn't want to know anymore as long as Artie handled it. Regis pops his head in and comes in to tell the two what a great time he had on the show. "Hey, that Bobcat is wild. You know what I did? I asked him to come on our show in New York next week," Regis shares. "Oh good. You're gonna have fun," Larry says with a devilish grin. Philbin adds that he can't do the same kind of stuff since they are a morning show, but he's promised to be a good boy. "Well, if he promised you, I don't think you have anything to worry about, but I'd tell Kathie Lee to stay about 10 feet back," Larry suggests. As Regis leaves, Paula comes in swearing that Goldthwait promised he wouldn't do anything, but Artie tells her that they'll talk about it in the morning. Larry shuts the door. "This is going to be all over the press in the morning. How is that going to make us look?" Larry asks. Pause. Artie grins and laughs and the producer and the host shake hands over the success of a job well done. Another keeper from the third season.
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Labels: 90s, Albert Brooks, Boardwalk Empire, Caan, HBO, Larry Sanders, Letterman, Luck, Rip Torn, Shandling, Tambor, Treme, TV Recap
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Saturday, February 18, 2012
"Your horse is a mirror to your soul."
By Edward Copeland
So says Buck Brannaman, the inspiration for the idea of a "horse whisperer" and the subject of the documentary Buck. "Sometimes you may not like what you see, sometimes you will," Brannaman completes his statement. Directed by Cindy Meehl, Buck made the Academy's shortlist for best documentary feature though it didn't make the cut for the final five. It's a fine and interesting film and though my pool of 2011 documentaries runs much smaller than the Academy's, Buck wouldn't have made my final five either.
This isn't meant to imply that there's something intrinsically bad about Buck, it's just that other documentaries proved far more interesting, enlightening or informative to me. What did appeal to me most about Buck was watching and learning about Brannaman's "natural horsemanship" approach to training horses in light of my current enjoyment of the new HBO series Luck. Natural horsemanship is a movement that rejects the use of punishing the animals but instead attempts to speak to the horses in their language as opposed to expecting the horse to learn to speak human. Of course, Brannaman isn't training horses to race, but that's still what sparked my interest because when you get close to them they are just such beautiful, majestic creatures.
Brannaman was one of the primary inspirations for Nicholas Evans' novel The Horse Whisperer and served as a consultant on Robert Redford's film version. Coincidentally, writer Eric Roth adapted the novel into the screenplay for the movie and he now serves as a co-executive producer on Luck and is credited as the writer of the teleplay for the series' first season finale. Redford appears in the documentary and tells the story of how they had a scene where the horse was supposed to come up and nuzzle the young Scarlett Johansson but since it was a trained Hollywood horse who took its clues from his trainer who had no place to be in the sightline of the shot, they could never get the actor horse to do it. They were losing light and running long and Brannaman suggested using one of his horses. Redford, who directed and starred in the film, was skeptical, telling Brannaman that his horse wasn't an actor horse and wouldn't know how to his marks. Brannaman told him to give him about a half an hour and sure enough, Brannaman's horse hit the marks and nuzzled Scarlett and didn't leave a dry eye on the crew. It turned Redford into a true believer of Brannaman's methods right then and there.
Brannaman, who spends nine months out of the year on the road holding clinics and teaching his techniques, had Ray Hunt, one of the founders of the natural horsemanship movement, as his mentor for many years. Hunt popularized the clinic idea in the 1970s, where he began each one by saying, "I'm here for the horse, to help him get a better deal." Hunt also was known for telling participants his philosophy: "If you get bucked off or kicked or bitten, you obviously did something wrong, and that's just too bad. The horse, on the other hand, is never, ever wrong."
The documentary pulls its surprise, at least for someone like me unfamiliar with Brannaman before watching Buck, and makes it more interesting than a simple profile when it reveals that Brannaman's work with horses didn't come about because he sought to end the cycle of violence and cruelty against the animals but because horses along with the citizens of the town in which he and his brother were growing up rescued the boys from the abuse they endured at the hands of their father. When that section comes up, seemingly out of nowhere, it manages to sadden and inspire at the same time. When his P.E. teacher tells Buck in junior high that he must take a shower because Brannaman has been refusing. When he disrobes, the teacher sees the imprints left by his father's frequent whippings. The teacher says we're not going to have any of that and tells the sheriff who repeats the same words and the boys are rescued from their father and placed in the foster care of a protective, loving couple. It's there were Brannaman began seeking comfort in horses. If Buck contains a major flaw, it's that we never hear what happens to his brother. There's also some sad moments concerning an orphaned horse that a woman brings to Brannaman in hopes that he can help calm the horse to be around other horses and people, but even a horse whisperer can't be a miracle worker.
Buck provides many interesting moments but we're living in a time when a plethora of good and great documentaries get made each year — often at a much higher ratio than fictional features — so the competition can be fierce. Buck is good, but there were better.
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Labels: 10s, Books, Documentary, Fiction, HBO, Johansson, Luck, Redford
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Saturday, February 11, 2012
What the hell is going on at IMDb?
