keith — Page 48

→ May 1, 2021
→ By keith

Stick to baseball, 5/1/21.

I had two posts for subscribers to The Athletic this week, one on how the Rockies’ next GM might start to turn the franchise around, and a draft scouting notebook looking at several day-one candidates, led by Fordham lefty Matt Mikulski.

On the Keith Law Show this week, my guest was MLB Pipeline’s Jim Callis, talking about this year’s MLB draft class. You can subscribe on Apple podcasts, Amazon, and Spotify. I also appeared on the Athletic Baseball Show on Friday, which will be my regular slot for most of the year.

If you’d like to buy The Inside Game and support my board game habit, Midtown Scholar has a few signed copies still available. You can also buy it from any of the indie stores in this twitter thread, all of whom at least had the book in stock earlier this month. If none of those works, you can find it on Bookshop.org and at Amazon.

For more of me, you can subscribe to my free email newsletter.

And now, the links…

Longreads first: One of the many victims of disgraced writer/teacher Blake Bailey came forward to tell how Bailey manipulated and raped her.
Alameda police killed Mario Gonzalez, who was unarmed, by pinning him to the ground for five minutes during an arrest on April 19^th. This is a systemic issue.
CloseCallSports has the best explanation of the obstruction call in Milwaukee that I tried to explain on Twitter, only to have my replies explode with people who didn’t like the call. An umpire can make a call that is technically correct – and Marty Foster’s was, indeed, justified by the rules – but so rarely made that we assume it’s wrong.
Tony LaRussa’s animal welfare nonprofit is plagued by claims of racism and a toxic workplace environment. Between this and his multiple DUIs, LaRussa’s hiring by the White Sox this offseason looks even more suspect. Over at Sox Machine, Jim Margalus talks about some of what LaRussa is doing wrong on the field, too.
West Virginia Governor Jim Justice (R) announced that residents aged 16-35 who get the COVID-19 vaccine will get a $100 savings bond, an ingenious use of the stimulus funding the state has received.
After years of misguided opposition, Florida officials will finally release genetically modified Aedes aegypti mosquitoes, the kind responsible for spreading the Zika virus, dengue fever, chikungunya, and more, to stop the insects’ offspring from surviving into adulthood.
Anti-vaxxers are adopting yellow stars and other symbols of the Holocaust, in case you were wondering how low they would sink in their war against science and rationality.
The official Twitter account for the Auschwitz Museum is pushing revisionist history that absolves Poles of their role in the Holocaust (Haaretz, $ required).
PBS has a new series coming up on May 11^th called Extra Life: A Short History of Living Longer, about the extraordinary success of vaccines and other major medical advances that helped double our life expectancy in a century.
Facebook claimed they removed the “Disinformation Dozen,” twelve people responsible for the vast majority of anti-vaccine lies on the internet, but ten of them are still active on the site.
Joe Rogan told his millions of young listeners not to get a COVID-19 vaccine. That is dangerously irresponsible, and he shouldn’t be issuing medical advice.
Julie DiCaro reminds us not to listen to people with obvious conflicts of interest – agents, lawyers, fans – when they try to downplay charges of sexual assault against popular athletes.
Fox News is struggling to “pick a side” when their culture-war takes conflict with the facts, as with two recent manufactured outrage stories that turned out to be false – that Biden would ban or limit meat consumption, and that migrant children were being given Kamala Harris’ book.
The BBC asks why the west neglects a potential superfood source that’s efficient, sustainable, and climate-friendly: insects.
Epicurious revealed that they won’t publish any new beef recipes, part of an effort to encourage more sustainable eating. They stopped publishing those a year ago and they say nobody has noticed.
Conservative writer Gary Abernathy argues that all conservatives should support reparations to Black Americans.
From the National Review, the “Fairness Doctrine” is not the answer to Tucker Carlson’s misinformation.
University researchers appear to have moved and possibly lost the remains of two children killed in Philadelphia’s bombing of its own citizens in 1985, part of a government assault on the MOVE cult.
Deforestation in the amazon has soared under the reactionary Brazilian President Jair Bolsonaro, devastating native homelands and reducing one of the world’s most important carbon dioxide sinks.
A teacher in Washington State’s Issaquah School District is on administrative leave after parents objected to a poem she used in her anti-racism curriculum
Ashley Feinberg may have found JPMorgan Chase CEO Jamie Dimon’s secret Instagram and Twitter accounts. Dimon has been accused of misleading investors in the “London Whale” investment disaster and of overseeing a culture of discrimination at his banks.
Board game news: Capstone Games is reissuing the Uwe Rosenberg worker-placement classic Glass Road, and pre-orders are open now at $10 off.
Renegade has a Kickstarter going for the ‘epic mad scientist’ game My Father’s Work, which they say will only be sold through their website once it’s released.

Filed Under: Uncategorized Tagged With: anti-science, baseball, board game news, coronavirus, links, longreads, police, racism, stick to baseball, sustainability, vaccines

→ April 26, 2021
→ By keith

Oscars 2021: What the actual?

I didn’t think anything on Sunday night would really merit a reaction post, but, well, here we are. You can see my preview post with picks and predictions here.

I don’t intend for this to be a hot take, but I suppose it is, at least compared to the consensus I’ve seen on Twitter: Anthony Hopkins’ and Frances McDormand’s wins were driven more by age than by race. Both played roles about people aging, and facing some of the scarier aspects of getting older – losing one’s memory, and losing one’s home/income – and for an Academy electorate that has always favored films around those sorts of themes or just older people in general, those two films were probably too tempting to overlook. It may be spun as more #OscarsSoWhite fodder, and I don’t know how to argue against that position without seeming insensitive to the broader point, but I believe those two awards were much more about an aging voter pool than a white one.
Hopkins would have been my pick for Best Actor anyway, even though of course I wanted Boseman to win and to give Taylor Simone Ledward, his widow, one more opportunity to speak before a national audience. Her acceptance speeches for him in this awards season have been moving, and graceful, and powerful, and I immediately thought of her sitting in the audience or at home (I don’t know if she attended), feeling stunned and hurt by the announcement of Hopkins’ name, especially since the whole telecast seemed set up to end with her speech. But I also believe Hopkins’ performance was just better: a bigger, more difficult role, more central to the film. I thought it was the best performance of the year by any actor, leading or supporting, just edging out Carey Mulligan’s in Promising Young Woman (my pick, obviously, for Best Actress).
Yeah, so I think Stephen Soderbergh, or whoever chose to flip Best Picture and the two lead acting awards, will not be invited back to do the telecast any time soon, which is a shame because the first two hours or so were quite good. The more intimate setup worked extremely well on camera, and the choice to give viewers some background on nominees made the awards more interesting and personal than when we’re just getting recaps of movies that I’d already seen. Writers, editors, costume designers – they’re just names to people like me who don’t work in the industry. Those biographical bits should stick around forever.
No one will remember that part thanks to the choice to flip the last two parts of the show, though. I can only assume this was a bet on Boseman winning, and his widow closing out the broadcast, and that the producers told Joaquin Phoenix that if anyone else won he should say the name quickly and bid everyone “good night!” before the place went down in flames.
I am glad that much of the post-Oscars coverage is focusing on Chloé Zhao’s historic win – she is the second woman, and the first woman of color, to win Best Director. That’s 70 Best Director awards given to men (one to a pair of men, for West Side Story) and two to women.
I didn’t think the comedy bit worked, especially with Glenn Close so clearly reciting a script (which was cribbed straight from Wikipedia), although I give her credit for dancing to “Da Butt” – all on the same night she tied the record for the most career nominations (eight) without a win.
I did enjoy Frances McDormand’s big “I already have two of these” energy, though.
While most of the outrage I saw on Twitter was over Best Actor, I think the worst choice of the night was in the Best Documentary Feature category, where My Octopus Teacher, about a middle-aged white man with all the personality of Wonder Bread befriends an octopus. The underwater cinematography is beautiful, but when the octopus is a more interesting character than the human, that’s a problem. The other four nominees in that category were all about some important issue – Time (Black people caught up in the carceral state), The Mole Agent (the elderly, especially those in nursing homes), Crip Camp (the disabled, and the push for disability rights), and my pick for this award, Collective (government corruption) – and were all more interesting and broader in scope. Instead, we get a film about a white guy with what appears to be no job and plenty of money futsing around like a tourist in the waters off South Africa, talking to squid. Not only do I think My Octopus Teacher was a bad choice to win the award, I don’t even think it should have been nominated. Transhood, on HBO Max, was much, much better.
Another Round winning Best International Feature over Collective wasn’t a whole lot better, although at least in this case Another Round is a decent movie, just sort of trivial, and, as writer-director Thomas Vinterberg said in his excellent acceptance speech, it’s a movie about a bunch of middle-aged white guys.
Did anyone look better than Riz Ahmed and his wife, author Fatima Farheen Mirza? I say no, as I shop online for black mock turtle necks.

