Best-ees 2.0

Because I love movies so much, and because I couldn’t think of anything philosophical to write about, and because the recent news has been nothing but downers making topical pieces no fun, I offer you the second installment of the Best-ees; movie awards that matter.

One might consider this the testosterone version because the subjects relate to manly themes; booze and speed.  So get set to be educated, entertained and disgruntled.

And now, the categories:

Best Martini Reference in a Movie

Martini, the drink of the Greatest Generation; no business lunch would have been consummated without it.  It was a deceptive charmer.  Served in a quaint little glass (today’s offerings by comparison are served in margarita sized glasses), it was high-octane fuel perfectly designed for lubricating mega-deals.  America’s economic comeback from the great depression was built on the three martini lunch.  Watch any movie from 1947 to 1965 and some character will take a dip in this concoction of gin and vermouth, “No mixer for me, thanks.  I don’t want my liver to suffer a slow, painful death.  I’ll just take it out right here.”  The nominees:

Father of the Bride (1950 – Metro-Goldwyn-Mayer)  One of Spencer Tracy’s funniest roles.  Usually lauded for his dramatic work, his subtle, bumbling portrayal of a family patriarch who has lost all control over his daughter Katherine’s (Elizabeth Taylor) impending wedding is genius.

Planning to show his social prowess as host at the engagement party, Stanley T. Banks (Spencer Tracy) prepares a tray of martinis for the expected guests.  As the guests wander into the kitchen they pass on the prepared libation in favor of their own preferences necessitating Stanley serve as bartender.  By the time he has met all of his guests’ alcohol needs the soiree has run its course and he emerges from the kitchen to be scolded by his wife, Ellie (Joan Bennett) for having reneged on his social obligations.

Goldfinger (1964 – United Artists)  Clearly a cultural icon, this movie became the template for the cool, sophisticated man.  You might be confused as Goldfinger was not the first in the series of movies.  But it was the first in which Bond uttered the famous phrase.

In print, the phrase “Shaken, not stirred” first appears in the novel Diamonds are Forever (1956) though Bond does not speak the line until the novel Dr. No (1958).  The movies were not produced in the same order as the novels were written.  Goldfinger (1959) was the seventh novel of twelve and two short story anthologies.  But it was the third film and made the franchise an international sensation.  The moment happened aboard Auric Goldfingers executive jet.  Bond (Sean Connery) was being held at gun point by Pussy Galore (Honor Blackman).  An uncredited Korean stewardess (yeah, I know, sexist… but it was the sixties) asks bond if she can get him anything to which he replies, “Just a drink. Martini, shaken not stirred.” There is no mention of vodka, very dry or lemon twists.  So go ahead gents, drink your martinis the way God intended, made with gin and olives; and practice in the mirror, “Bond.  James Bond.”

The Apartment (1960 – United Artists)  This movie is a treasure.  Directed by Billy Wilder it was nominated for ten Academy Awards, winning five including Best Writing (original screenplay), Best Director and Best Picture.  The picture is a bitter-sweet story about modern mores.  The primary characters are C.C. Baxter (Jack Lemon), Fran Kubelik (Shirley MacClaine) and Jeff D. Sheldrake (Fred MacMurray).  The premise is that bachelor C.C. Baxter hopes to improve his chances for promotion by allowing his workplace superiors use of his apartment as a trysting site for their extramarital activity.  It is a dark comedy and you fans of the 1960s TV show My Three Sons will never think of Fred MacMurray in quite the same way.

The martini reference in the film does not involve the main characters.  C.C. arrives home to find that this particular evening’s lothario-in-residence still occupies the nest and his drunken conquest is not yet ready to fly.  As Al Kirkeby (David Lewis) attempts to hustle his date, Sylvia (Joan Shawlee) out of the apartment, she asks, “What’s the panic?  I’m going to have another martooni!”  And ever since, the martooni has been defined as: “The last in a long series of martinis drinked.”

And the winner is…

Goldfinger

Thanks to Ian Fleming, martinis, the epitome of cool, have resurged in popularity.  I don’t know why, they taste terrible.  Have you ever tasted straight gin?  The only reason gin ever gained any popularity was as an additive to make tonic water palatable.  And the sole purpose of tonic water (quinine) was to fight the effects of malaria on the sub-continent.  Rue Britannia!

Best Car Chase in a Movie

Car chases have become a staple of the action movie.  Some movies are built solely around a featured car chase.  There is something about squealing tires and throaty exhaust that gets the adrenaline flowing even while seated in the relative safety of a movie auditorium.  The list of also-rans is long indeed.  From the Keystone Cops to the Fast and Furious franchise, there are dozens if not hundreds of films that feature a car chase.  During the mid nineteen sixties, there emerged a whole genre of car chase films which posited the rebellious hot-rodder as counter culture hero.  Then in the nineteen seventies, Burt Reynolds stole the concept and turned it into a parody of itself with the Smokey and the Bandit series and others.  But the best chases have always been cops vs. criminals.  The nominees:

Bullitt (1968 – Warner Bros.)  This is the dean of car chase movies. It featured San Francisco Police Lt. Frank Bullitt (Steve McQueen) chasing a couple of hit men around the city for ten minutes or so that really did nothing to further the plot, which was lame anyway. The real stars of the show were Bullitt’s 1968 390 cid Ford Mustang GT (325 hp) and the baddies’ 1968 440 cid Dodge Charger (375 hp).