By Edward Copeland
Back in my mobility days, when I had just started working at a newspaper, the Internet had yet to explode into the great reference source it can be. By the time Google appeared and fact-checking became so easy (albeit with possible land mines of misinformation planted everywhere you typed), it became difficult to remember how we looked things up before the Web. The one exception for me was movie trivia — particularly Oscar trivia — because that sort of thing happens if you get exiled to a small Kansas town during your junior high years. You end up accidentally memorizing Oscar facts because instead of buying a book with all the Oscar nominations in it like a normal person (The late Wiley and Bona's Inside Oscar didn't exist yet), you check one out of the library and painstakingly type your own copy of the nominees and winners, building a visual memory without realizing it. (Yes, on a good-old fashioned typewriter no less — even did it with carbon typing paper so I'd have two copies. It's funny, because if I try to recall nominees for best actor in a certain year and get stuck, I remember the list alphabetically so I can narrow the missing actor to a section of the alphabet between the nominees I do remember.) As a result, Oscar errors leap out at me and when I find errors in the Internet Movie Database (of any kind), I try to inform them so they can make the site a better, more accurate resource. However, recently I've discovered something strange has been transpiring at IMDb and I imagine others have noticed this as well.
One gripe I've always had with IMDb is the way they denote the Oscars. For example, let's take last year. The King's Speech was named best picture for 2010, the year it was released. Now, the Oscars, even as they've moved up the ceremony, always bring up the rear, so it received its statuette for best picture of 2010 in 2011. Many an error has been made by people looking for quick Oscar facts who check IMDb because in the awards section for The King's Speech it denotes all its Oscar wins and nominations as being 2011. If you're an Oscar obsessive such as myself or Sasha Stone at Awards Daily or Nathaniel R. at The Film Experience or our own Josh R. here and countless others, you'll recognize that they refer to the ceremony. If you aren't, such as an older entertainment editor in the Midwest, you might put down that it was named best picture of 2011. It was named best picture in 2011 but of or for 2010. If you scroll lower, you'll see that any of the film critic awards the film took tend to say 2010 because they announced them before the calendar year ended. Of course, since we do have the Internet at our fingerprints, they have no excuse for not checking the real authority and looking up things on the Academy's official database which notes that The King's Speech was named best picture 2010 and best picture 2011 won't be handed out until the end of this month.
One early Oscar winner (and in my opinion, still the best of the best picture choices they made), Casablanca proves really problematic, even for movie buffs. The film deservedly holds its designation as a classic and everyone agrees that the movie was a 1942 release, owing to its premiere followed by public exhibition in New York on Nov. 26, 1942. Well, everyone except the Academy that is, It didn't open in Los Angeles for that requisite one week in a L.A. theater until Jan. 23, 1943. Despite the odds against a film opening that early in the year (and competing against nine other films, many fresher in voters' minds), Casablanca, the 1942 release, won the Oscar for best picture of 1943 at the ceremony held in 1944. On the IMDb Awards page for Casablanca. the only two years mentioned are 1942 (at the top as its year of release) and 1944 (as the year it supposedly won best picture, director and writing, screenplay. Oscar itself can have some strange occurrences such as Chaplin's Limelight, which came out in 1952 in most places, such as New York, but such Chaplin was persona non grata in Hollywood at the time, the movie never managed to open in Los Angeles until 1972, but the Academy ruled it eligible and Chaplin, Ray Rasch and Larry Russell won original dramatic score for the 20-year-old film (listed as 1973 on IMDb) — the same touching night that Chaplin received an honorary Oscar from the Academy for lifetime achievement and apologizing to him for being such an asshole to him for having opinions.
The most recent IMDb incident that prompted this post concerned an error I noted in its listing of awards for the movie Pariah. I had just finished watching the film so I made a point of seeing who had done the cinematography, which I thought was exceptionally well done for a low budget film. The credit clearly said (it was the second credit after written and directed by Dee Rees) Bradford Young. As I went to IMDb to check its awards page, it said that Pariah won the Grand Jury Prize for best cinematography in a dramatic film, only it credited the win to Dee Rees. Never mind that on its full cast and credit list for Pariah it properly names Young as cinematographer as does the movie's Web site in crediting him the Sundance prize.
Always trying to correct errors, I went in to try to edit the awards listing but no matter how I tried, it kept being rejected and referred me to a comment thread. The thread was led with a not by a site administrator explaining why they didn't allow updating of the awards section because of a job opening — dating back to late 2010. Of course, someone is updating them since new awards are going in. Here is the letter's text which leads to its thread. It was posted March 14, 2011.
Hi,
This message is to provide an update on the current status of the Awards List.
As many of you will know, we closed down the Awards submissions pipeline in Spring 2010, to completely overhaul the internal systems that we use for Awards data.
We very gradually started re-opening the Awards pipeline in October/November 2010 - using the new system.
This has proven challenging, and we have attempted to make improvements to our internal tools post-launch.
In addition to this, and perhaps more significantly, the individual previously responsible for for the Awards list left IMDb in mid December. This has resulted in us being understaffed within the Database Content Team.
Those of you who regularly monitor the processing times page http://www.imdb.com/czone/times will have seen that we have been in a backlog for the Awards list for a significant amount of time.
We have been actively recruiting for a Data Manger since that time, as you may have seen from our jobs page http://www.imdb.com/imdbjobs/#129661, and recruitment is going well.