Filed Under: Uncategorized Tagged With: oscars

→ April 25, 2021
→ By keith

Oscar picks, 2021 edition.

The Oscars are happening tonight, about two months later than usual, so I’ve put together this post with some loose predictions, my own picks for each award, and, most importantly, links to every one of these films I’ve reviewed. I’ve seen all of the Best Picture, Best Director, and Best Screenplay nominees, and all but one of the films in the four acting categories, as well as all five documentaries and all five animated features, with 50 total films seen from the 2020 awards cycle (which ran fourteen months).

Best Picture

The Father
Judas and the Black Messiah
Mank
Minari
Nomadland
Promising Young Woman
Sound of Metal
The Trial of the Chicago 7

Who will win: Nomadland

Who should win: Nomadland

I don’t feel that confident in the prediction here; I’m a little concerned that Chicago 7 will win, as it’s such an actor-focused, Very Important Film that it might resonate with the same voters who picked Green Book two years ago. I’ve seen Minari, and loved it, but haven’t posted a review yet.

Snubs: A Sun didn’t even make the Best International Feature cut (it was on the shortlist), but it belongs here, as does One Night in Miami, the exclusion of which I simply do not understand. Never Rarely Sometimes Always would have been a good if out-of-the-box choice. I haven’t seen First Cow yet.

Best Director

Another Round (Thomas Vinterberg)
Mank (David Fincher)
Minari (Lee Isaac Chung)
Nomadland (Chloé Zhao)
Promising Young Woman (Emerald Fennell)

Who will win: Zhao

Who should win: Zhao

This award and Best Picture used to be more closely linked than they are now, but I’m not sure I see them splitting the votes this time around. Vinterberg’s nomination seems inexplicable, unless it’s a sympathy vote, as his daughter was killed in a car accident during filming; she helped inspire the script and he dedicated the film to her.

Snubs: Regina King was supposed to be a lock for this category for One Night in Miami. I would have given Florian Zeller a nod as well for The Father.

Best Actress

Viola Davis, Ma Rainey’s Black Bottom
Andra Day, The United States vs. Billie Holliday
Vanessa Kirby, Pieces of a Woman
Frances McDormand, Nomadland
Carey Mulligan, Promising Young Woman

Who will win: Mulligan

Who should win: Mulligan

Davis could win this, but I don’t think this is particularly close on the merits. Mulligan gave one of the two best performances I saw this year, and if pushed I think she gave the best one. I was very glad to see Kirby get a nomination even though she has no chance to win – she is that movie, and she’s clearly a star on the rise.

Snubs: Carrie Coon for The Nest and Sidney Flanigan for Never Rarely Sometimes Always would both have been better choices than Day, who does a fine job with a terribly written part.

Best Actor

Riz Ahmed, Sound of Metal
Chadwick Boseman, Ma Rainey’s Black Bottom
Anthony Hopkins, The Father
Gary Oldman, Mank
Stephen Yeun, Minari

Who will win: Boseman

Who should win: Hopkins

Boseman’s going to win, obviously, and he was very good … but Hopkins was just better, in a more significant role. I wouldn’t want to see the reaction if Hopkins were to win.

Snubs: I’m good with these five. Dev Patel was great in A Personal History of David Copperfield.

Best Supporting Actress

Maria Bakalova, Borat Subsequent Moviefilm
Glenn Close, Hillbilly Elegy
Olivia Colman, The Father
Amanda Seyfried, Mank
Yuh-Jung Youn, Minari

Who will win: Youn

Who should win: Youn

I feel like this is a lock, and of the four I’ve seen – I haven’t seen Hillbilly Elegy and see no good reason to do so – I’d put Youn and Colman as 1 and 1A, Bakalova second, and would give Seyfried a participation trophy. Maybe Close gets some sort of lifetime achievement thing here, especially after losing to Colman a few years ago when she was supposed to win, but people forget that The Wife was actually a shit movie.

Snubs: Tilda Swinton was superb in The Personal History of David Copperfield, certainly deserving of Seyfried’s spot.

Best Supporting Actor

Sasha Baron Cohen, The Trial of the Chicago 7
Daniel Kaluuya, Judas and the Black Messiah
Leslie Odom, Jr., One Night in Miami
Paul Raci, Sound of Metal
LaKeith Stanfield, Judas and the Black Messiah

Who will win: Kaluuya

Who should win: Kaluuya

I’ll say this – if Raci wins, it’ll be an amazing story, and I’ll cheer for him. But Kaluuya was slightly better in a much more significant role, and he’s one of the best actors going today. Of course, he was really the lead actor in Judas, but that’s another story entirely, I guess.

Snubs: I’m also good with these five, although Kingsley Ben?Adir was pretty amazing as Malcolm X in One Night in Miami.

Best Documentary Feature

Collective
Crip Camp
The Mole Agent
My Octopus Teacher
Time

What will win: Time

What should win: Collective

I just don’t know; I thought Time was the shoo-in here, but Tim Grierson thinks My Octopus Teacher – easily my least favorite of these – is going to win, and no matter what, Collective should win, because it’s the best story and it’s told so effortlessly.

Snubs: Transhood. It’s on HBO Max. You should watch it.

Best Writing, Original Screenplay

Judas and the Black Messiah
Minari
Promising Young Woman
Sound of Metal
The Trial of the Chicago 7

What should win: Promising Young Woman

What will win: Promising Young Woman

The screenplay categories have become a way to honor a film that has no shot at Best Picture (or maybe anything else) with a little pat on the head to say, “good job, we liked your little movie.” In this case, though, I’m good with Promising Young Woman taking this award home but not getting Director or Best Picture; the script itself is daring and novel and gets at least some of the credit for enabling Mulligan’s performance.

Snubs: A Sun, Never Rarely Sometimes Always, The Nest.

Best Writing, Adapted Screenplay

Borat Subsequent Moviefilm
The Father
Nomadland
One Night in Miami
The White Tiger

What should win: One Night in Miami

What will win: The Father

I could go either way here with those two screenplays; The Father is a better movie, because of Hopkins and some directorial choices, but Miami gets a very slight edge for me in the writing department.

Snubs: A Personal History of David Copperfield. You may remember the original.

Best Animated Feature Film

Onward
Over the Moon
Shaun the Sheep: Farmageddon
Soul
Wolfwalkers

What should win: Wolfwalkers

What will win: Soul

Pixar just has such a huge advantage in this category that it seems contrarian to predict any non-Pixar film to win, but I’ll pull for Wolfwalkers, another hand-drawn film from Cartoon Saloon, even knowing it probably has no chance. Soul might be fourth for me among these nominees.

Snubs: The only other eligible film I saw was A Whisker Away, an anime film you can see on Netflix, which offers a far better story than Onward.

Best Animated Short Film

“Burrow”
“Genius Loci”
“If Anything Happens I Love You”
“Opera”
“Yes-People”

What should win: “If Anything Happens I Love You”

What will win: “Burrow”

“If Anything Happens I Love You,” available on Netflix, follows a couple after their only child has been killed in a school shooting. It’s devastating, and the style of the art further evokes those emotions. But I always assume Pixar is going to win this category. (I haven’t seen “Opera,” which appears to only be streaming on the subscription site ShortsTV.)