True to form, the chase starts out when Bullitt notices that the assassins are following him.  He makes a break, then maneuvers himself to become the pursuer of the pursuers.  Now maybe I am missing some subtlety of plot here, but why didn’t the bad guys just shoot Bullitt when he was walking to his car?  Because, that would have denied us the experience of what some consider the gold standard of car chases.  And of course, they resolve the pursuit by having the overmatched villains run their Dodge into a gas station resulting in a visually spectacular (if not somewhat predictable) explosion.

Blues Brothers (1980 – Paramount Pictrures)  The outgrowth of a musical sketch from a January 1976 episode of the comedy program NBC’s Saturday Night (the name Saturday Night Live belonged to ABC as the title of a prime time variety show hosted by Howard Cosell, which predictably failed in its first season.  Rights to the title were purchased and officially adopted by the NBC show in March of 1977, two years after its debut), the brainchild of Dan Aykroyd and James Belushi grew to include a blues anthology LP and the movie.

Among the many scenes that have become iconic, perhaps the most side-splitting is the car chase in which Jake (Belushi) and Elwood (Aykroyd) try to elude Illinois State Police by driving their retired police cruiser, the Blues mobile, through an enclosed shopping mall.  Notwithstanding the technical excellence of the chase stunts, the true genius is the deadpan dialogue of the brothers’ observations on the current trends in mass retailing. It is enhanced by an instrumental version of “I Can’t Turn You Loose” (Otis Redding) as the background music.  The chase location was an authentic abandoned shopping mall in Harvey, Illinois.

The French Connection (1971 – Twentieth Century Fox)  Unlike Bullitt, this movie had a good plot.  Perhaps the fact that the story was based on a real-life narcotics smuggling case is why.  This was a breakthrough role for Gene Hackman garnering a Best Actor Oscar.  In all the film was nominated for eight Academy Awards; awarded five including Best Picture, Best Director and Best Writing.  Oh yeah, and there was a car chase; well sort of.

NYPD Narcotics Detective Popeye Doyle (Gene Hackman), the target of a failed assassination attempt, gives chase to the would-be killer who eludes him by boarding a NYC elevated train.  To keep up, Doyle commandeers a civilian vehicle and gives chase on the streets of Brooklyn.  Interesting feature of a car vs. train chase… you know where the train is going to go!

And the winner is…

The French Connection

I know.  I can here you die hard Steve McQueen fans threatening revolt out there.  But truth is the Bullitt chase seems sterile compared to The French Connection.  Super-car vs. super-car; now when is that going to happen anywhere in real life?  The stunts in The French Connection were so tight, that the collisions seen in the film were not scripted but driving errors left in to enhance the drama.  And let’s not forget the train wreck.  The vehicle part of the chase ends when the hijacked train (the suspect has ordered the train operator not to stop at the stations) rams into another train.  And there’s more… Doyle (Hackman) shoots the bad guy dead.  Bullitt just drove his Mustang to the car wash.

Well, I hope you enjoyed this chapter of the Best-ees.  If you have any categories of movie trivia you would like me to address for Best-ees consideration, just throw me an e-mail.  I have opinions on everything!

The Big Suck!

Back on May 9, 2013, I posted “The Big Pffft! to this blog site in which I gave a brief introduction to the Big Bang Theory (the academic attempt at explaining the observed behavior of the known universe, not the hit CBS-TV comedy airing Thursday nights at 8:00 PM, 7:00 PM Central) and some problems I have with the current state of hypothesis regarding the creation of the Cosmos.  If you haven’t read it or don’t remember, take a moment now to go back and soak in the wisdom.  The rest of us will wait here.  Go ahead, take all the time you need.  Our toenails need a good trimming any way.

You’re back; good.

Now as we have established, according to the theory, the universe began about 13.798 billion years ago give or take 37 million years.  That’s not a lot of give and take; a little more than one-quarter of one percent. Okay, I promise, no more numbers.  Well, just one.  A feature of the Big Bang Theory that gives me heartburn is the period of cosmic inflation, a period of the early (very early, a number so small I can’t even give it a name… it is so small a fraction of a second that that you need 37 zeros between it and the decimal point) universe in which the it expanded exponentially.  The cosmologists invented this phenomenon to reconcile the age they assign the universe with the size they can measure; never mind that it violates all of the rules of physics we had been reared to accept.  But I digress.

Turning to the Dark Side

I know what you’re thinking, “No! Dale, don’t look into the… shadow?”  Don’t worry Obi Wan, we’ll wear our night-vision goggles.  In addition to cosmic inflation, the cosmologists have also invented (not discovered, mind you… that would take actual observation) the phenomena; dark matter and dark energy.

