Well, this is a touch of kismet whimsy.
This morning, I wrote about the new film, Southside With You, about the first day that Michelle Robinson and Barack Obama went on, and I noted how especially wonderful the two lead actors are. As good timing would have it, both actors -- Timka Sumpter and Parkers Sawyer -- are scheduled to be guests this evening (Tuesday) on Stephen Colbert's show. That's CBS, of course, at 11:35 (10:35 Central.) So, if you're interested, crank up the DVR.
0 Comments
(Over the weekend, I pulled myself away from the Olympics (it was Sunday, and there were few events) to see the film, Southside With You. It's a movie loosely based on the real-life first date that a couple of lawyers took when they were both working at the Sidley Austin firm in Chicago. Generally that wouldn't spark much interest in fodder for a movie. In this case, their names were Michelle Robinson and Barack Obama. I enjoyed the movie a lot. It's not typical for most films, in that it doesn't have a traditional story structure. It's simply what happens on their date -- they don't have their paths cross with international spies or have to be back home by nine for the babysitter and get detracted -- it's a date. Though maybe not a date, Michelle insists, until she says it is, concerned not only about mixing business with pleasure, but being involved with a summer associate for whom she's the supervisor. As such, the movie goes little slowly at times by usual movie standards, and is obviously not overly dramatic with conflicting plot points overlaid on the events, but I found it exceedingly thoughtful, smart, beautifully done, and able to have a respectable story structure on something that was so otherwise unstructured. And it's important to note how incredibly well-acted is – impressively so, making them both utterly believable. There's nothing cloying or precious about the portrayals by Tika Sumpter (as Michelle) and Parkers Sawyer (as the future president). No sense of winking at the audience or talking in platitudes as if One Day This Will Be Important. In all feels very natural. And to be clear, there is conflict, not just in Michelle's repeated insistence that this is not a date, but also some harsh personality hurdles that occasionally get in the way. It was fun for me to watch, too, because I've mentioned here in the past how my oft-referenced friend Nell Minow has a strong family connection to the Obamas. Her sister Martha, now the Dean of Harvard Law School, was a law professor for the young Barack Obama. And she was so impressed that she contacted her father to say that she had the smartest student she'd ever had in her class, and that he should hire him at his law firm. Their father, Newton Minow, was working at Sidley Austin in Chicago. And the firm did indeed hire that young Mr. Obama. And Minow became his first political adviser. (Newton Minow had been the FCC Chairman under President Kennedy, and is famous for referring at the time to television as a "vast wasteland." (It was a phrase that so upset TV producer Sherwood Schwartz, that to get some retribution, he named the boat on his upcoming series after the FCC Commissioner. The show was to be Gilligan's Island, and the boat -- with a slight spelling correction, became the SS Minnow. His attempt at retribution failed. The family and country loved the little boat.) As I said, one of the conflicts in the film is Michelle's concern that her reputation at the law firm will be hurt if she's seen dating someone who also works there, especially a summer associate she oversees. A particularly dramatic scene in the film occurs when they go to see a movie (Spike Lee's Do the Right Thing), and when leaving the theater they run into one of the firm's partner's and his wife. That actually happened -- and the partner and his wife who they ran into on that first date was...Newton and Jo Minow. (The exchange happened differently in real life, as Nell told me, and when the film's writer/director Richard Tanne had an interview with Nell for her film column, The Movie Mom, he acknowledged that he'd had to change things from the reminiscence letter her dad had sent to Tanne for research.) In the film, the exchange takes place on the South Side; in real life it was downtown at Water Tower Place, a fancy high-rise mall with a Ritz-Carlton hotel on the upper floors. And while the partner in the movie is polite and nice, he's also a bit formal and stuffy, a little out of place. In reality, as I said, their relationship was very strong, as well as warm and friendly. (Side note: I just love the idea of a film's writer/director, and the two stars going in for an interview with a movie critic, and it turns out that she's the daughter of one of the real-life characters. I have no doubt they were blown away. By the way, there's a sequence in the film I loved for personal reasons, which would mean nothing to almost anybody. It's one of the more important scenes that takes place at a Baskin-Robbins ice cream shop. As it happens, Nell Minow's mother Jo, who I note above, is Jo Baskin. Yes, that Baskin. The only thing I'm not sure of is why the title is "Southside." In Chicago -- like I assume most cities -- it's referred to as "South Side." Maybe they thought it looked unique. No idea... Here's the trailer. As you'll see, even from such short clips, these are wonderful portrayals by the two lead actors. The other day, I wrote about how Galen Rupp is one of my favorite runners, and he competes in the 10,000 meters race, but this year was going to double in the marathon. He won the silver medal in the last Olympics, right behind his friend and training partner Mo Farah representing Great Britain, who repeated as the Gold Medal winner this year in the 10K, but Rupp finished out of the medals. As for the marathon, it was a long shot for Rupp, since the number of marathons he's competed in before qualifying for Rio was...are you ready -- zero. That's right, the marathon that Galen Rupp ran to qualify for the U.S. marathon team was the first-ever he had run. And in the Olympic marathon on Sunday, he finished -- third! Galen Rupp won a Bronze Medal. After the race, he was overjoyed, and said something along the lines of how he'd always thought the 10,000 meters was his race, but maybe it's been the marathon all along. In making this point, he quoted a movie he said he's seen just the other day, Happy Gilmore.