Snubs: “Cops and Robbers,” also on Netflix, can’t quite match the animation quality of “Yes-People” or the style of “Genius Loci” (which bored me), but the story, told as spoken-word poetry, is more relevant and more powerful. I don’t think dialogue gets you far in this category, though.

Best International Feature Film

Another Round
Better Days
Collective
The Man Who Sold His Skin
Quo Vadis, Aida?

I’ve only seen Another Round and Collective here; I’d vote for Collective of the two, but I think A Sun was better than both. The last two are now both on Hulu, so I’ll get to them eventually.

Filed Under: Uncategorized Tagged With: 2020 best actor nominees, 2020 best actress nominees, 2020 best adapted screenplay nominees, 2020 best animated feature nominees, 2020 best documentary feature nominees, 2020 best original screenplay nominees, 2020 best picture nominees, 2020 best supporting actor nominees, 2020 best supporting actress nominees, oscars

→ April 24, 2021
→ By keith

Stick to baseball, 4/24/21.

I had two posts this week for subscribers to the Athletic. I wrote a draft scouting notebook that focused on Louisville catcher Henry Davis, who might be the best prospect in this class. I also collaborated with Britt Ghiroli to look at the MLB Draft League, which sent out its initial rosters this week and earned negative reviews from scouts and executives. I also held a Klawchat this week.

Over at Paste, I reviewed the Princess Bride Adventure Book Game, a slight but fun co-operative game you can play with your kids or just because you love the movie, to which the game is very faithful.

On the Keith Law Show this week, my guest was our White Sox writer James Fegan, talking about Carlos Rodón, the Yerminator, and more. You can subscribe on Apple podcasts, Amazon, and Spotify. I also appeared on the Athletic Baseball Show on Friday, which will be my regular slot for most of the year; and on the Sports-Casters podcast, talking about the draft and my second book.

If you’d like to buy The Inside Game and support my board game habit, Midtown Scholar has about a dozen signed copies still available. You can also buy it from any of the indie stores in this twitter thread, all of whom at least had the book in stock earlier this month. If none of those works, you can find it on Bookshop.org and at Amazon.

For more of me, you can subscribe to my free email newsletter.

And now, the links…

Longreads: Vietnam has beaten COVID-19, with just 35 deaths in a country of over 96 million people. They did it with strict travel restrictions even as health experts said those were the wrong policy response.
There’s a movie coming out about Tim Ballard, former CEO of the anti-trafficking group Operation Underground Railroad, but he and his group have a history of exaggerating their feats as well as their (limited) links with law enforcement.
Cops who break the law in New Jersey often avoid prison, even when the crimes they commit should result in time.
Harvard profiled Professor Sandra Susan Smith and her work on the relationship between urban poverty and the prison-industrial complex.
NPR tells the story of the SolarWinds hack, one of the most extensive corporate hacks in history, which went undiscovered for nearly a year even as the company’s compromised software went out to customers.
With vaccination cards come frauds selling (and buying) fake vaccination cards, a crime made easier by sites like eBay refusing to crack down on their sale.
That “Stanford” study saying masks don’t work? Yeah, it’s not a real study, and the author has nothing to do with Stanford. Anti-mask loons lapped it up, though.
An editorial in Nature argues that social media sites should remove accounts that spread anti-vaccine misinformation or face stricter regulation.
A threatened advertiser boycott over Tucker Carlson’s embrace of white supremacist rhetoric hasn’t cooled Fox’s commitment to him.
Republicans who don’t believe in the First Amendment are introducing and passing bills that limit protestors’ rights and remove sanctions for people who hit protestors with their cars. We had a right to peaceable assembly, once.
Minor Figures, a London-based producer of coffee-related products, plastered ads for its new oat milk product all over existing street art in Philadelphia, spurring a backlash from artists and people in those communities.
Shock G, the main MC of Digital Underground who also played the character of Humpty Hump, died this week at age 57. He might be best known for “The Humpty Dance,” but Digital Underground was responsible for many better songs, including their first single, “Doowutchyalike,” and the track “Same Song,” which introduced the world to a 19-year-old rapper named 2Pac.
Jonathan Capeheart wrote in the wake of the Derek Chauvin verdict that being Black in America is exhausting.
President Biden appears to be on the verge of calling the Turkish massacre of Armenians in 1915 a genocide. Here’s what that means in practical terms.
A former producer of deceptively edited right-wing videos explains how he gamed the YouTube algorithm to rack up views and followers.
Board game news: Z-Man Games is putting out a new Carcassonne Big Box to celebrate the game’s 20^th anniversary.

Filed Under: Uncategorized Tagged With: board game news, coronavirus, first amendment, hip hop, links, longreads, philadelphia, social media, stick to baseball, vietnam

→ April 22, 2021
→ By keith

Klawchat 4/22/21.

My latest post for subscribers to the Athletic looks at Louisville catcher Henry Davis, maybe the best prospect in this year’s draft class, and other draft prospects from Louisville, Virginia, and the high school ranks.

Keith Law: I’ve got the answer. Open the envelope. Klawchat.

Mac: Will Jackson Jobe get top 5 consideration?
Keith Law: No. The last two drafts didn’t include a HS pitcher in the top 15 picks. Jobe shouldn’t be a top 5 pick on his own merits, or with what might be an industry trend away from HS pitchers up top.

Larry: Do you think Henry Davis’ receiving will improve? He has a problem with the catching part of catching.
Keith Law: That’s wrong. He receives well, throws plus, could use some help with blocking. I’m not sure where you got that information but it’s bad.

addoeh: It might be confirmation bias on my part, but it seems there are more HS seniors from cold weather states projected to go in the first couple of rounds the last few years or so, but especially this year. Is this accurate?
Keith Law: It seems accurate this year, but I don’t see a trend. California and Texas are just having their worst HS years in memory, and that’s creating opportunity (or need) for cold-weather kids to fill the gap.

Bill G: Thanks as always for doing these chats. How would you use Ohtani? Starter/DH, Starter only, DH only, DH/Closer? Thanks!
Keith Law: Just pick one. He’s a hitter or a pitcher. I think the Angels are losing some value by trying to have him do both.

AJ: Jazz is sure looking like the star you’ve said he would be. What is his ceiling? And do you think he’ll get that K rate down, or is 25-30% just who he is?
Keith Law: I could see him settling into the 23-25% range, but between the way the game is now and the way he swings, I doubt he ever has a year where he’s better than the league median in K%. I’m glad to see his at bats overall are better, though.

Fuzzy Dunlop: Around what round projection do you start seeing 6-8 organizations area scouts at that particular player’s game/starts? Our local HS Friday starter has probably seen that many at every one of his starts, but I can’t see him being more than a 15th-20th round guy. I know its obviously not an exact formula, but I always wondered.
Keith Law: That doesn’t add up. If he’s a HS pitcher on Fridays – the night most colleges throw their best guys – he wouldn’t have six area scouts there unless he’s a first-rounder. You’re seeing part-timers or they’re not scouts at all.

RickG: Hey Keith. Have you considered returning to Top Chef recaps, or would you ever? This season has been very interesting. I re-watched some seasons during the Pandemic and whenever possible re-read your takes – I’ve learned much more about cooking then I knew when the shows first aired and found your perspective even better the 2nd time around.
Keith Law: I appreciate that very much, but those took around 3 hours (viewing + writing) to do, and I just don’t have that kind of time any more.

Tom: Pavin Smith seeing some regular playing time. With the adjustment to his launch angle over the past year, what do you see his offensive output looking like?
Keith Law: He’s still getting on top of the ball a little too much, but I see a high-OBP 20-homer guy.

Guest: A few weeks (months?) ago you appeared on an Orioles podcast mentioned that one thing were concerned about for Kjerstad was his strikeout rate. What is more concerning about his strikeouts than, say, George Springer’s, who is someone you were higher on than consensus when he was coming out of college?
Keith Law: Kjerstad struck out way more often with far fewer walks. Springer had plate discipline, but didn’t bring a two-strike approach (other than “swing hard”). Kjerstad doesn’t have that.