Isaac Newton defined it mathematically.  Albert Einstein corrected his errors.  And by the early twentieth century, we had a pretty good understanding of how (not why… nobody knows why) gravity works.  Observation of our own solar system shows us that the closer a planet is to the sun, the shorter its orbital period, or greater its speed.  But when we look at our nearest galactic neighbor, Andromeda, we see that stars on the outer edge of that galaxy are traveling the same speed as those near its gravitational center.  The scientists who cogitate such things decided that the mass of Andromeda must be greater than that which they could calculate based on the visible light (energy) of the galaxy.

Thus, they invented… Dark Matter!  No, not because it is evil, but because it cannot be seen.  So let’s make sure we understand this.  Regular matter gives off energy, e.g. a star; so we can see that.  We cannot see Dark Matter because it gives off no energy? Do I have that right?  And mind you, this here to fore unseen Dark Matter is allegedly made up of sub-atomic particles.  You know, those particles created by smashing atoms together in the Large Hadron Collider. Yeah, the unstable ones that evaporate into energy within nanoseconds of their creation.  But wait, I thought Dark Matter didn’t give off any energy and that is why we can’t see it. Are you keeping up with this?

For dark matter to explain the observations of galactic motion, the cosmological wizards calculated that it must make up 84.5% of all the matter present in the universe.  Imagine that, almost eighty-five percent of the matter in our universe is observable only on paper.  These guys must be smart.

But wait, it gets better (?).  Observations of the galaxies show us that space (the universe) is expanding; bringing us back to the rationale on which the Big Bang Theory was developed.  And to make it even more interesting, the farther away from Earth a galaxy is, the faster it is accelerating away from Earth.  Okay, who knows what that indicates?  That’s right Tinker Belle, it means that the expansion of the universe is accelerating.  Think about that for just a second or two.

Yeah, I know, the time didn’t help.  You are still asking yourself, “Huh?”  This is the way it should work.  The big bang, like an explosion, drives all energy and matter away from the singularity (the epicenter of the bang) in all directions.  But as the universe cools, matter forms.  And matter has mass.  And all mass is gravitationally attracted to all other mass.  And energy always moves from a higher state to a lower state (see entropy).  So eventually, you expect the energy of the bang to dissipate and the gravitational influence of the matter (dark, light or swirl, your preference) to cause the universe’s expansion to slow and then reverse its course as the galaxies all begin to move toward each other.  This imagined phenomenon is known as The Big Crunch.  But our observations tell us that is not going to happen.

So, to explain this violation of the known and demonstrable laws of physics the scientist create another mathematical plug-in they like to call Dark Energy.  Dark Energy is pushing on the outer boundaries of the universe causing it expand at an ever accelerating rate.  You will recall, Dark Matter is dark because it gives off no energy.  Well, guess what fellow travelers; we can’t see Dark Energy either (hence, the name).  We can’t see it, touch it, smell it or taste it.  “But it’s energy!” you cry. “Why can’t we see it?”  To which the physicists reply, “Uh, we don’t know.”

Keep in mind that a principal tenet of the Big Bang Theory is that everything in the universe; energy, matter, mushrooms, clowns, all emanated from that bang. The highest state of energy the universe will ever experience was just before the cosmic inflation. And that energy always moves from higher states to lower states.  Where would the universe be getting the additional energy to power an ever accelerating expansion?

  

You may recall that Dark Matter comprises 84.5% of the matter in the universe.  Well, Dark Matter and Dark Energy (matter and energy are all that the universe is made of, by the way) account for, wait for it… 95.1% of the universe.  That means that all we can see is 4.9% of the universe.  The rest of it exists only on paper; in the mathematical formulas created by people whose I.Q. levels suggest they walk a fine line between mega-genius and bat-shit crazy.

This Sucks!

My leadership mentor, the late Honorable Judge Robert J. Cooney (1928-1990) often told me, usually while holding a length two-by-four over my head, “If you don’t like something, offer an alternative.” (expletives deleted)

So I offer an alternative to the Dark Matter/Dark Energy proposition.  I recall from my elementary school years that we were told space is a vacuum; devoid of matter.  Once one traveled beyond limits of our planet’s atmosphere there was nothing.  Today, we know that is not true (and I suspect that even in 1963 the scientists knew).  Space is full of matter and energy.  Compared to the density of matter on Earth, it may seem a little desolate.  However there is a lot going on out there.  But what exists beyond space, or our universe, as we know it?  There are speculations of parallel universes.  Some physicists offer a model where there are infinite universes each like a bubble wafting about in the nothingness of whatever.

I will propose that perhaps there is nothing out there; just a big vacuum.  And that our universe is expanding into the void.  That would explain how the expansion is accelerating.  As the stuff in our universe is expanding in all directions, the gravitational attraction of galaxies is weakened by the increasing distance between them, therefore allowing the expansion to accelerate.  The universe is not being pushed from within, but pulled from without!

