1996, the best year in movie history, pt. 32: The rock

R.I.P. Sean Connery.

People declared him, in 1999, to be the “Sexiest Man of the Century.” And until today he was “Scotland’s Greatest Living National Treasure,” according to some European betting company I’d never heard of.

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My high school friends had great enthusiasm for Connery’s movie The Rock. They’d say things like, “It’s so sad what happens to that Ferrari. And to that beautiful Hummer.”

The movie has car chases, explosions, fighter jets, machine gun fights, handgun fights, hand-to-hand fights … and three dudes: Connery, Nicolas Cage, and Ed Harris. It’s not unlike that scene in The Office in which three employees stand around the water cooler agreeing that they’re all “alpha” males. The characters played by Cage, Connery, and Harris must learn to acknowledge one another as fellow badasses who are worthy of mutual respect.

This would be no small feat. One of these characters is a terrorist. Another is a jailbird. Most shamefully, the Cage character is a nerdy scientist.

Never mind that this scientist is a “field” agent, not a “desk” agent, for the FBI. Never mind that his job is to disarm chemical weapons.

He still has trouble remembering to carry a gun.

Only recently did he impregnate his girlfriend.

He is assigned to San Francisco to deal with what turns out to be a threat to national security. Unwisely, he brings along his girlfriend and unborn child, putting them in harm’s way.

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PRAY TELL, what is this threat to national security?

A dozen or so members of the U.S. Armed Forces have gone rogue. They’re led by a USMC general – Harris – who is acknowledged by all parties to be thoroughly honorable; and yet he and the other rebels have taken some innocent tourists hostage in the disused prison on Alcatraz Island (“the Rock”).

Worse, they’ve stolen four rockets filled with pellets of a lethal gas.

They make two demands:

First, that the government officially recognize one hundred military heroes who’ve died while performing tasks of a clandestine nature.

Second, that it pay reparations to the heroes’ families.

If these honorable, terroristic demands are not met, the rockets will be launched. The poison gas will kill 70 or 80 thousand San Franciscans – as well as Cage’s girlfriend and unborn child.

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So much for Cage and Harris. Enter Sean Connery.

His character has made a distinguished career as an escape artist. But now he’s under lock and key in an ultra-modern federal prison. He spends his days reading philosophy and Shakespeare and growing out his hair …

… until the FBI comes asking for his help. You see, many years ago, he was the only prisoner to escape alive from the Rock. Now he’s the only person who can find his way through Alcatraz’s maze of tunnels. Only he can guide Nicolas Cage and the team of impatient Navy SEALs who have been tasked with neutralizing the chemical weapons and rescuing the hostages.

The Bureau doesn’t like Connery one bit. He’s too cocky and too British. He knows too many U.S. government secrets. But, in this situation, he’s indispensible.

Whether he can get along with Cage is another matter.

They expertly hurtle wisecracks at one another. This is the best thing about the movie.

It’s almost worth the two hour, sixteen minute runtime. Almost.

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Let’s skip ahead:

Car chase …

Car crash …

San Francisco streetcar crash …

Explosion …

Scuba diving peril …

Gunfight …

So, there are a lot of action sequences, but they aren’t very gratifying. In a good action sequence, you can see why each character comes to make each move. The action sequences in The Rock are mostly haphazard. The protagonists point and shoot at nameless enemies who may as well be zombies. Complications don’t emerge from the logic of the situation. They are random. They are often played for laughs. (Consider the early chase sequence in which a little old lady crosses the street in front of a speeding car.)

The Rock is dressed up as an action movie, but, fundamentally, it’s a buddy comedy. Its physical wit is undistinguished.

Its verbal wit is better.

In the bowels of the Alcatraz prison, after the SEALs have all been killed, Connery and Cage achieve mutual understanding:

CONNERY: Are you sure you’re ready for this?

CAGE: I’ll do my best.

CONNERY: Your “best!” Losers always whine about their best. Winners go home and ---- the prom queen.

CAGE: Carla was the prom queen.

CONNERY: Really?

CAGE [cocking his gun]: Yeah.

I would’ve said that the poison-gas scenario is ridiculous, except I’ve been reading Michael Lewis’s book The Fifth Risk. It’s about how the U.S. government keeps in check lots of security threats comparable to the one in this movie. (It’s also about how the current administration has been foolishly defunding scientific research that most politicians don’t even begin to understand.)