J: Do you know where Pedro Leon is headed once the minor league seasons start? Or is he going to be in limbo for a while? Also – more impossible question – what can/should expectations be for him?
Keith Law: I doubt we’ll see many assignments till next week. Minor league season starts in 12 days, though!

davealden53: From 2009 to 2019, two friends and I took annual minor league trips of a week or more to different regions. 2020 was lost and 2021 isn’t looking a lot better. Instead, we’re considering the Arizona Fall League for the first week of November. What have you heard about the AFL plans for this year? Will the season extend into November? And will fans be allowed to attend games?
Keith Law: I haven’t heard anything yet and I’m concerned MLB will just decide to axe the league to save another $23.

TomBruno23: For years the Vitae Foundation, a pro-life organization based in Jefferson City, MO, has been a sponsor of St. Louis Cardinals baseball on KMOX. This season they bring us the starting lineups each and every game. How upset should I be about this? I honestly do not know. https://vitaefoundation.org/
Keith Law: I wouldn’t give my money to the team in that situation, but my guess is that they’re playing to their base.

Tom: Joc Pederson off to a slow start. Sure, SSS, but he’s K’ing a lot even for him. Think he can be a solid offensive contributor?
Keith Law: I do, but I’m concerned that he’s whiffing so much against RHP. He’s never really hit lefties and expecting him to is foolhardy.

Sedona: Is Aaron Ashby the 3rd best SP in the entire org?
Keith Law: No – I’m not completely sold that he’s a starter.

Michael: Hi Keith. Giants fan here – interested to see what you think of farhans strategy the past two plus seasons? I know we are better than we were when he got here and appreciate that we didn’t “tank”, but do you feel we are actually closer to competing for a championship now than two years ago? Thanks!
Keith Law: Yes, I like the overall direction, and especially the way they’re trying out veterans who might benefit from a change of scenery and approach, players who’d be great trade pieces in July if the Giants are out of it. The worst thing that could happen would be some fake contention where they keep all of those guys instead.

Moe Mentum: It’s still early (SSS) but what should the Phillies do about their glaring hole in center field? I know you won’t recommend Odubel Herrera, but…
Keith Law: I’d probably play Quinn out there, of the options on the roster. They can fire Herrera into the sun for all I care. Moniak isn’t the answer, and while I wish the best for Haseley, they have to move on. I don’t think they have anyone close enough in the system to be better than a replacement-level Quinn.

Aaron in Indy: Glad to see Yankee fans handling their early season struggles with the patience and level headedness that we could only come to expect.

But seriously, does Boone make it thru the year if they don’t drastically improve. And I think they will start hitting more especially when Volt comes back. But do they have enough pitching (including minor league) to make a run at the division???
Keith Law: It’s not even 10% of the season, though. Joe Sheehan wrote somewhere the other day that every team has a 5-10 stretch at some point, even the best teams. The overreaction to the small sample is mind-boggling, even if you buy into the stereotype of the Yankee fan (I think Yankee fans are no different than fans of other teams, but we think they’re louder because there are so many more of them).

Sedona: Has Kopech shown anything differently so far to change your outlook on him?
Keith Law: No, this is what I thought he’d do in a relief role – now we’ll see how it goes as he stretches out, if his command holds (it really turned a corner in the last two months he spent in the minors) and he stays healthy.

Jason: Are reverse splits a real thing for relievers? Chris Martin was substantially better against lefties in 2019 (and better in 2020, though his numbers were really good against both), but I’m curious as to whether that can be sustinable
Keith Law: They can be real, but you’d probably need about three years’ worth of innings to be sure of it. It would help if you could see it in the arsenal – a pitcher with a great changeup or split, but not much of a breaking ball, would likely have a reverse split.

John: An mlb.com mock draft published yesterday showed Rocker falling to the Red Sox at 4. What do you see as the chances of that happening?
Keith Law: Not unreasonable.

Noah: Re: the Mets front office, don’t you think at this point Sandy Alderson has to step down? One mistake in hiring is maybe something you can shrug off (although with sexual harassment, I don’t think so), but this is a pattern.
Keith Law: Yes, he absolutely does, for rehiring someone with a history of harassment over the active objections of multiple current employees. I have always liked and respected Sandy, but this is not just an error in judgment, and his response to the Athletic article did not help matters.
Keith Law: My guess is that he’ll finish the year and be allowed to “resign” on his terms, since his departure now would leave an interim GM and no baseball executive above him, but I wouldn’t even wait that long. It sends a horrible message to the organization.

Jason: Is billy mckinney (with his former first round pedigree) a breakout candidate or is he just having a hot start?
Keith Law: He has a .297 OBP. That’s not a hot start.

Steve: What is the main reason Wander Franco isn’t a major leaguer yet?
Keith Law: He’s never played above A-ball.

Ben Z: Alright Keith. Hit us with your Oscar picks. I know you haven’t seen MINARI yet (I think), my choice for Best Picture of the nominees, albeit in a deservedly tight, strong 1-2 race with Nomadland…so setting that movie aside for now…
Keith Law: I think Nomadland will win, and it would be my pick. This year’s possible Green Book is The Trial of the Chicago 7, which is very actorly and Such an Important Movie, You Know, In This Moment, but which I would rank 8th of the nominees.

Zach: Do you think Tejay Antone’s stuff can hold up in the rotation? It looks like has video game cheat codes.
Keith Law: Big spin guy but more likely a reliever in the end. Stuff plays, though.

Uli Jon: I thought this was going to be an above average draft a year ago, which maybe says something about early projections as well as Covid weirdness. If you had to pick one, would you say this class is weak or more of a shrug emoji?
Keith Law: It’s ended up weak. Now maybe it’s because guys were rusty, or are dealing with more fatigue than usual, but it’s a weak class.

Anthony: If Tatis was still a prospect would you drop him in your rankings because of this shoulder issue?
Keith Law: No, that’s absurd.

Frank: You seem to be a big Henry Davis fan from your article. If you were picking 1-1 would you take him over any of the pitchers?
Keith Law: I am going to see Leiter (if possible) in the next few weeks, but right now, I think I would. Elite bat at catcher. Position player > pitcher. And the pitchers this year, while very good up top, are not Strasburg/Cole/Price.

Michael: Vlad is crushing it. Is it because he’s really in the best shape of his life or something else?
Keith Law: Two possible explanations: either it’s because he’s putting the ball in the air a lot more (launch angle is way up over 2019 or 220), or it’s because I made him a breakout pick last year and those names always seem to be a year too early (or, as with Rickie Weeks, just never right).

Jays: Are the Jays’ defensive issues an organizational failure or the logical outcome of a bat first bottleneck? Is improvement even possible?
Keith Law: Bat-first bottleneck, sure, but also, why play Bichette at short over Semien? why play Biggio at third? They’re making some specific choices that, while probably not huge individually, might add up to 10 or more runs allowed over the course of the year.

Ben Z: What do you think is the proper course for my Nats? It seems like their window has finally shut. It’s been a great decade and I’m not complaining (nor can I get too upset over things like the Strasburg and Corbin contracts or their failure to extend young position player superstars or trading away Giolito and Luzardo…who knows, remove one of these, and maybe they don’t get their ring)…but this will be a tough plane to take apart and rebuild…
Keith Law: Scherzer would be quite the coveted midseason acquisition if they choose to trade him. I know that’s not Rizzo’s MO, but he could probably make a killing.

Amos: Hi Keith – If you were in charge of the A’s, would you roll the dice on Jaden Hill towards the end of the 1st round? They’ve gambled on high end tools in Beck and Murray and Hill seems like a similar lottery ticket type pick if given the time to recover from TJ surgery. Thanks.
Keith Law: Depends on the medicals, but yeah, where they pick, it would be a worthwhile gamble in this draft.

Guest: The standard answer is you should never draft for need and the worst result is you have multiple talented prospects at the same position which you can trade- buuuut, would the Yankees take another catcher at 20 (given the prep catcher talent) if they’ve drafted 3 catchers in the top 2 rounds in the last 3 years?
Keith Law: Why, though? It’s not a great prep catcher class, so I’m not sure why they’d specifically take one with greater depth in other areas of the class.