Until we have successfully filled this role, we have reallocated some workload within the team. As a result of this, we now have a team member who has taken ownership of the Awards list, and is actively working through the backlog.
There are a number of open bugs with the current interface, which are being actively worked on currently by our software team. I will post a further update on those when I have one.
I appreciate that this has been a less than satisfactory situation for our contributors, particularly those that have been attempting to submit Awards data - and I apologize for that. With a data manager dedicated to this list from this point forwards, and software developers working with that individual, we are now in a position to make the improvements this unique and important type of content requires/deserves.
Regards,
Rachel
Call me crazy, but I'd think they'd still want to be aware of the errors, even if they didn't want people to use the new system. (Never mind that there hadn't been an update in nearly a year.) Wait — there's more. Recently, when I was working on my Centennial Tribute to José Ferrer, I found a couple of errors in his biography. They also were repeatedly rejected, though I found some other way to contact them and sure enough those mistakes eventually got fixed. Here though comes the most disturbing one of all.
Right after watching the movie Margin Call, I went to read their summary, just to make sure I was getting those tricky financial terms right. While there, I discovered the summary had a big plot point error. The summary's date indicated it had been written a few months prior to the film's opening. I went to try to edit the summary where I encountered what apparently any new users encounter if they try to register, what IMDb refers to higher "identity verification" or some such nonsense. I wrote them a note mincing no words that I'd be damned if I was going to give them that information just to try to correct an error. At least I knew it was wrong. Heaven help the people who didn't. I didn't even tell them what was wrong, but they've since had an updated Margin Call summary and the wrong information has been purged, so someone else got it to them.
That error though isn't as troubling as their reaching out for cell phone and credit card numbers. What that amounts to is they expect newcomers or anyone trying to change a summary to give them their cell phone number (making the assumption that everyone in the world has a cell phone) and, more disturbingly, a credit card number that they "swear they will never use." If they are never going to use it, why do they need it? It reminded me of Kirk's question in the awful Star Trek V: "Why does God need a starship?"
The cell phone scam is easy to understand: It's the same reason that Google and Facebook try to con you into giving them yours in the name of "security" should you lose your account. It's because they figure most people don't know that one of the loopholes in the rules of the Do-Not-Call-List law is that it doesn't apply to any business that you have a relationship with, so once they get your number, let the telemarketers ring your cell off the hook. The credit card bit is more ominous. Old users are grandfathered, but for how long? What are they planning? They can't expect run-of-the-mill users to get a hankering for IMDb Pro. unless they are planning to hide more things there, but I sure as hell wouldn't pay for a reference source that doesn't consider accuracy a priority.
On the last season of Boardwalk Empire, they had the wrong actor listed playing a part. Luckily I got the real cast lists from HBO and recognized that the actor's photo and age didn't match. Their TV credit listings are laughable as some actors and actresses will submit themselves as generic types such as "Townsperson" and claim to appear in every episode, though they add uncredited afterward. On the new series Luck, on individual episodes Kerry Condon's character is identified as Rosie but on the main page for the series they still just call her "exercise girl." They don't know what the hell to do with Nick Nolte. Sometimes he's Walter. Sometimes he's Walter Smith. Sometimes he's The Old Man. All are correct, but it's same character and looks confusing that way.
Be wary, all of you. I fear IMDb could start making Wikipedia look 100% credible.
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Labels: Awards, Boardwalk Empire, Books, Chaplin, Ferrer, Luck, Misc., Nolte, Oscars
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Monday, February 06, 2012
Luck Episode No. 2: Part II
By Edward Copeland
When you recap a television show the way that I do, you see an episode more times than the average viewer (or critic, in many cases) and it allows you to see how individual episodes hold up in relation to others. Having seen all nine episodes of Luck already, I can say truthfully that it gets better as it goes along. It follows the path that many series do in that it takes until about the fourth episode for everything to really jell. Mistakenly, coming off the high of a season that was great overall, I felt that the show just kept rising — each episode improving on the one before until it found its groove. Now that I've delved into the first two with my recap microscope, I can say that while most of the characters improved in the second episode, the second installment itself pales when compared to the pilot. For one thing, it has too many of those microscenes that drive me up the wall but even worse, these short scenes make it seem as if the show was edited out of order. Ace comes out of his meeting with his parole officer to the news that he has a lunch invitation. At the track, the morning workouts are going on. Then Ace has lunch but Marcus and the gang appear to be having breakfast where Renzo meets Goose and they decide to go to the track. We get a couple track scenes after the morning workout, then a quick insert of Renzo getting his photo taken for his owner's license. Then, his partners are back at the motel and Renzo appears, bearing coffee. Next scene, Marcus and Jerry arrive at the track by themselves. Then Renzo shows up, though he had been with them at the motel. The order of the day and scenes just seem out of whack. By the way, if you started here by mistake and didn't read the first half of the recap covering those events, click here.
Escalante prepares Mon Gateau, complete with his red bandages on his front legs, while Goose walks Renzo through the process of filling out a claim. "Whatever you do, don't spell nothin' wrong or the claim will be null and void," Goose tells him. "On owner, I put my name until my friends get licensed and for trainer, I put you," Renzo says out loud, to make sure he's doing it right. Goose notices the bandages on the horse for the first time. "I can't see his front legs," he comments. "What would that be a sign of?" Renzo asks. "He didn't wear them in his last race so either he has a problem or Escalante's pretending he has a problem so nobody will claim him," Goose speculates. "Why is he pretending if he doesn't want him claimed?" Renzo inquires. "So he looks broken down so the odds go up but he keeps the horse," Goose replies.