Imagine a balloon.  This balloon is essentially empty except for a few thousand air molecules that fill in the little wrinkled areas of the balloon’s skin.  Tie a knot in the balloon so as prevent any more air going in or out.  Then put the balloon in a chamber and pump out all the air in the chamber.  The here to fore flat balloon will begin to expand; not from inflation, for it still has the same amount of air inside as when we tied the knot.  It expands because of deflation, or the vacuum, created inside the chamber.  And as the chamber continues to empty, the balloon will continue to expand until it reaches the limit of its elasticity and pop.

Now here’s the question you have to ask yourself:  Does the universe have an elasticity limit, or will it continue to expand forever?

Maybe my next missive on cosmology should be titled, “The Big Pop!”

Fun With Saints

I was raised Catholic.  So it is odd that I am named Dale. Catholics maintain a long tradition of naming children for some biblical figure or saint.  You can imagine my parochial school experience.  All of my classmates boasted familiar names like Michael, David, Steven, Theresa, Mary.  It seems there were a lot of Margarets; and they all had freckles, but I digress.  A common activity at the beginning of the school year, especially during the early years when they were trying to drive the essence of the religion into our soft little heads, was to discuss the lives of the saints who were the namesakes of the students.  Not for old Dale though; there is no Saint Dale.  The only famous person named Dale was Dale Evans, wife of Roy Rogers (look it up, Tinker Belle).  When they came to me, the nuns would just look woefully as if they knew I was destined for perdition.

Even if you were not raised in the Catholic tradition, you probably understand the concept of the Patron Saint.  If you are unfamiliar with the subject, pick up a dictionary.  Look up the word saint.  Then look up the word patron.  Put the two definitions in your mind and shake (don’t stir) your head.  If the notion still eludes your delicate intellect, close this blog and pick up your comic book.  You and Thor can have a wonderful evening together.

I thought that you might enjoy meeting some of the saints as their lives, and deaths for martyrs, tend to be quite inspirational.  Trying to keep the length of this missive manageable, I’ll offer just a few examples this week.  If I get a favorable response; hell, if I get any response at all, we’ll (see how I distributed the blame to the reader base there with careful selection of a pronoun) revisit the subject from time to time.

Saint Rene Goupil – First Martyr in North America.  Entered the Jesuit noviate in Paris, France; deafness prevented his joining the order.  Studied medicine; in 1639 offered to work as a medic for Jesuit missionaries in America.  Missionary to the Hurons (a native American people, Tinker Belle) as a layman without pay.  Captured and tortured by the Iroquois, enemies of the Huron. His death by tomahawk to the head led to his patronage of people who work with or receive anesthesia. I guess the lesson here is; clobbering someone over the head with a hammer is an effective anesthetic if you don’t kill the patient!

Saint Andrew – Apostle.  Brother of Simon Peter (first pope). Martyr; crucified on a Saltire Cross (X-shaped as opposed to T-shaped.)  Lore has it that this was done at the request of the martyr as deference to the crucifixion of Jesus.

 

Patron saint of Scotland – legend has it that the Pictish (early Scots) King Angus was facing an invading army and prayed for guidance.  A white cloud in the form of a saltire cross floated across the blue sky above him.  Angus enjoyed a decisive victory and to honor Andrew’s influence, decreed him to be the patron saint of Scotland.  Interesting, but hardly as salacious as…

Patron saint of happy marriages – German tradition has it that a single woman looking to marry should seek St. Andrew’s help on the eve of his feast (Nov. 30^th), then sleep naked that night; she will see her future husband in her dreams.  Now, St. Andrew is also the patron saint of maidens and pregnant women, and sleeping naked seems to be a good way to facilitate the transition from one to the other.  It may also lead to sword-tip weddings.

Saint Barbara – Martyr.  Beheaded by her pagan father Dioscorus for converting to Christianity.  It is told that upon her murder, her father was immediately struck by lightning.  Her association with death from above led to patronage of all types of war related occupations including artillery men, ammunition workers and armorers.  The lesson here; don’t decapitate someone with an explosive personality… and an in with God!

Saint Gabriel the Archangel – messenger of God.  Gabriel was sent to Earth by God on three occasions: The first was to explain to the prophet Daniel his own visions regarding the Messiah; the second was to announce to Zachary the coming of his own son, John the Baptist; the third, and most important, was his appearance to Mary to let her know about upcoming role as mother of Jesus and that she could no longer expect the virgin discount.  Thus, he is the patron of postal workers.  Now this is all pretty heady stuff, but it leaves me a bit confused.  My understanding is that sainthood is conferred upon people whose life of religious devotion was so exemplary that the Church could canonize them being fairly certain that upon their death they would, without question, be accepted into heaven. Here’s the rub: Angels aren’t people; don’t have a life or death as they are immortal and… they’re already in heaven!  You figure it out, it just makes my head hurt.  Interesting factoid:  Only three angels are mentioned in the bible by name; Gabriel, Michael and… can you name the third?  E-mail me if you think you’ve got it.  And God will know if you looked it up in Wikipedia! 