Max: What does Del Castillo have to do to get back into the top-5ish part of the draft a lot of people pegged him at earlier this year?
Keith Law: That’s just not happening.

HH: Are teams allowed to ask players whether they’ve had the Covid-19 vaccine, and if not, whether they plan to get it? Would you downgrade a player who refused relative to a similar player who wouldn’t? If so, how much?
Keith Law: That’s a good question. I assume they could ask, given what they’re allowed to ask players about their medical histories. I would consider refusal to get a vaccine as an indicator of questionable makeup. It shows a lack of critical thinking.

Mac: I get all that about Jobe but what if he’s a unicorn? HS right hander aside he sure checks a lot of boxes for a TOR pitcher.
Keith Law: He’s not, though. He doesn’t check any more boxes than Abel did. And you’re ignoring the base rate – why is he going to be a unicorn? Because he’s tall and athletic? So are lots of top HS pitchers. Because he throws hard? Well, even more do that.
Keith Law: Jobe is a good prospect. He doesn’t belong in the top 5.

Dylan: Re travel to Texas for scouting Lawlar — I was in Dallas this past weekend, and nearly everyone I encountered was masked. My sense is that the metro areas still act about like they did under the mask orders, but that it’s a different story in rural areas.
Keith Law: That’s great to hear, although his season is about to end on Tuesday, and there will only be limited chances to see him beyond that.

Chris: Thoughts on Frankie Montas?
Keith Law: He’s a reliever, always has been. I’m amazed how much of a chance he’s gotten to start.

JC: Austin Riley’s baseball savant’s page is hard to look at – do you think this was a case of the Braves actually thinking he could get better, or just being cheap and hoping they can get anything for min salary? Just all around frustrating to watch him now
Keith Law: I assume it was more cost than anything else – play the existing options, wait for Shewmake to pop by the end of this year.

Rob: Have you seen a single coherent argument *against* DC statehood? I mean sure, it is a “power grab” to a certain extent. But what isn’t these days? Tell me why DC doesn’t *deserve* statehood and maybe I’ll listen, wingnuts!
Keith Law: I haven’t. It’s all rooted in race or party.

Graves: Should I impute to an organization the beliefs of its advertisers? If so, why?
Keith Law: They made an active choice to partner with an anti-abortion group. If your favorite team chose to partner with a white supremacist group, would you not impute those beliefs to the team?

Brett: Have you seen Arkansas outfielder Christian Franklin? Any thoughts on his draft stock?
Keith Law: Second/third round type. Been much worse since conference play starter, but has some tools on both sides and could be an interesting project for someone. Maybe he gets into the comp round – there are a lot of guys in that Kam Misner sort of category, toolsy college outfielders who swing and miss way too much but have upside. After Jeren Kendall, though, teams seem reluctant to take them in the first round.

John: How serious is Jarren Duran’s swing and miss issue?
Keith Law: I’m sorry, what swing and miss issue? Did he play in some games this year I missed?

Pete: Do you think LaRussa is mis-handling Andrew Vaughn right now? He’s playing him sporadically and batting him 8th a lot, all while Vaughn is learning a new position. Is this messing with Vaughn’s development or is this the appropriate way for a win-now team to break in a prospect?
Keith Law: James Fagen said this on my podcast this week – if they’re not playing Vaughn every day, he should be in the minors once those start.

Mitchell: Klaw, how well do you think the Dbacks are set up for the future with Hazen. Lost cause this year but do they have enough in the system to be competitive down the road with Carroll, Robinson, Corbin, etc?
Keith Law: Yeah, the system is really strong, especially with some of the pitching on the come – if guys like Grammes and Cecconi really have turned the corner, the system will look a lot better in July when we reassess. The lack of a season last year to see if their supposed changes were real does hurt their perception, although it makes no difference in reality.

Ben Z: Do we think Victor Robles is ever going to reach what seemed to be his potential as a prospect to be a decent offensive player? Or has he regressed in a way that seems permanent?
Keith Law: His main problem seems to be that he just doesn’t hit the ball hard enough often enough. I’m not really sure how you fix that.

ivy: Do you see Dean Kremer as having the potential to become, say, a #3 starter? He can look terrific for several innings, seems to have problems sustaining his performance for more than a few innings. How fixable is that sort of problem?
Keith Law: The delivery isn’t great, but I think he can be a back-end guy, a 4 or a 5 who eats innings but is worse than league-average at run prevention.

Rodney: Slow start for Rowdy Tellez. Lots of folks were highlighting changes in his BB and K rates last year. But… it was 36 games, right? He’s still probably the same 4A/platoon guy?
Keith Law: Yep, same as he ever was.

Roger: when do we see kelenic and Franco in the majors?
Keith Law: I’m guessing May and June, respectively. We’ll see what Seattle does with Lewis back and the minors starting, so Trammell would have somewhere to play.

Bree: Keith – Love your work. The A’s have had a number of players who were relatively underrated as prospects v their big league performance (Olson, Chapman, Canha). Why do you think that’s the case, if there’s an underlying reason at all and who in their current system do you think could be next to outperform their current prospect status?
Keith Law: Canha was a rule 5 pick who’s been fine as a part-time player – he’s never even qualified for the batting title. He’s not in the class of Chapman, who cut down on his swing and miss right when he reached the majors, which is really remarkable. I asked some A’s people about it a few years ago for a column on “guys I got wrong,” and they said they didn’t have a great explanation for it, either. It was something he did on his own and they gave him the credit.

Ryan: I’m a Twins fan, please tell me it is going to be ok. On another note, Kiriloff has to be up this weekend right?
Keith Law: I thought he was going to make the OD roster, so of course I’ll say yes.

David: What would you put the odds at that the Pirates draft someone other than Lieter? Your piece of Henry Davis opened my eyes.
Keith Law: I think they should explore Davis as an option, yes, absolutely, both because he might be the #1 prospect in the class, and because maybe they can get the best deal between him and Leiter (I don’t think they’re on a HS kid there) and do more at their next pick.

Jason: dinselson lamet– should he have gotten TJ
Keith Law: Uh … didn’t he have TJ?

Rob: Bummed that the Phils had to recall Kingery while he was still working on swing changes, and reportedly struggling with it. Seems like another setback for his development, no? What’s the prognosis now?
Keith Law: Not ideal, no.

Guest: The Yankees are obviously tanking for Elijah Greene right?
Keith Law: Man, I’ve heard some really mixed things on him. I talked to one scout who said it’s among the best tools prospects in years, and a day later another scout who wouldn’t take him in the first round.
Keith Law: I will say I find these year-ahead hype guys pan out less often than you’d think. I’m not saying this on Green, but often it’s the kid who grew fastest rather than the kid who’s the best prospect.

Matt: Thoughts on Cedric Mullins? Was a switch hitter who gave up hitting from the right side this year. Now top 5 in the AL in hits. Small sample size, but it seems to be clicking more this year.
Keith Law: SSS.

Chris: Cape Cod League just announced their season! Can’t recall, do you still come up for some CC games ever? Be fun to run into you.
Keith Law: Yes, not since 2018, but I do love going up there and really hope to work it in this summer. Might have to be after the draft, though.

Amir: Do you think Thatcher Hurd could go in the 1st round? What do you think about him?
Keith Law: Maybe 5% chance. He’s a second-round talent and I think he’s someone’s second pick overpay, not a first-rounder. We’ll see, though – almost three months to the draft, so a lot of time for Hurd (or anyone) to show something new, throwing harder or showing more power or something, and change that.

Kevin C: Tatis’s slow start, not just at the plate but in the field is concerning. How much should be attributed to the shoulder injury?
Keith Law: I’m assuming all of it is.

Mike: Point me to some Asheville eats please
Keith Law: Never been. Isn’t that sad?

Guest: Will the Pirates draft another “number three” pitcher 1-1?
Keith Law: I have had that worry with Leiter … he’s a better prospect than Bullington was, but if he’s not a future ace, will Pirates fans just put them in the same category?