The horses entered in that day's claiming race are led up through the tunnel from the saddling stable to the paddock. Renzo has never seen Escalante before but figures that it's him leading Mon Gateau out. "He puts his pants on one leg at a time, believe me," Goose says. Turo marches straight ahead to greet his VIP visitors standing before Santa Anita Park's statue of Seabiscuit. "Gentlemen, happy afternoon," Turo addresses Gus and Ace. "Turo Escalante, Chester Bernstein," Gus makes the introductions. "Good to know you, Mr. Bernstein. Mucho gusto, we say in my country," Escalante says, putting on his humble servant show again. "Don't interrupt yourself — stick to your routine," Ace tells him. "I know he bring you to show you his champion in my barn. First, I have to run this eight thousand dollar bum," Escalante apologizes. Goose and Renzo continue to watch from the fence around the paddock as Mon Gateau walks by. "He looks like new money, Renz, and I wouldn't say that just to get you to claim him," Goose comments. Turo points out to Gus and Ace that the jockey who is going to ride the "bum" approaches. "We call him a bug cause he's just starting out, you know," Escalante informs them as Leon walks up. "Tell him your name," Turo orders. "Leon Micheaux. How you gentlemen today?" he asks as he shakes hands with Gus. "Yeah. Good. You?" Gus replies. "Nice to meet you," Bug Boy answers. Ace wishes him good luck and a safe trip. Gus quietly inquires of Ace exactly what a claiming race is and Bernstein explains. "And after the race you can pull your claim?" Gus asks. Ace grins. "No. He's yours no matter what — unless there's more than one claim. But you knew that."
As Turo and Leon head to the horse, the Bug asks, "Should I warm him up real good, Mr. Escalante?" A displeased Turo, arms crossed, turns to face the young jockey. "Why do you ask a question like that?" Escalante wants to know. "No reason," Leon says. (We get a nice, subtle shot here — something that's been in short supply this week with all the hit-and-run scenes and compared with Mann's work on the premiere. After Leon responds to Turo, he steps out of the frame to the right revealing Joey leaning over the paddock fence trying to listen in.) "You should be as sound as this fucking horse," Turo tells Leon as he boosts him into his mount. "Riders up!" the starter calls out and the horses start their march toward the gate. Escalante returns to Gus and Ace. "Seems like a nice kid," Gus comments. "No brain, but he can ride. If you wanted to make a bet, I wouldn't tell you don't go ahead," Turo quietly confides. "OK. So you're pretty confidant with his chances here," Gus says. "If the Bug don't fall off, they win farther than you can throw a rock. ¿Comprende? Understand?" Escalante tells them. "Sí. Yes," Ace replies. "Gentlemen," Escalante says as he leads the men away from the paddock area.
Goose licks the seal on the envelope marked CLAIM and hand it to Renzo. "Stamp it," he tells him. Renzo slips the envelope into a machine resembling a time clock and hears the snap of the stamp. He then inserts into a green box where all the claims go and shares a high-five with Goose. Marcus motors to behind the last row of a section minus any of his partners. A woman in a wheelchair also sits in that area. "Hello," the woman (Dina Belle Garcia), who appears to have cerebral palsy, says to him, "Yeah. Back at ya," he turns and offers in stunned response, not used to social niceties. "Who do you want?" she asks, referring to the horses about to race. "The four, yeah," he replies. Renzo and Goose hurry to the rail to watch Mon Gateau race. Marcus spies through his binoculars and sees who Renzo has with him. "Jesus Christ — that low-ball numbnut you're gonna use to train," he comments to himself.