That’s all for now.  Don’t forget to say your prayers before going to sleep.

Extra! Mars Attacks!

This is a special bulletin for my loyal, or accidental, readers.  Tuesday night, April 8, 2014, you have the opportunity to witness an unusual astronomical phenomenon without aid of telescope.  The Red Planet, Mars, named for the Roman god of War (not the candy bar), will be directly opposite the Sun making for a rare full-sky transit, much like a full moon, only smaller; much, much smaller.

What this means, if such things interest you, is that you can watch Mars cross the sky from east at sunset to west at the following morning’s sunrise.  This occurs only once every two years.  And this year, it happens to coincide with the Red Planet being closest to the Earth since 2007.  While I doubt there is any merit to spending the entire night looking up, it is worth a few moments to take a break from your usual Tuesday night regimen to go outside and give it a peek.

Mars will be easy to find.  It is red.  “Aha,” you are saying to yourself, “now I know why they call it “The Red Planet!  Thanks, Dale.”  It will be brighter than all but the brightest background stars.  Where you look is dependant of when you look.  The earlier viewers will want to look to the east (that’s opposite from the side of the sky you last noticed the Sun to occupy).  You barflies will want to look west, before you get into your cab, for the ride home. If you are out about midnight, look straight up, then remember to schedule an appointment with your chiropractor in the morning.

I, of course, will be enjoying the view through my telescope. Yes, I’m enough of a nerd to own a telescope.  It is small (no double entendre here, although I sometimes do feel slightly inadequate) but will give me a closer look.  If any of you can find my house in the dark, you are more than welcome to take a peek.  Warning, I will not be up and planet gazing at two o’clock in the morning, so save yourself the extra cab fare to Valley Center and just go home.

That’s it from the Obsequious News Service!  Good night.

Be sure to look for my regular blog post this Thursday.  If you liked this one, you’ll be thoroughly confused by the next.

  

The Best-ees 1.0

I do not watch award shows.  I don’t care for the Oscars or Emmys or Country Music Awards.  They seem to me merely vehicles for squeezing one last dollar out of their fan bases.  They don’t care about you.

But I am different.  My motivations are pure. I wish only to entertain and educate.  So I am creating my own celebration of artistic achievement in popular media.  And to maximize the value of this recognition, I am expanding the field.  These selections are not representative of a single year’s product but of all time.

In this first iteration of my awards, we will start with movies.  Over time I may expand to other popular art forms such as books, music or rodeo.  And I promise, the categories will be recommendations you can use.  There will be no technical categories like editing and sound.  I will not burden you with subjective opinions on artistic endeavors.  The categories will be established to reflect what the audience talks about on the ride home from the cinema (or other art forms as I select).

So I introduce to you, the first volume of The Best-ees!

As we all know, the honor is in being selected.  There is no shame in not receiving the award.  But if we don’t pick a winner, there is no drama.  The list of nominees is created strictly from my experience.  The votes are submitted by me and tabulated by the defunct accounting firm of Arthur Anderson, L.L.P. (see Enron).

And now, the categories:

Best Sword Fight in a Movie

Ah, the swashbuckler; heroes of our youth.  Who among you didn’t get a little excited when you saw that your mother was near exhausting a roll of gift wrap paper, be it for Christmas or birthday celebration?  You knew that shortly you would have a cardboard-tube sword with which to pummel your sibling or next door neighbor.  If you were of a medieval mind, you would take up a trashcan lid shield and flail away until your sword unraveled.

For this category, I have limited the nominees to period correct pieces.  There is no need to clutter the field with films set in modern times where an easily obtained handgun could hastily end a sword fight (e.g., Highlander).  And I am not interested in Chinese movies where the emphasis in on wire assisted acrobatics.  No, this category is for men with iron wills and steel blades. 

 The nominees:

The Adventures of Robin Hood (Warner Bros. – 1938)  Who can forget the epic battle between Robin (Errol Flynn) and Sir Guy (Basil Rathbone) on the stone steps of the castle, with no balustrade!  Both Flynn and Rathbone are universally recognized as superior swordsman, their skills as such being foundational to their careers.

The Princess Bride (Twentieth Century Fox – 1987) An unusual selection as the emphasis of this film is comedy.  And, the best swordfight (among many) occurs between characters who eventually become allied in a common purpose.  Westley (Cary Elwes) and Inigo Montoya (Mandy Patinkin) engage in combat upon their first meeting, not realizing they are chasing the same enemy.  During the fight, Inigo notes by the location of Westley’s scabbard that he has been fighting with his weak hand.  When asked why, Westley shares that he wanted his opponent to have a fair chance.  The wise Inigo breaks off the encounter to resume the pursuit of his father’s killer, discretion being the being the better part of valor.  It is the nonchalance of Westley’s confidence that elevates this scene.