Chris: George kirby is touching 101 now? I know all the reasons to not get excited, but have you heard/seen anything that makes his outlook change?
Keith Law: I heard that from Eric Longenhagen – I assume he wrote it, too – and if Kirby’s throwing that hard, yes, it changes his outlook, because his fastball played below its velocity in college. At, say, 96-101, though, “playing down” might still be okay.

Tim: Does Nick Madrigal have value even without the ability to hit for extra bases?
Keith Law: Yes, absolutely – I’ve never said he had no value. He just has no ceiling.

Danial W: Glad you got to try Al Carbon while you were in town. Next time there are a couple pizzas up your alley, Lampo near downtown and surprisingly from Vivace near the stadium. Have you had a chance to notice any significant changes from any major leaguers in this short season?
Keith Law: Lampo had a 140 minute wait for take-out that night. I didn’t have that kind of time. I’ve mentioned a few of those changes above, like Vlad Jr.’s swing change, and I don’t suppose it’s any news to talk about Corbin Burnes’ cutter (and he was already an ace in my mind).

David H: Thanks as always for doing these chats, Keith. Long-time reader, first-time poster. Wednesday was the 5th anniversary of Prince’s death, so I went through your archives to find your ranking of his top songs. I also read the LA Times list that ranked his 85 singles. The Times’ No. 1, “If I Was Your Girlfriend,” didn’t make your list, so I was just curious, given your status as a Prince fan, why that was?
Keith Law: What a weird choice. It’s not a very interesting or catchy song.

Matt: During weak draft classes, why don’t we see more teams punt to the next year? If you’re 7th in a weak draft year, aren’t you better off not getting a deal done and picking 8th if the next year is stronger?
Keith Law: No, you’re definitely not. For one thing, you don’t know if the next draft is stronger. For another, you could lose your job before then, maybe for fucking up the draft, and then someone else gets that pick.

wickethewok: Would a season-long Buxton break out be the most gratifying case for you of a player fulfilling your projected potential (short of Rickie Weeks coming out of retirement)?
Keith Law: Yes, because good Byron Buxton is extremely good for baseball. The man is a walking highlight machine.

Jason: Hi Keith, do you ever listen to audiobooks? I know you prefer dead trees, but audiobooks have really allowed me to get back to consuming books again
Keith Law: I do, but only certain genres, because I don’t have the same level of concentration and often miss stuff. It’s hard to do that with a novel and fully appreciate the work.

John: Bobby Witt Jr. over/under July 1?
Keith Law: After.

Dallas: Corbin Burnes went 4th round out of college. What was the report coming out of college and how much of this is talent vs. “pitch building” especially with the unreal spin rates on all of his pitches? My real question is how much of this is “pitch building”/adding spin?
Keith Law: Looks like I had him 46th overall on my Big Board that year. He faded somewhat toward the end of that spring for St. Mary’s, and I guess it really scared teams off; at the start of the year he looked like he might get into the late first round. Of course, his stuff is substantially better now than it was then.

Mike: What are your thoughts on the experiment of moving the mound back a foot?
Keith Law: I think it’s going to get a lot of pitchers hurt. MLB is incredible at failing to foresee the consequences of its actions.

Richard: Were you ever a baseball card collector?
Thoughts on the new Topps NFTs or NFTs in general?
Keith Law: As a kid yes. I would buy NFTs but I don’t want to sell off my South Seas stock.

Todd: Hi Keith – How did you rate Matt Olson as a prospect? What did you hit/miss about how he has turned out?
Keith Law: Made my top 100 once, then not the next year, then he was in the majors. This fluke start aside, he’s hit for some more average than I expected.

Rob: I enjoyed the Henry Davis article – I realize it’s too early for a mock draft, but any indication that teams’ thinking is evolving to have him as a top five and maybe 1-1 guy?
Keith Law: I ran that idea by a bunch of people before writing it, and nobody said it was crazy or just wrong. Most folks agreed that Davis should be in the top tier – I didn’t really go further than that – with the Vandy boys and Lawlar.

Food Fan: Hey, thanks for the chat! Cooking question. I have never used sherry vinegar but find myself with some recipes I want to try where I need it. I can’t find it easily without long drives to places I don’t usually go, something I just don’t want to do during a pandemic. Therefore, I will buy online. The options are overwhelming and I’m not sure which to select or how much to spend. Any specific recommendations?
Keith Law: I usually buy it at Whole Foods when one is on sale – any brand – because it is expensive. Jose Andres has one that’s good and often is $2-3 off at my store.

Mike: At what point does marijuana get federally legalized? And with that can we get the records of those locked up because of it exspunged?
Keith Law: I think that happens under this Administration. More than half of the population lives in states where it’s at least decriminalized. And it is such a waste of time and money to treat its possession or use as a crime. I’m in favor of the latter part as well.

Rick: You need to relax and stop trying to do the right thing.
Keith Law: Well that’s the worst advice I’ve ever gotten.

Jason: You mentioned weird defensive decisions – remember when the Phillies played Kingery at SS and Crawford at 3B for a while? Did that make any sense?
Keith Law: No, but lo and behold, Crawford improved when he went to Seattle and played shortstop full time.

Jason: When are you coming out with a LawCoin?
Keith Law: Climate change is serious enough without me adding to it.
Keith Law: OK, that’s all for this week. Thank you all for all of your questions and for reading! I should be back next week for another chat, and I’ll be back on the Athletic’s daily baseball podcast tomorrow morning. Don’t forget to pick up The Inside Game, now out in paperback, at your local bookstore or online via Bookshop. Thanks again!

Filed Under: Uncategorized Tagged With: klawchat

→ April 22, 2021
→ By keith

A Sun.

The gripping Taiwanese neo-noir film A Sun mostly escaped critical notice in 2020 after hitting Netflix last January, only coming to broader attention when Variety critic Peter Debruge named it the best film of 2020. Even now, it has just 15 reviews on Rotten Tomatoes, only three from major U.S.-based outlets, despite making the short list for the Academy Award for Best International Feature. It should have advanced to the final five, because it’s one of the best films I’ve seen from 2020, wrapping a 21^st century crime drama and a story of family tragedy ripped out of 19^th century Brit Lit together in a strange and totally compelling picture.

A Sun starts out with a shocking scene, as we see two teenage boys heading through the kitchens of a large restaurant into the dining room, where one of them approaches another teenager at a table, takes a machete, and hacks off the victim’s hand, leaving him screaming and covered with blood on the floor. The reasons for this won’t become apparent for some time, but we learn that Chen Jian Ho, called A-Ho throughout the film, is one of the two attackers, along with his friend Radish, and claims at the trial that he thought they were only going to scare the victim, not maim him. This incident sets off ripples throughout A-Ho’s family – his seemingly perfect brother, studying in cram school so he can become a doctor, starts to crack from the added pressure on him as the good son; his father refuses to acknowledge A-Ho as his son, and is beset by the victim’s father, who demands the compensation the court awarded him; his mother, quietly devastated time and again in this film, takes in A-Ho’s young girlfriend, who is pregnant with his child and living with an aunt. We follow A-Ho through his time in prison and his release, but when Radish, who received a longer sentence, gets out as well, he tracks A-Ho down and proceeds to make more trouble for his ‘friend’ even as A-Ho is trying to live a quiet, law-abiding life.

There are so many layers to A Sun, which is titled “Sunlight Reveals All” in Taiwanese, but at its heart it’s a story about A-Ho and his father, who works as a driving instructor and clearly wants more for both of his kids than he’s gotten from life. Chen Yi-wen, who plays A-Ho’s father Wen, won the Taiwanese equivalent of the Oscar for Best Actor at the Golden Horse Awardst, but his performance here builds over the course of the movie; what starts out as a hackneyed “I have only one son” character develops into far more by the time the movie hits its climax and Wen has to make a choice to help A-Ho when Radish once again has him in trouble. Chen’s performance is anguished and understated, and the dynamic between him and A-Ho (played by Wu Chien-ho, who was also nominated for the Golden Horse for Best Actor) reveals itself slowly to be more complex and emotional than it first appears.