While Marcus by necessity sits in his own chair at the back of the grandstand and Renzo and Goose stand at the edge of the outer rail, Ace and Gus get shown to box seats by an usher (Aaron Perilo). "Right this way, gentlemen," the usher, Caleb, says as he allows Demitriou and Bernstein to enter the box section. "You take care," Ace whispers as he gives Caleb a tip. "OK. Thanks," the young man responds. "There isn't three hundred people here today," Ace notes. The Greek waves his betting slip. "Ace, this is the biggest bet I ever made by a hundred and ninety-five dollars. Do you believe it?" Gus smiles, amazed at himself. Leon and Mon Gateau behave well as
they're loaded into the gate, but some of the other horses up for claim act somewhat rambunctiously. "You ready, kid?" an assistant starter (Kevin Steed) asks Leon. "Yeah, yeah," the Bug replies with a hesitancy in his voice as he pulls his goggles down. With all the horses loaded, Leon stares ahead at the long expanse of the dirt track that awaits. On the spectators' side, Renzo and Goose stand in anticipation, Ace and Gus sit, with The Greek slightly more interested
than Bernstein and Marcus gets out his binoculars again, focusing them on the gate until the starting bell rings. The chime tolls and the thoroughbreds for sale begin their run, all tightly bunched at the start. In his box, Escalante stands as well. Mon Gateau has hung back toward the rear while two of the other horses put a squeeze on him, making it look as if they're creating a Bug Boy sandwich. Renzo grimaces at the sight. "That's our horse, right Goose?" he asks. Goose just nods. Marcus lowers his binoculars for a moment, looking concerned, then raises them again. "What the fuck? He should be pissing on these cucarachas, this pinhead…," Turo proclaims from his box, picking up his field glasses as well. (Unfortunately, try as hard as I could, I wasn't able to make out the rest of Turo's dialogue and with Luck, I haven't been as fortunate to have helpers with access to scripts who could or would clarify lines for me.) Leon starts pulling back on Mon Gateau, taking the horse further behind but at least escaping the vise. He then steers the horse wide and outside, passing the troublemakers with ease and moving up in the standings quite
quickly. "Come on now, you conyo," Escalante says. Everyone in the stands appear to be on the same wavelength as Renzo, Gus and Marcus, though seated separately, nearly simultaneously root variations of, "Come on, horse." From the back of the pack, Leon has moved Mon Gateau into a sizable lead. Renzo, Goose and Marcus have played the game too long to let their excitement blow yet, but Gus' enthusiasm bubbles over. "Ace, look, that horse is going to win," The Greek glows while Ace smiles for his friend. Leon and Mon Gateau cross the finish line impressively. Gus is giddy. "Ha ha ha. Ace, I had two hundred dollars on this race. Don't ever knock this fuckin' country to me," Gus proclaims. Renzo, Goose and Marcus cut loose with their exuberance once the race officially finished. As Escalante climbs the stairs to leave the grandstand, one of the patrons (Paul Perri) makes a comment referring to the price he was asking compared to how Mon Gateau just performed. "He run good, yeah," Turo replies and keeps moving. "Hey, you won," the woman sitting near Marcus says to him, giving him a "way to go" gesture with her arm. Marcus halfway grins until he spots Goose and Renzo's celebration. (Like it was in last week's premiere, the race scene proves to be the highlight. Mann might not be directing, but it's been widely reported that he left detailed instructions for directors of subsequent episodes to follow, telling them what angles they are allowed to use, what type of lighting has been approved, etc.)
Goose and Renzo come down to the Winner's Circle to see Turo, Leon and Mon Gateau have their photo taken. While Escalante prepares to smile for the camera as always, he's pissed off to see a red CLAIMED tag has been attached to the horse. Renzo asks Goose if they shouldn't be in photo as well. "First let's see if there's a shake," Goose tells him. Walking past the two of them is the man in the cowboy duds who expressed unhappiness with the way Ronnie worked out his horse earlier that morning. "What's a shake?" Renzo inquires. (Scroll to the bottom of that page for shake definition.) "Just come out with me," Goose whispers. Leon dismounts Mon
Gateau and expresses astonishment when he sees the tag. "Ah jeez…he got claimed?" Leon says. "You better hope I don't find out you ran your mouth," Turo growls at Bug before marching off in a huff. "I didn't say nothin' to no one," Leon swears. "You know, for a guy who just won, he don't look none too happy," Gus observes from the box while Ace smiles in stillness as if he were a statue of Buddha. "There's another claim in for him," Goose informs Renzo. Apparently belonging to that horse owner who argued with Ronnie since he's standing with Renzo and Goose awaiting the shake. "Oh no. Oh my gosh," Renzo starts getting jittery. While they wait, the steward's assistant (Amanda MacLachlan), who will conduct the shake, has to weigh-out Leon first. "It's us and Mulligan. We've got a fifty-fifty chance of getting him," Goose reassures him. (Hey — W. Earl Brown's character has a last name: Mulligan.) "Ahh — my stomach's all butterflies," Renzo says. The steward's assistant is ready for the shake now. "Number one is Goose Kellogg," she snnounces. (I hope she said Kellogg. I feel like singing about New York right now, but I'm not going to say why.) The woman reads the other claim card. "Two is Chris Mulligan." (He's got a first name as well. Maybe he's a trainer, not an owner, or perhaps a hybrid like Walter Smith.) She literally shakes a brown bottle containing two numbered items in it. She removes it and proclaims, "Two. Mulligan." Renzo doesn't get Mon Gateau. "You got outshook Renz," Goose says, shaking his head. "Mulligan gets him, not us," Renzo sighs.Escalante storms up the steps of the box seats to resume his meeting with Gus and Ace, but he can't put on his polite Peruvian charade while he's this red hot angry, so he rambles about losing his horse to "some fuckin' cowboy with three different size haircuts." Gus tries to get Turo see the bright side that he at least won the race, but Escalante's rage won't be quelled that easily. "Don't worry. When I found out who has spilled out their beans — I make the fucker a little sorry," Turo pledges. "Yeah. Good," says Ace, always one to appreciate a little payback — as long as it's not taking up his time. Escalante sees he needs to get back on track and apologizes for wasting their time with his own problem. "When can he see his horse?" Bernstein asks. "Right away, señor. I'll take you both right now," Turo tells them.