So, it turns out, the movie is probably more realistic than most people would have guessed.

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The Rock was the high point of Michael Bay’s directorial career. His Armageddon (1998) was worse. I haven’t seen his Transformers series, but I gather those movies were much, much worse.

So, even the lousy movies of 1996 were much better than their more recent counterparts.

(Link.)

Thank you, Sir Sean. Thank you.

Rest in peace.

P.S. See, also, my review of DragonHeart.

Baths for the kitties

… because Jasper has been harboring fleas. We believe they came into the house via some clothes we inherited from Rick (Rick’s dog, George, recently had fleas).

Ziva has never been bathed. We’re going to postpone that ordeal until we’re sure she has fleas.

No such luck for Jasper, who, last night, suffered his first bath since early kittenhood. He moaned and tried to claw his way out. On the whole, though, he was rather brave. He came out smelling of peppermint and cloves.

Unfortunately, he had fleas again this morning.

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We’ve tried, on several occasions, to vote; but at every polling place, the queue has wrapped around the block. We don’t want to stand out in the cold for a long time with our baby, and the paucity of weekend voting hours makes it hard for us to go stand in line one after the other.

That leaves two options: (1) trying to vote during business hours this week, and (2) voting on Election Day, when more polling stations will be open. Both options are complicated by Karin’s having to manage her workplace – the regular manager will be recovering from surgery – and by my having to care for Samuel.

“A U.S. president has never been elected by a majority of eligible voters,” writes Jason Brennan in Compulsory Voting: For and Against.

In the 1964 election, 61.05 percent of voters cast their ballots for Lyndon Johnson – the largest majority a president has ever enjoyed. Yet, at the same time, because turnout was so low, Johnson was in fact elected by less than 38 percent of all voting-eligible Americans. We call Reagan’s 1984 victory a “landslide,” but less than a third of voting-age Americans actually voted for him. Less than a quarter of eligible Americans voted to reelect Bill Clinton in 1996. In all elections, a minority of the voting-eligible population imposes a president on the majority.

Whether or not you endorse compulsory voting (Brennan doesn’t), it’s hard not to conclude that many of the non-voting majority choose not to vote because they are significantly hindered from voting. Set aside legal disqualifications for criminals, non-citizens, puertorriqueños, those without I.D., etc. The logistical obstacles can still be formidable.

This sort of problem can be grasped in theory; but, as with the stifling of access to health care, transport, and other basic goods, it acquires a more sinister character when it is experienced.

A special day

Lo, the Birthday Sheep returns – this time, for Samuel.

Today Samuel is one. Had it not been for the Leap Year, he would have turned one yesterday. Had he not stayed in utero an extra week, he might have turned one even earlier.

So, for his age, he is rather … old.

Even so, this Birthday Sheep is a bit much for him: he cannot straddle it: it was designed for 18-month-olds to ride. The Sheep isn’t everything he might have wished for (as you can see from the photo).

I expect he’ll learn to love it, though.

In other respects, the birthday was quite satisfactory. Around noon, the temperature was in the seventies, and Samuel and I spent a few hours out on the back porch; Samuel had his post-brunch nap in the fresh air. Then, quickly, everything cooled. There was a rainstorm, and by four or so the temperature was in the fifties. I dressed Samuel in his winter jacket and stocking cap for our afternoon stroll.

When Karin came home from work, she brought Samuel an Arby’s roast beef slider, of which he ate about a quarter. And Martin & Mary also brought Samuel a nice gift: a Radio Flyer “busy buggy” for him to push around the house.

A typical October

Classic fall weather again – on the whole, a good thing. Leaves have been coming down in earnest and the lawn is thick with them. We don’t own a rake. I’ve read that it’s OK to mow over the dead leaves so as to “mulch” them, and that’s what I’ve been doing. The grass grows so slowly now that I keep telling myself, “One last mowing for the season”; and then, after one or two weeks, I mow again.

And now, my reading report.