The Mark of Zorro (Twentieth Century Fox – 1940)  While Tyrone Power did not carry the swashbuckling credentials of Errol Flynn or Douglas Fairbanks, Jr., his adept handling of the dual personalities of Don Diego the fop and Zorro the bandit make this (in my opinion, of course) his best role.  Accordingly, his opponent Capt. Esteban Pasquale, is played to perfection by (who else) Basil Rathbone.  Forget Antonia Banderas.  Let go of George Hamilton.  This is the Zorro you want to see.

And the winner is…

                                              The Mark of Zorro!

In the climactic duel scene, Esteban struts his feathers by doing some stretching exercises then whisking out the flame of a candle with his sword tip without disturbing the candle in its holder.  In turn, Zorro slashes out at a lighted candle but when the flame continues to burn, Esteban demonstrates his disrespect for the hero’s ability by laughing.  Then Zorro reaches out gently with his sword, tipping the top half of the candle to the floor showing he had bisected it without disturbance.  You can see he loses his smug facial expression that Esteban’s confidence, as well as hid bladder, have betrayed him.

Best Single Line Delivery in a Movie

Who among us has not stood in front of a mirror and practiced a line learned from a favorite movie hero? “Go ahead, make my day!” “Are you talkin’ to me?”  “One morning I shot an elephant in my pajamas.  How he got into my pajamas, I don’t know.”

Why is it our funniest retorts or best challenges occur to us fifteen minutes after our audience has left?  Is it that we are not imbued with the wit and intellect of the stars of the silver screen?  I’m guessing it has more to do with the fact we are not aided by a clever script and talented film editing. 

 The nominees:

“Frankly my dear, I don’t give a damn!” Rhett Butler (Clark Gable) to Scarlett O’Hara in Gone with the Wind (Metro-Goldwyn-Mayer – 1939).  If you have seen this movie, then you know why Rhett has given up.  For almost four hours, Scarlett has been whining, crying, using, manipulating and offending everybody south of the Mason-Dixon Line.  If they’d followed my lead, they could have saved Atlanta because my cheeks surrendered after minute 197!  Thank God this epic piece of soap opera dribble has an intermission.   It provides armed theater patrons an opportunity take their weapons out to their cars, thereby averting a mass suicide somewhere between reel nine and ten.  But you have to admit, it is an iconic line that all of us have at some time used to sum up our frustration with some whiney malcontent.

 “Here’s lookin’ at you, kid.” Rick Blaine (Humphrey Bogart…I’ll bet you didn’t know the character’s last name) to Ilsa Lund (Ingrid Bergman) in Casablanca (Warner Bros. – 1942).  For my money, the best American dramatic film ever.  Think back to the beginning of the movie.  Rick is a drunk.  He’s given up on life all because he lost Ilsa in Paris.  And after the character growth that he has experienced in this twenty-four hours, after his epiphany that the worst thing for himself is the best outcome for his lost love, his farewell words are a toast.  How true to type!

“Insanity runs in my family, it practically gallops!” Mortimer Brewster (Cary Grant) to Elaine Harper (Priscilla Lane) in Arsenic and Old Lace (Warner Bros. – 1944). This is one of the movies that molded me into the fanatic I am.  Every scene will make you laugh.  Don’t try and watch this movie and drink milk at the same time.  In addition to the superlative talent of Cary Grant, the supporting cast includes Raymond Massey, Peter Lorre and Jack Carson.  While lacking the social significance of the other nominees in this category, it is the archetypal madcap comedy.

And the winner is…

“Frankly my dear, I don’t give a damn!”  

As tedious a film as Gone with the Wind is, no other example of American cinema offers a line so readily and universally recognizable. If only the editor hadn’t been paid by the frame. 

Well that’s it for the inaugural episode of the Best-ees.  Keep watching for future offerings in the weeks and months to come.  Some of the future categories I will address are: Best Speech in a Movie, Best Car Chase in a Movie and Best Portrayal of a Nazi as Buffoon in a Movie.  If you have a recommendation for a Best-ees category, e-mail me at daleholbrookoutwest@gmail.com.  Thanks again, and use some floss to get that popcorn out of your teeth!

Economics for Drunkards

I hope the title does not scare you away.  This is not going to be a voyage through the academic doldrums of the dismal science.  The first reason being, economics is dull.  The second, I am not qualified to present such a tour.  Let me assure you, among most of my readers, I am probably the closest to being qualified.  But the truth is, of the hundreds of pages read, and the myriad lectures attended in completion of my business degree (which included three Economics classes), I remember only three things:

·         The natural price of any commodity is determined by the intersection of the supply and demand curves.

·         Economics is the only science that uses the term “utile” (yoo-tile).

·         The girl that sat in front of me in Intermediate Micro Economics was stunning.

I am sure that somewhere in a previous post I shared my belief that Economics is a behavioral science.  And as such, much like its academic kin, Psychology and Sociology, provides tools for explaining what happened in the past but has demonstrated damn little usefulness in predicting future events.