Joey tries to boost Ronnie's spirits ahead of his meeting with Walter. (Again, this timing seems all off. Smith told him to drop earlier that morning and hours have elapsed since then. Joey even mentioned to Leon that he thought that Ronnie and "The Old Man" had a good talk when Leon craved a bear claw well after Ace had his lunch meeting.) "The beaks are a hundred percent if I find a case to tell him," Joey says to which Ronnie concurs. (A reference to a spill Ronnie took that broke his collarbone that was mentioned fleetingly last week, but you understandably might have missed since the focus was on his drinking and drug problems.) "I'm refreshed and I'm enthusiastic," Joey declares, punching the air with his fist. "Jesus Christ Joey, you act like you're walkin' me to school," Ronnie lets him know. That brings on Joey's stammering until all he can get out is, "You go on ahead alone." Joey begins to walk away but he can't resist tossing out one more caution. "We'll have no problem making that weight." Under his breath, Ronnie mutters, "Shut the fuck up."
Goose accompanies Renzo as he watches with sadness as Billy Mulligan walks into the receiving barn to take ownership of Mon Gateau. "I was gonna give him to my friends. I don't know what's gonna happen now," Renzo tells Goose. "I know a guy who's got a two-year-old for sale. Says he can really run," Goose says.
Ronnie comes upon Walter's stables just as the Old Man is taking Gettn'up Morning around the yard for a trot. "Pretty good lookin', ain't he?" Ronnie comments. "Of course, it ain't a beauty contest," Smith says. "Lucky for the two of us. He's just about the picture of his
daddy," Ronnie declares, stroking the Big Horse behind his ear. While Ronnie and Walter shoot the breeze about "Kentucky quality," Rosie eavesdrops from another building on the grounds. "Kentucky quality killed his daddy. When the colonel died, they took over the farm and they spent all the money. There was nothing left. They took out an insurance policy on Delphi — thirty million. They killed him," Walter tells him, a sniffle sneaking out.
"They broke his leg," his voice definitely is beginning to crack now. "They said it was his fault. You know what breakin' legs sounds like — branches snapping. I always wondered if maybe I could have done somethin', heard somethin'," the Old Man regrets. "Well, you've got a chance with Delphi's son now, sir," Ronnie tells him, his voice breaking up as well. "If I had all the time," Walter mumbles, almost absent-mindedly. "What'd you say?" he asks Ronnie, as if he just woke up from a nap. "You've got a chance with this one, sir," Jenkins says forcefully. "Yeah, you're right. You're right. I'll take it," Smith agrees as he leads Gettn'up Morning off and thanks Ronnie for coming. (Not only do we get the basics behind the two central mysteries in this episode, they come in the form of monologues for the series' biggest names, though Nick Nolte's scene comes off much better than Dustin Hoffman's did, not because of any fault on the actor's but because Hoffman's scene was handled so ineptly whereas Nolte's built to an emotional finish instead of functioning merely as exposition. Though nothing like this happens this season, the way both Ace and Walter get portrayed at times, I can't help but suspect that there are future plans for one of these characters to develop Alzheimer's. Call it a hunch.)
Jerry has returned to The Hustler Casino and one of its high-stakes poker tables. Shifts have changed and a new dealer (Erika Lenhart) has placed the 10 of hearts, the king of spades, the queen of clubs, the 9 of clubs and the 4 of spades as community cards. Lester Chan sits at Jerry's table once again as Jerry mulls his move. Jerry checks his hole cards again and sees that they remain a queen and 8 of hearts, giving him a pair of queens with a king kicker. "I call," Jerry says, pushing all of his chips to the middle. "Straight up and gamble, not to draw," Lester comments. Jerry tosses his pair of queens on the table. Lester shows his pocket pair of 10s, giving him a set. Jerry grits his teeth at losing to Lester again. The dealer button moves to Jerry though he lacks chips, but he tells the dealer to deal anyway. He stands up and pulls a stacks of bills from his pocket and tosses it in front of the dealer, "Jerry got money to win back. Taking him forever," Lester says as the dealer counts out Jerry's cash. Marcus seems to possess Jerry again. "Keep it up, bug ear and I'll slap the slant off your fuckin' face," he warns Jerry. The dealer isn't amused and calls for the floor man.
Lonnie, still decked out in his snazzy new suit, has met those infamous lady insurance agents at a bar where he's trying to break the news to them that playtime — and scamtime — has now come to an end. "I only wish I could give specifics on how my circumstances seem to have improved," Lonnie tells them, without giving anything away about the Pick Six Jackpot as Marcus feared he would. "Well, obviously
your situation has changed," Lynette (Mary-Margaret Humes) observers. "And you don't need our help any longer in what we were trying to arrange," Adelle (Patti Tippo) adds. Lonnie tells the women that he regrets that the new circumstances have interfered with their plans for an insurance scam. "What I hope we can agree on is, we'll be eligible, every so often, to occasionally, still have a few laughs," Lonnie suggests, thinking of the effect this could have on the Emperor. "Sure. Why not?" Lynette agrees, taking a drink. "That makes me happy. Believe me," Lonnie declares. Adelle gets rights into Lonnie's face and breathily asks, "What about now?" Lonnie seeks clarification. "For a few laughs," Adelle giggles. "He's letting us down easy. He's never gonna see us again," Lynette asserts. "That happens to be bullshit and does not represent my feelings," Lonnie insists. Adelle dissolves into little laughs while Lonnie again apologizes for all the paperwork the women went through setting up the con they never executed. "And I thought you liked your cock between our titties," Lynette says as she places her hand down Lonnie's pants. "Well hello to the Emperor," she announces while Adelle slips something into Lonnie's drink. "Are you trying to wake up the sleeping giant?" Lonnie asks. Adelle wants to know why Lynette is trying to embarrass herself in front of Lonnie. "What's that? I hear a voice from inside my pants. 'What about me?' the Emperor is asking. 'I'm white and 21. When did I lose my right to vote?'" Lonnie speaks for his penis before taking a drink of the spiked liquor.Outside the casino, Jerry pilfers through a bag in his trunk and grabs more cash to take back inside. (Again, another one of these tiny scenes that drive me up the wall, especially since we had no resolution to that large amount of cash the dealer was counting out in the last casino scene nor her call for the floor man when he lashed out at Lester with the racist remark. Jerry's time in the parking lot lasted 24 seconds.)