(1) Patrick Allitt’s I’m the Teacher, You’re the Student: A Semester in the University Classroom describes several tantalizing U.S. history books, a few of which I’ve acquired. The golden discovery has been California: The Great Exception – the assigned text Allitt’s students loathed the most – written for that state’s centennial by Carey McWilliams, with lovely phrasing, apt detail, and shrewd analysis. Even in 1950, California’s growth was cause for wonderment. A boom in mining led to booms in farming, oil drilling, manufacturing, what have you. The mining boom was relatively egalitarian: claim sizes were restricted, and individual miners could prosper without capital. Then, the wealth gained by mining in California funded the mining elsewhere in the Far West, but this was company mining, adhering to other methods and rules. That’s what I’ve read so far. Agriculture, etc., will be discussed later. Allitt told his students to read the chapters about rivers and irrigation – the subject matter of Chinatown. They were bored to tears. I already look forward to reading McWilliams’s Factories in the Field: The Story of Migratory Farm Labor in California and North from Mexico: The Spanish-Speaking People of the United States.

(2) I liked Allitt well enough that I’ve begun another of his books: The Conservatives: Ideas & Personalities throughout American History.

(3) Also: Bertrand Russell, The Problems of Philosophy, which I read so long ago I hardly remember it. I’m not even sure I read all of it before.

(4) Some Gothic things for the fall:

• Agatha Christie, Endless Night (excellent, just excellent)
• Hilary Mantel, Fludd
• Ghost stories by Edith Wharton and M.R. James

(5) The Masters, the fifth and most famous book in C.P. Snow’s Strangers and Brothers series. It’s about the politics of an unnamed Cambridge college. Sure enough, it’s good; it might be THE ONE in the series to read, if that’s all you have time for; but it’s no better than the others.

October’s poem

… is reproduced by Iona and Peter Opie, in The Oxford Book of Nursery Rhymes, from “A Little Book for Little Children … which was published during the reign of Queen Anne.”

If you have seen The Favourite, the tenor of this poem will not surprise you.

⎯⎯⎯⎯⎯⎯⎯⎯⎯⎯

A was an Archer, and shot at a Frog;
B was a Blind-man, and led by a Dog:
C was a Cutpurse, and liv’d in Disgrace;
D was a Drunkard, and had a red Face:
E was an Eater, a Glutton was he;
F was a fighter, and fought with a Flea:
G was a Gyant, and pul’d down a House;
H was a Hunter, and hunted a Mouse:
I was an ill Man, and hated by all;
K was a Knave, and he rob’d great and small:
L was a Liar, and told many Lies;
M was a Madman, and beat out his Eyes:
N was a Nobleman, nobly born;
O was an Ostler, and stole Horses’ Corn:
P was a Pedlar, and sold many Pins;
Q was a Quarreller, and broke both his Shins:
R was a Rogue, and ran about Town;
S was a Sailor, a Man of Renown:
T was a Taylor, and Knavishly bent;
U was a Usurer took ten per Cent:
W was a Writer, and Money he earn’d;
X was one Xenophon, prudent and learn’d:
Y was a Yeoman, and work’d for his Bread;
Z was one Zeno the Great, but he’s dead.

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But what of J and V?

Ecuador 4, Uruguay 2

Well, that went better than I expected.

Our first goal came early, while the Uruguayans, ranked sixth in the world, were still just trying to defend. It brought them out of their half of the field for the rest of the game and made them vulnerable to counterattacks.

We poached the second goal on halftime’s stroke.

Our third goal assured our victory moments after the second half began. VAR had just rescinded a goal of Uruguay’s.

(By the end of the game, VAR would disallow three goals and award one penalty.)

Gonzalo Plata, one of the Sub-20 World Cup’s heroes, scored our fourth goal with panache. Like other important contributors to this game, he was trained at Independiente del Valle.

(And I’d worried that these youngsters would lack the composure and confidence to score.)

Uruguay scored its two goals with late penalty kicks.

So: after two games, we’re in fifth place. We have three points, four goals in favor, and three against (all penalties). And the crucial home fixture against Uruguay is behind us.

Suddenly …
there were much bigger worlds again …
and some small place in them for me.

A reading for Columbus Day

One of the mercies of adulthood is that you can use the Internet to track down books you liked when you were young. Last week, I happened to revisit a lovely two-volume anthology that I read when I took AP U.S. History – Portrait of America, edited by Stephen B. Oates. It has been reconstituted enough times that some of its earlier versions have become quite cheap. I own the ninth edition, from 2007.