There’s some irony both the original and English titles of A Sun given how much of the movie takes place under cover of night or in pouring rain; even when the sun is out, it’s often shining a light on something we’d rather not see. Director and co-writer Chung Mong-hong gives the film its neo-noir feel by keeping so much of the film in the literal and figurative dark; we don’t learn anything about the reasons for the initial attack until well into the second half of the film, by which point it threatens to upend the audience’s established opinions on various characters, and resets the tone for the drive to the finish. Chung’s script avoids black and white answers, right up through the final scene, in depicting a family that has made mistakes but is also being pushed around by inexorable fate. The sun will rise tomorrow, but you might not like what it shows you.

Filed Under: Uncategorized Tagged With: 2020 movies, highly recommended, noir, taiwanese films

→ April 21, 2021
→ By keith

The Father.

Nominated for six Academy Awards this year, including Best Picture, The Father gives a devastating portrait of dementia from the perspective of the sufferer, recasting the experience as a psychological mystery – but one without the promise of a neat ending. It brings together an incredibly clever screenplay and a BAFTA-winning performance from Anthony Hopkins, while making superb use of the limited space of a film set almost entirely in one flat. (It’s available to rent now as a premium/early access option for $19.99 through amazon and other VOD sites.)

Adapted from the stage version by the playwright Florian Zeller, The Father starts out simply enough: Anthony (Hopkins) is arguing with his daughter Anne (Olivia Colman, also nominated for an Oscar) because he has scared off his most recent carer. He says it’s because she stole his watch, and rants about his other daughter, Lucy, whose name seems to bring the film to a screeching halt whenever Anthony broaches the topic. In the following scene, Anthony finds a strange man (Mark Gatiss) in his living room, and the man says he’s Paul, Anne’s partner, whom Anthony doesn’t recognize – and when Anne returns, she’s played by a different actress (Olivia Williams) and Anthony doesn’t recognize her either. Is this just his memory failing, or is something more sinister at play?

The Father utilizes those tricks and more – details of the flat change as well, part of the nonlinear nature of time in this film – to express Anthony’s disorientation to the viewer beyond having him show his confusion. His flat and his daughter’s share a structure, but things like light fixtures, furniture, and wall colors differ slightly, just enough to throw Anthony and the viewer off as we try to figure out not just where we are, but when. Hopkins is truly incredible here, still showing a plus fastball here at age 81 (when it was filmed), delivering the sort of performance the film requires and that you’d expect to see in a stage production. His confusion is palpable, his attempts to mask it through word and action realistic, and his rapid mood shifts – one of the scariest aspects of dementia for family members – are just a series of hard line drives, impressive because they’re subtle and yet impossible to ignore. The script avoids the obvious, such as having Anthony become violent, or scream obscenities, or other possible behaviors of someone with his condition, and instead lets Hopkins deliver the smaller but no less devastating changes in a way that hammers them home to the viewer.

This film is as replete with symbolism as any I can remember watching, perhaps a reflection of its stage origins, although in this sense it felt just as much like a classic novel. The color blue is everywhere in this film – walls, backsplashes, furniture, clothes – which seems like an obvious nod to the sadness and depression suffered by both a patient developing dementia and their loved ones, while the color also appears in a new setting at the end of the film that makes the connection more explicit. Anthony’s obsession with his watch, which can be a common behavior in patients with memory loss, may also represent his slipping grasp of time; in one scene, the time jumps from early morning to evening without a cut, leaving Anthony, still in his pajamas, even more confused than usual. There could be more – the shattered tea cup, the painting above the fireplace, the trees – but I will assume the chicken is, in this case, just a chicken.

The one quibble I have with The Father is the ending, which may be completely realistic but does take away some of the mystery that Zeller built up in the preceding 100 or so minutes with a resolution that, again, is probably accurate to such stories, but took some air out of the dramatic balloon. We spent much of the movie trying to come up with possible explanations for everything that was happening – for example, are Gatiss and Williams some sort of confidence artists? – but the story is much simpler than that.

Hopkins is just incredible here, my favorite lead actor performance of the year, although I don’t think there’s any chance he wins the award over Chadwick Boseman for Ma Rainey’s Black Bottom (and I’m not sure I would want to see the reaction if he did). Colman is superb as well, my favorite of the three nominees I’ve seen, although it appears the favorite is one I haven’t seen, Youn Yuh-jung for Minari. It’s also nominated for Best Adapted Screenplay, which could be its best chance for a win on Sunday. As for the film itself, I would still lean towards Nomadland for Best Picture, but this sits at #2 on my ranking of movies from the 2020-early 2021 awards cycle, with just a couple of candidates left to see, and one more that made my top 5 still left to review.

Filed Under: Uncategorized Tagged With: 2020 best actor nominees, 2020 best adapted screenplay nominees, 2020 best picture nominees, 2020 best supporting actress nominees, 2020 movies, adaptations, highly recommended

→ April 20, 2021
→ By keith

Charlottesville eats.

On my way out of Charlottesville to drive home, I stopped at The Fitzroy, a gastropub in the city’s Downtown Mall, to grab dinner for the road. I went with their roasted broccolini and mozzarella sandwich, served on ciabatta with lightly roasted cherry tomatoes and basil pesto, which turned out tob exactly what I wanted – filling but not heavy, with a huge quantity of the star broccolini, which were roasted deeply enough to get some color and caramelization on them. The menu is small but has plenty of options for carnivores and vegetarians, and apparently they make their own tonic water for G&Ts, which I’d love to try when I’m not facing a 220-mile drive.

Al Carbon is a fast-casual Peruvian chicken place up Seminole Trail about 3 miles north of campus, serving the standards of that cuisine as well as some Mexican-inspired dishes like elote, esquites, and cemitas. I went with the basics – a quarter dark with maduros (fried sweet plantains) and elote con mayonesa (corn on the cob, rolled in mayo, cotija cheese, chile powder, and lime zest). The chicken was good but the least interesting thing I ate; it was still juicy but the bulk of the flavor was on the skin, not in the meat. The plantains were absurdly good, slightly crispy and chewy at the edges, but bordering on custardy at the center, while the elote was spicier than what I’m using to having in that dish, but in a good way. Al Carbon also shares a parking lot with a Kohr Bros. Frozen Custard stand, if you’re so inclined. I was.

MarieBette is a small French bakery that the internet told me does great breakfast sandwiches, which seemed like an ideal thing to eat on the go. Their croissants are divine, flaky and buttery with barely enough flour to hold the whole thing together, and I definitely ate it while it was still too hot. They do a full coffee service as well, but I skipped that to go check out JBird Supply, a small coffee micro-roaster with a shop in a shared office space that serves pour-over, drip, and espresso options from a small selection of their own beans. They seem to focus on small growers who provide for their workers or communities, whether it’s Uganda, Ethiopia, Guatemala, or anywhere else where they source their beans. I tried their Ethiopia Sidamo as a pour-over, which was less overtly citrusy than the typical Ethiopian coffee, and picked up a bag of beans from the Gorilla Summit station in southwestern Uganda, near the border with Rwanda. The latter have a powerful black cherry aroma the moment you open the bag, and the coffee from it has the same note but with some nuttier undertones.

I didn’t get to visit my favorite dinner spot in Charlottesville, Mas Tapas, as its hours conflicted with the game time Friday and I wanted to hit the road as soon as I could on Saturday. I did get a quick to-go meal from Moe’s Original BBQ right near the UVA stadium; it’s a regional chain of passable barbeque, but I think their collard greens are very good, just spicy enough, salty but not too much so, and their ‘marinated slaw’ is vinegar-based rather than mayo-based, which I prefer. You can do better in Charlottesville if you have the time, though.

Filed Under: Uncategorized Tagged With: breakfast, charlottesville, coffee, peruvian cuisine, virginia

→ April 19, 2021
→ By keith

A Promised Land.