Pint of Plain finishes a carrot from Turo's hand as Ace meets him for the first time. "I gotta say, he looks a lot better than he did from last week," Gus says. "Well, you know a lot of time people feel something they don't know about without actually knowing but they still go ahead and run their fuckin' mouth anyway," Turo bitches. "Hey!" Gus exclaims. "Jesus Christ! Keeping a civil tongue too tough?" Ace asks
him. "…That's what you expect me to do," Escalante responds. (Another example where it would be helpful if I had support I felt I could ask to consult the script to decipher the first half of Turo's line.) "His cold, it got better and now his feet got better. We giving him better shoes," Escalante reports. "He's got a helluva stride on him when he runs. He showed me some of the tapes of the races," Ace says, realizing he almost slipped in the illusion that it's not really his horse. "Very smooth action. He move very good on the track. Two years ago I got to stop paying all his bills myself," Turo comments. "Bill was scheduled," Ace replies. "The horse's both front legs were bad, broke.…How they were broke — there's no conceivable way. To nothing, to someone you don't like," Turo informs
Ace. "You lost him. Looks like you took a beat on a game you ran on him," Bernstein theorizes. "Ace, there's that goat. You know, the one with nuts the size of pumpkins," Gus points out excitedly as his boss stares down Escalante. "Good," Ace responds, never removing his gaze from Turo. "This horse likes him. Always pushing him around with his nose," Turo tells him. A young worker speaks to Escalante in Spanish. "He say when this horse go to the track, the goat comes to the stall and waits for the horse to come back," Turo translates. Bernstein asks Escalante what they charge for the bags of carrots, emphasizing now, not when he started 30 years ago. Turo has to ask the young worker. "Maybe fifteen dollars. What do you care how much my carrots cost?" he inquires. "You know I was in prison," Bernstein says. "That's what people say," Escalante responds. "Maybe what else they're gonna say is this is some kind of mobbed-up project," Ace adds. "What do I know? I'm from Peru," Turo replies. Ace seeks permission to pet Pint of Plain. Turo lets him and Ace gently strokes the white patch on his head. "He's got a very plain head on him," Escalante says. (Now, that's a scene with meat on it. Why did we need 24 seconds of a trunk in a parking lot between the bar scene and this one? I felt bad, in a way, for Farina who basically stood on the sidelines as Hoffman, the well-known powerhouse, went toe-to-toe with John Ortiz, the up-and-coming powerhouse who stood his ground and didn't give him an inch — because Escalante wouldn't unless it worked to his advantage.)Whatever Adelle slipped in Lonnie's drink isn't helping the Emperor, so she urges Lynette to try to give him a hand. An embarrassed and drugged Lonnie wants to give up and let the Emperor abdicate his throne for the evening. Before he can pull his pants back on, the women encourage him to keep trying, so he does just as Lynette removes a blackjack from the bedside table drawer and whacks him across the back of the head with it. "What'd you fuckin' hit me for?" Lonnie asks as he falls backward on the bed. Since he didn't lose consciousness, Adelle tries to draw him back into sex games while Lynette tells him the truth as she takes another swing. "What we insured you moron is your life," she growls. Lynette keeps swinging away but Lonnie proves surprisingly resilient. (I wonder if Marcus is laughing somewhere for being right.) "Fuck man. Are you trying to kill me?" he yells as he fends off her attacks. Adelle grabs the weapon and starts doing the swinging. "You think you can just doublecross people, breaking promises," she screams. With Lynette hanging off him as he tries to flee Adelle's attacks, the three end up crashing through the motel's sliding glass window. Lonnie spots a landscaper (Jose Reyes) loading his truck and asks him for help. "What's up, bro?" the man asks. "They're fuckin' crazy. I got money. Do you know where the Oasis Motel is?" Lonnie asks him?" The landscaper helps Lonnie into his truck. (I tried to locate an Oasis Motel in Arcadia near Santa Anita and Rod's Grill, but none seemed to be in the area. I did find a chain motel whose exteriors slightly resembled the exteriors of the scenes of their motel, but then I couldn't find the link to those photos again.)