In those aforementioned academic brushes with Economics, this student was exposed to various mathematical tools that when faithfully applied resulted in the production of very impressive charts and graphs purporting to divine future events regarding monetary outcomes given specific assumptions about human behavior.  And it should be obvious to you by now that it is not the fault of the tools, but the humans’ failure to behave as predicted that causes the problem.  For this, we must cast some blame at the feet of the Psychologists.  Much of Economic Theory is predicated on the assumption that people, known rather dispassionately to the economist as consumers, will always behave in a manner that advances their own self interests.  This consumer is known as the rational man.

It is hard to build a reliable test for living, breathing human subjects, as they are often smarter (albeit, less educated) than the experimenter.  So, the economist has no choice but to create the surrogate rational man and subject him to the experimental psychologist, who learned very early that the way to avoid chaotic results was to abandon humans as test subjects in favor of white mice. Therefore, it is easy to understand why economists are frustrated when their test population shows a preference for beer over cheese.  A mouse will quickly learn the shortest route to its reward and continue to shave time off of its maze navigation building on its success.  The student volunteer; being motivated by that cool, frothy elixir will, after repeated successful attempts begin to demonstrate a rather sharp drop-off of performance, quite often pausing in mid-test to nap.

To overcome this weakness in test design, the economists introduced a second variable (pizza) and a unit of measurement to conveniently assign a relative value.  This unit is the “utile” which has no naturally occurring mathematical properties.  It is only useful in identifying the degree of preference for one consumable over the other.  The rational man will always assign a lower utile value to the next unit of any consumable than he did to the last until, when finally sated for his desire of the consumable in question the utile value drops to zero.

Let me try to demonstrate the theorem:  A hungry rational man will buy a pizza.  And he will buy some beer to accompany the pizza.  If that rational man is still hungry and thirsty, he will continue to buy pizza and beer in such quantities as his cash permits.  But as his hunger is sated and his thirst slaked, the amount he is willing to pay for each additional pizza or beer decreases: That is to say, the cash has a greater utile value than the next pizza or beer.  (If you are with me so far, you have completed the minimum work product for Econ 101.)  But the rational man does not behave like the typical student.  It is evident to any person visiting a frat house the morning after a party, that while there may be boxes of unfinished pizza lying about, one is highly unlikely to find an untapped keg or capped beer bottle.  The evidence seems to establish that unlike most consumables where the utile value decreases as availability increases, an inverse relationship, beer (and other intoxicants) demonstrates the opposite trend (a positive relationship).  The more one drinks, the more one wants to drink; until of course one passes out.

 

There is one other well-tested example yielding a similar outcome.  But this is hardly the place to analyze the phenomenon unfolding within the environs of a strip club.  I wonder what ever happened to that girl from Intermediate Micro Economics.

Who Are Your Heroes?

he·ro

 noun \ˈhir-(ˌ)ō\

: a person who is admired for great or brave acts or fine qualities

: a person who is greatly admired

: the chief male character in a story, play, movie, etc.

I believe everyone has heroes.  I am not sure why.  Perhaps we possess and innate sense for superior human behavior and are attracted to persons who display those characteristics most likely to result in our own survival.  Or maybe we are so steeped in cultural history that as a society we have all learned to admire the same traits.  Either way, we pick out persons whose lives we believe are worthy of our admiration and emulation.  This is true whether we choose real-life figures of fictional characters.

Interestingly, all civilizations, thriving or extinct, seem to develop a mythology populated with heroes who display the same worship-worthy qualities; e.g. courage, honesty, loyalty, righteousness.  Think of the movies you have seen in your lifetime.  Then dust off that corner of your mind reserved for those things you were supposed to have learned in school.  Recall high-school freshman English and your cursory exposure to Greek and Roman (and maybe Norse, if you were lucky) mythology.  Compare Heracles (Hercules) with James Bond; both stalwart defenders of the flame (virtue), undeterred by any foe and compelled by duty to vanquish evil.

If your childhood was like mine, play included emulation of movie, television and (when absolutely necessary) literary heroes to whom you had been exposed.  A list of heroes would differ from generation to generation.  Historical and pop-culture influences change over time.  While I might envision myself astride a white stallion exclaiming, “High-oh Silver, away!”  (The Lone Ranger, for you younger readers) Your offspring probably immerse themselves in video games assuming an alter ego we’ve never heard of.  But it is the same story, even if today’s presentation is a bit more graphic.

As we age, our heroes may tend away from the fictional to the historical.  World War II had a significant influence on my generation as our fathers’ characters had been tempered there.  Movies and TV continuously reinforced our perception of that conflagration even if our fathers were reluctant to do so.  Graduating from movies to history books, we replaced the fictional portrayals with biographies of men who had actually shaped the history of the time.

Achieving intellectual maturity, our definition of heroism may have expanded to include not only the warriors but the society creators as well.  We can only appreciate the value of our own country if we know the stories of the founding fathers and their struggle to establish true freedom as a standard for society.  And we learn to appreciate the bravery of those individuals who rose up against the anachronistic social institutions that denied equal access to the American Ideal.

As I enter that stage of my life where introspection and observation join together to create a model of the world that pleases me, I find that those heroes I truly learned from, like most every other lesson my life has taught me, tend towards the unconventional.