It isn’t a doom-and-gloom sort of book, and I wasn’t especially thinking of Columbus Day, but the first reading in vol. 1 is apposite. It consists of the first two sections (pp. 57–75) of ch. 3 in David E. Stannard’s American Holocaust: Columbus and the Conquest of the New World (the link is to a PDF).

The description of pestilence and atrocity on various Caribbean islands is, of course, sobering to read. But the passage’s achievement is to link these catastrophes to the brutality of the perpetrators’ “Old World” society. The narrative is clear, gripping, perspective-altering. And terribly sad. Even Christian nations wander in darkness. Come, Lord Jesus.

The misfortunes of Ziva – and of Karin, Samuel, John-Paul, and Ecuador

I feel much better, though I’m still coughing and blowing my nose. Karin and Samuel also have got bad colds. They probably caught the germs from me and then compromised their bodily defenses on Wednesday night.

We were outside in the cold for several hours because little Ziva had escaped through a hole in the screen door.

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It was a desperate time. We searched the yard and then the neighborhood. Then we heard Ziva mewing under our porch. She couldn’t come out the way she’d gone in: either she couldn’t remember how to, or she was obstructed.

We removed several boards nailed to the edge of the porch, only to come up against an even sturdier barrier of wood and concrete. This barrier had a gap in it, however, which Ziva approached. She mewed and looked out at us. We reached in and petted her. We gave her food. But the gap was too small for her to squeeze through.

We decided to tear one of the planks out of the porch floor. But it had been screwed in too tight, and so we had to wait a few more hours until a friend could bring over an electric drill so that we could make a hole large enough for Ziva to fit through. The drilling terrified Ziva.

An hour later, she finally mustered enough courage to climb up onto the porch. By this time it was about 11:00 at night.

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And so, ever since, Samuel and Karin have been sick. It didn’t occur to us to go back inside the house and leave Ziva in her despair – or to put on jackets. At the time, I hardly felt my own illness or the cold.

When a loved one is making desperate little cries, it’s easy to forget about yourself – and other loved ones, I’m sorry to say.

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Last night, then, Karin and Samuel lay around, pretty miserable, as I’d done earlier in the week. I spent the evening web-surfing until I was able to find a video stream of Ecuador’s first qualifier for the Qatar World Cup.

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I remember how, in 2004, Ecuador lost 1–0 to Argentina in a thrilling World Cup qualifier played in Buenos Aires. Hernán Crespo was the goalscorer.

They were two good teams, two mature teams.

Last night’s fixture in the Boca Juniors stadium had the same scoreline but lacked virtuosity and excitement.

Messi scored with a penalty kick and gave a few good passes.

Lautaro Martínez did nothing.

Ecuador’s lone striker, Énner Valencia, was stranded.

Our shining young talent, the left-back Pervis Estupiñán, gave away the penalty.

Alexander Domínguez had to tend goal rather too well for the comfort of the nation.

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Ecuador did improve as the game went on. I hope that, in the coming months, the team will be afforded more practice sessions with its new manager (so far, only two sessions have been held). The other South American teams also have been severely disrupted by the pandemic.

Ecuador will play the next game, against Uruguay, in Quito on Tuesday. Five substitutions will be allowed, which will enable more Uruguayans to come off the field once they’re short of breath.

A slight, demoralizing illness

On Sunday, I was out on the porch too long. It was too cold. And so, the last couple of days, I’ve been sick.

In the evenings, all my life’s woes have paraded themselves back and forth in front of my mind.

While Karin has been working, I’ve struggled to keep up with the little boy. Today, mercifully, he is taking a second nap. That’s what’s allowing me to write this blog entry.

Another mercy is that I’ve slept soundly the last two nights. I suppose it’s because Air Supply forces air down my throat so that it gets around the congestion that would keep me from breathing.

Karin’s birthday; Samuel’s felinity

Happy birthday to Karin, whose colleagues at the bank put up this appreciative display.

Apparently, October 3 is Mean Girls Day (yes, the date is mentioned in the movie). So, that’s what we watched tonight.

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Samuel has been learning from his kitty siblings. Yesterday, seeking attention, he crawled to me and rubbed his head against my leg. And today he tried to eat, face-first, from one of the kitties’ dishes.