They count out Jerry's cash at the casino again. "Twenty-five thousand," the dealer says. "Twenty-five thousand," this shift's floor man (Christopher DerGregorian) repeats. "The sail's up and ship's leaving," Jerry says. Lester looks amused. "This is a house ruling for this hand only," the floor man announces. "Do not try this at home," Jerry talks over him as he pushes his chips in. Only the flop has been dealt, showing an ace of clubs, 8 of diamonds and queen of diamonds. "By agreement of both players, cash not on the table at the beginning of the hand has now been put into action," the floor man concludes. "Alright guys, turn 'em over," the dealer tells them. Lester flips an ace and queen of hearts, giving him two pair, Jerry shows a king of clubs and a king of diamonds for a pair of kings. The dealer deals a 2 of clubs for the turn (or fourth street), which doesn't help Jerry. The river, however, certainly does as she turns over the king of hearts, giving Jerry trips and winning him the hand. Lester's face sinks. "Give him his chipa," the floor man says, adding. "One-time ruling. Normal house rules resume." Jerry, smiles and stacks his chips. "Floor, cash me out," he requests. "Yes sir, Mr. B.," the floor man replies. "Make it back, Mr. B. Come back tomorrow — I'll wipe the white off your face," Lester tells Jerry. Jerry tips the dealer and applauds for himself.
Outside The Long Shot bar, Rosie's having a smoke when Walter rolls up in his pickup. "Hey boss. Out among 'em," she says as if she's been caught. She asks if the horse ate. "Oh yeah. Didn't leave an oat," Smith tells her. "Listen. I'm red in the face, puttin' you on the spot about ridin'," Rosie admits. "Now Rosie, that was my fault. I just left you out there by not speakin' up. I wasn't sure," Walter takes the blame. "There's my answer," Rosie responds. "There's your answer. You've done a lovely job to get him here. I don't think anybody else could have done it any better and I'm gonna be surprised if you don't turn out to be one race-ridin' son of a gun when you're working…(Something else it would have been nice to have support from someone with a script to decipher)," The Old Man predicts. "At Portland Meadows, it looks like," she says. Walter tells her that Portland probably will be a better place for her to get her start. "Spot you three in Nine Ball," she suggests. "A while back, that'd be an offer you regret," he declares as he goes into the bar and Rosie asks him to have one for her.
Inside The Long Shot, Joey happens to be lurking and makes sure to start a talk with Walter. Before any other subject comes up, Smith asks him if he knows any jockey agents in Portland and tells him about Rosie. Joey says he does and gives Walter his card and tells him to have her call him. Walter asks Joey if Ronnie would be ready to ride the mount on Gettn'up Morning for a six-furlong race a week from Saturday. Rathburn assures him that Jenkins would be.
Renzo tries to talk to Marcus but gets interrupted when the beat-up Ronnie is dumped outside their rooms. Jerry arrives about the same time.
You know the episode has reached its finish when we've returned to the Beverly Hilton suite for bedtime and Ace and Gus have one of their bull sessions about the day's events. "I drive around to the track's back entrances for a chance to wind him up to knock a nickel off the price of his bag of carrots. He'd scream bloody murder, Escalante," Ace tells Gus. "That is a picture — Escalante behind a pushcart full of fruits and vegetables. Him, wanting to be on the inside training horses," Gus says. "All I think he knew was that he was in a strange fucking country and he hated selling vegetables," Ace states. "And he don't know to this day that it was you that got him through that gate," Gus marvels. "It's him that took the bit between his teeth. He's made himself into somethin'. All I did was tell some trainer whose
bets I took, 'Hey, there's this guy outside. You should hire him, bring him in here to the stable, to shovel horseshit. Give him a start,'" Ace elaborates. Gus chuckles. "That's how I know what's waitin' for Mike. You don't leave no open contracts," Gus proclaims. "We need a go-between, Ace decides. "Between DiRossi, Cohen, Mike and us?" Gus asks. "Yeah," Ace confirms. "What about me?" Gus suggests. "You get hot under the collar," Ace raises as a reason for Gus not to be it. "Well, yeah, granted, but…" Bernstein interrupts Gus (unfortunately with yet another line I can't decipher leading me closer that without supportive reps, if not at HBO as all my previous great helpers have been then connected with the show itself, it's going to be pointless to continue this endeavor.) "Someone we trust or someone we don't?" Gus asks. (More unintelligible) not make a difference," Ace replies. "All that trouble, getting them to fix that slot so they think I owe them," Gus proposes. "Set a meeting tomorrow with my investment company. I'll pick a go-between so we can do what we need to do to get these guys," Bernstein orders. "Please tell me I didn't let you down," Gus says. Ace shakes his head no (and says something else I can't make out). "Then let's go get these cocksuckers," Gus suggests. (MORE BALLOONS AND STREAMERS FALL FROM THE CEILING) (By about the fourth episode, Luck will really hit its stride, though it's such a short season, it will seem as if it's just getting started by the time it's over. Unless a miracle occurs in the next couple of days, I'm leaning toward abandoning the recap of this show, which I hate to do. It's a very good show and, more importantly, it's complicated and often subtle and I like to serve my readers by helping to explain parts they aren't getting, but if I'm not going to receive the help I need to accomplish this end, I shouldn't try. It will just be too frustrating for me.)Tweet
Labels: Dustin Hoffman, HBO, Luck, Michael Mann, Nolte, TV Recap
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