Bret Maverick – from the 1950’s television show Maverick. The decade was rife with Westerns.  You couldn’t hardly change the channel and some cowboy was shooting at some other cowboy accompanied by the musical score of the Warner Bros. studio orchestra.  There were Marshals (Gunsmoke) and bounty hunters (Wanted Dead or Alive); hired guns (Have Gun, Will Travel) and cattle drovers (Rawhide); settlers (Wagon Train) and more Marshals (The Life and Legend of Wyatt Earp); all epic tales of the post Civil War wild west; tense stories of survival in a savage land.  Then there was Maverick.  Neither talented gunmen nor stalwart peace officers, they (that’s right, there were two of them… then three… well it gets complicated and has much to do with contract difficulties, but I digress) were brother gamblers.  Their mission was to roam from town to town, looking for a poker game and trying to live up to their Pappy’s philosophy.  The key that set them apart was their aversion to personal danger; they were the archetypal reluctant hero pressed into actions by uncontrollable circumstances.  Add James Garners’ penchant for satirical humor and you begin to see the irony.  The two brothers, Bret (James Garner) and Bart (Jack Kelly) appeared in alternate weekly stories occasionally both appearing in the same episode.  While they had equal billing, Bret was clearly the bigger audience draw.

Sylvester – the Warner Bros., Merry Melodies cat.  Anyone who knows me well is aware of my passion for Warner Bros. cartoons.  In my professional life, I was exposed to a constant string of leadership seminars.  A frequently repeated feature of these programs was to ask the participants to complete a survey card requesting personal information about the attendee.  The cards were read to the class and based on the anonymous responses to the questions they were to attempt to identify which of their coworkers was describing themselves.  One of the most common questions was, “Who is your hero?” or “Who would you most like to emulate in your life?”  You can imagine the answers: Mother Teresa, Abraham Lincoln, my dad.  My answer always drew the strongest reaction; it was, “Bugs Bunny.”  But in reality, he was the ideal.  My real-life role model was Sylvester.  I still root for him as he launches his overly complicated plans to eat that obnoxious little bird.  Truly, can you think of a soul more committed to a single mission?  Sylvester was created in 1945 by director Friz Freleng.  His first pairing with Tweety was 1947’s Tweetie Pie which became the first Warner Bros. cartoon to be awarded an Oscar.  While Sylvester began his career solo (Life with Feathers – 1945) and appeared with almost all of the Warner Bros. characters during his career, my favorites were always those cartoons involving his quest for that damned, squeaky, mite-infested miniature squawk-box of a bird.  And I wouldn’t have been upset if Sylvester would have taken that umbrella away from Gwanny and shoved it up, well you know where. You have to love a cat whose first line ever was, “Sufferin’ Succotash!”

Plato – yes, that Plato, the Greek Philosopher.  I know, this seems quite the diversion from a roaming gambler and a persistent pussycat but bear with me for a moment and you’ll see where I am going.  I had never given much thought to the Greeks.  Yeah, I know, cradle of democracy and all that baloney.  But if you dig down just below the surface you begin to see a flaw or two.  For crying out loud, they couldn’t even build a complete shoe!  My true enlightenment was born while reading Plato’s seminal work, The Republic (it’s amazing what you can find to waste your time on when you are retired).  The Republic is presented as discussion among Socrates (Plato’s teacher) and his students.  The topic is the creation of an ideal community.  The subject matter included touches on all aspects of life and society.

The conclusion is that society should be stratified; the value of an individual’s trade should dictate where in the hierarchy they belong.  Their lifestyle, e.g. wealth, should be a function of relative worth.  Now this is not unlike our capitalistic society of today.  The more valued your contribution is deemed, the higher your income level.  Up to this point, I have no problem with Plato’s position.  It concerns me somewhat that they believed station could be assigned based on genetic interpretation: A shop keeper is a shopkeeper because his breeding pre-determined it.  But then they change directions and focus their attention to leadership and authority.  It seems the top tier, the decision makers, the ruling class as it were, should be supported by the society at large.  Their lives should be trouble free as to allow their full attention to be applied to the rigors of ruling.  To assure all that the best talent is drawn to this lofty responsibility, the rulers should be provided with only the best.  Even as to the assignment of mates, it would be considered necessary to provide the rulers with women of superior quality so as to assure superior offspring.  And who, you ask, would make up that ruling class?  Why the philosophers, of course.

Is it just me or does anyone else here see the similarity to the finale of Dr. Strangelove (1964-Colombia Pictures)?

Ah, you are now thinking, “Dale, how could you select such an elitist for hero status?”  Because, this is the ultimate in gall!  I admire any person who can tell you how to live your life and that includes a proviso for his own livelihood.  And here I thought majoring in business administration would assure an affluent life.  Little did I know, instead of studying accounting rules, I could have spent my college years sitting around the student center pondering the big question, “Why is there air?”

Well there you go; those are mine.  Who are your heroes?