I usually don’t read political autobiographies, because I feel reasonably sure that I’m going to get more self-serving renditions of history than true eludication or, dare we expect so much, real candor from the authors. I’m just not that interested in hearing the stories from people who have much to gain or lose from the way in which those stories are told.

So when my daughter bought me Barack Obama’s A Promised Land, the first part of his memoirs from his time as President, I was more than a little skeptical that I’d enjoy or appreciate it. I admire President Obama, and believe his tenure was more successful than his critics on the right or the far left want you to believe, and that Republican obstructionism was the major reason why he didn’t accomplish more – but I also see many missteps and lost opportunities, as well as policies that just defy reason (the use and frequency of drone strikes in the Middle East, especially Yemen) or that took too long for him to embrace (marriage equality). I was unsure in 2016 and 2017 how much blame to lay at the Obama Administration’s feet for failing to anticipate the rise of Trump and white nationalism, going back to his handling of the birther hoax. And I didn’t want to read 700-plus pages of rationalization or revisionism.

That’s not what A Promised Land is, though. I’m sure there is some inexactness in the retelling of certain stories – I find it hard to believe he’d have all of those quotes written down or memorized, especially with some going back twenty-odd years – and it’s impossible to know what details he chose to omit from the book. But it feels thorough, in detail and in intent, as Obama does acknowledge multiple mistakes in policy and in his management of the executive branch, and if the book has a major flaw it’s that thoroughness – he recounts so many conversations and trips in so much detail that the book drags, and I can’t believe this is only half of the intended volume.

A Promised Land takes us from Obama’s youth through the military operation that led to the killing of Osama bin Laden, so it’s more than a memoir of his time in the White House, or even in politics, and if you’re curious about the development of his character – or, as I was, how someone from a rather unlikely background rose so quickly from a state legislative position to the White House – that is the book’s true throughline. We learn far more about Barack Obama the person here than about, say, how certain decisions came to pass. That may seem a strange comment on a book of this length (and small font), but there’s a distinction between giving us every detail of a meeting, such as every word spoken or gesture made, and giving context and nuance to the scene. This book is a depiction rather than an explanation. So many of the compromises of Obama’s first term, large or small, are attributed to political expediency, often to the argument that it was “do this or the deal doesn’t get done.” Yes, that is how our unwieldy system of government works, but A Promised Land doesn’t connect enough of the dots here.

So much of the part of the book that covers his first two years in office is really a lengthy indictment of the existence of the United States Senate, which gives so much power to legislators who represent wildly unequal numbers of constituents. The camera needs to pan back and show the whole scene, and then Obama could, at least, argue that the system prevents those within it from enacting real, progressive change, even if a majority of Americans support it. The section on the fight over the Affordable Care Act, which is at least the most important event within the book and gets substantial coverage, shows how the sausage is made but never really concludes that the process means the sausage is hazardous to your health.

There is some self-serving messaging here, some rationalization that, as President, he had no choice but to do this or that, to leave troops in Iraq or Afghanistan longer than he’d promised, to check which way the wind was blowing before supporting marriage equality, and so on. A lot of the text around his first year in office amounts to “we inherited a colossal mess,” and that’s probably true, and more instructive now than it was a year ago, as President Biden appears to have inherited an even bigger mess. But doesn’t every President who replaces a predecessor of the other party feel, on some level, that he inherited a mess? Even though the transition of power from President George W. Bush to President Obama was smooth, and Bush deserves some plaudits for how open and cordial he and his staff were to their successors, in the end, you’re restaffing a giant monolith that moves at the pace of a glacier and trying to make quick course corrections that might run to 180 degrees. Did you succeed in spite of those limitations, and if not, what did you learn that you might tell the next guy (well, the guy after the next guy)?

Obama is witty, and he’s a gifted storyteller – his prose isn’t quick, but it’s evocative of image and place, and he captures many of the personalities around him well enough to help distinguish the many people around him in his office. He’s just wordy – his prose is, in fact, too prolix – although I imagine his editors might have been reluctant to ask him to cut back, because, hey, he’s Barack Obama. If there’s an abridged version, as much as I’m loath to recommend those, it might be better for readers who just want to know what happened and how. As for the why, and what we can learn from it, perhaps that’ll come in the second book.

Next up: I just finished Gilbert King’s Devil in the Grove: Thurgood Marshall, the Groveland Boys, and the Dawn of a New America, winner of the 2013 Pulitzer Prize for Non-Fiction.

Filed Under: Uncategorized Tagged With: autobiography, memoirs, non-fiction, politics

→ April 18, 2021
→ By keith

Collective.

Collective has repeated the feat of 2019’s Honeyland by earning nominations in the Best Documentary Feature and Best International Feature categories at the Oscars, and if I had a vote, I’d at least give it a nod in the first one. It’s an amazing story that became bigger and more impressive well after the filmmakers had already chosen their subjects, as a small group of investigative reporters helped bring down an entire government, only to have the same party voted back into power less than a year later.

Collective (Colectiv) was a nightclub in Bucharest, Romania, that was the site of a deadly fire caused by the use of pyrotechnics at an indoor concert, which ignited the soundproofing in the venue – the same cause of the Station fire in Providence, Rhode Island, about 12 years earlier. Where the Collective fire differed, however, was the lower death toll at the site; 26 people died at the scene, but 38 more died later in hospitals, with 146 people injured. An journalist at a daily sports newspaper, The Sports Gazette, saw the number of deaths in hospitals as worthy of further investigation, and the work he and his colleagues did uncovered a massive corruption scandal that included a supplier of disinfectants to hospitals diluting the solution ten times, rendering it ineffective, and the refusal to send some patients abroad to burn units for fear it would reflect badly on the ruling party. The technocrat who takes over the Ministry of Health after the government collapses discovers that the state-run health system is rotten to the core, and there is no straightforward way to fix it or root out corruption. In the end, therefore, little really changes, and we are left to think that the corruption will resume with the restoration of the Social Democrats to power and the government’s failure to replace incompetent hospital managers. In parallel, we see parts of the journey of one of the survivors, Tedy Ursuleanu, who was very badly burned, losing parts of both hands and suffering burns all over her body, as she tries to reclaim something of her life, creating an art installation that provides the movie with some of its most central imagery.

Collective works as a documentary more than anything else because the story is so incredible and so vast in scope. What must have seemed at first to be just a film that followed some investigative reporters looking into irregularities around a major tragedy turned out to be a scandal that reached the top levels of the Romanian national government – something the documentary makers couldn’t have anticipated. They also received what appears to be unfettered access to meetings held by the technocrat Minister, who comes across as a would-be reformer who wants to be as transparent as possible with the press and public, but whose hands are tied by existing regulations and contracts and realizes he can’t do anything he’d want to do to try to fix the system. Meanwhile, the reporters keep uncovering new angles to the scandal, enough that you would think Romanian voters would have had no interest in voting for the same party that oversaw the erosion of the state hospital network, but they did so, the one event in the film that probably could have used some more explanation. It means the film ends on something of a hopeless note, which I suppose was unavoidable – documentary makers can’t choose their endings – but it’s a gut punch to watch all of the survivors and victims’ family members for nearly two hours, only to see that the state and the voters just don’t care enough to act on it.

I’ve seen all five nominated documentaries, and Collective would be my choice for the award, with Crip Camp second. This film does what I think great documentaries need to do – it stays out of the way of the story it’s telling. That’s not always possible, depending on the circumstances of the film’s subject, but in this case the filmmakers’ access to the reporters, press briefings, and eventually the Ministry’s internal meetings obviated any need for narration or other structure. It can be very hard to watch in the early going, because the camera doesn’t shy away from the details – we have footage from inside the concert venue, and we see plenty of burn victims, including one stomach-churning shot of a victim in the hospital whose wounds contain live maggots – but this film, more than any of the other nominated ones, has the power to force changes, if not in Romania, then perhaps elsewhere in the world. We need more documentaries like this, and more reporters like those who broke the story, and Collective should be an inspiration to anyone who tells stories for a living.

Filed Under: Uncategorized Tagged With: 2020 best documentary feature nominees, 2020 best international feature film nominees, documentaries, highly recommended, romanian films

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