As you might imagine, I'm so sorry that the Olympics are over. It is such a joy to watch, as much of it as I did, and only wish there was more. Some quibbles, some things I missed or didn't see enough of, and some was wonderful. On the other hand, I now have my life back. There's so much more time to actually do things... When the broadcast finished on Saturday, NBC ran its traditional 10-minute montage with the long credit crawl. I actually like watching this, not just for the montage (which was tremendous, beautifully edited), but also, believe it or not, the credits. And not just for seeing the names of people I know -- which numbered one, producer Clare Duffy. But for seeing all the names. I actually read through them. I’m in awe of the job NBC did. For all the criticisms I had of certain decisions (and the especially the social media slams, which I tended to think generally were overwrought), I don’t think people have even the beginnings of a hint of the most distant slightest clue how stunningly difficult this achievement is. I myself don’t have a clue, but I can imagine the outer edges of it. Broadcasting one “simple” event like, say, the Super Bowl is a major undertaking. And broadcasting the Olympics on just one network, like they did in the Old Days, if it was all just on NBC only, is massive, truly humongous deal. But to cover the Games across all the Many Networks of NBC and coordinate it and have the graphics, featurettes, and all the big and little logistics and all the preparation and last-minute challenges go SO smoothly, is ethereal. I suspect that people think that when they turn on their TV, then of course it will all go smoothly because, gee, hey, this is TV and that’s how it works. But whenever they do this, it’s just otherworldly. Having said all that, I'll toss in a few quibbles and random thoughts. First, NBC really has to re-design its Olympics website. They have such great material there, but it's a jumble. And its near-impossible to find the video featurettes they ran, especially without coming across results of competitions before they've been broadcast in primetime. Among other things, they should have a section solely for featurettes. And second, speaking of featurettes, I don’t know what they were thinking with Mary Carillo, and using so incredibly little of what videos she did. (And I know that she did them because the network promoted them on their pre-Olympics show.) I absolutely love Mary Carillo’s work with her featurettes. Yet, despite being promoted, I only saw one real featurette from her. Instead, they had a bunch of very frivolous videos. It's a shame they gave her such short shrift, for whatever reason known to them along. I hope at the very least they put them online or do some sort of post-Olympics show. One of my favorite announcers is a guy named Teddy Atlas, who is a boxing manager and does brilliant commentary, making a sport I don’t care much for fascinating and fun. So, I always look forward to Olympic boxing. But for some reason, he wasn’t there. No idea if it was his choice or theirs. But the replacement was dismal, so I watched almost no boxing. I usually like the late night show, but this year they turned it into more of an “entertainment” with Ryan Seacrest hosting. Fair, but disappointing. Very disappointed by the Opening Ceremonies because they had three hosts all of whom knew nothing about sports. So, when 15,000 athletes came marching in, they were limited to reading off note cards rather than knowing who any of the people actually were and adding insight, as has been the case in the past. On the other hand, I was not bothered by NBC cutting away from events, a complaint I heard from many because a) that’s the nature of the beast, and b) they usually cut back. I do wish though that they didn’t cut out so much of the long-distance races (which are among my favorites). You can cut away to another event or go to commercial, and still come back to where you left off. I also wasn’t bothered that they covered mostly Americans during primetime. I’d prefer a wider selection, but I understand it. And if one wanted a more encompassing coverage of international athletes, they had a lot of that during the day on the “Many Networks of NBC.” (Alas, most people couldn’t watch those during the day. But NBC did cover things more fully there.) One last observation. And this has to do with the Games themselves, not the coverage -- After a race or competition is over, women athletes do a whole lot more hugging of their competitors than their male counterparts do. There was an article last week written by a physician that analyzed the supposed-letter written several months back by Donald Trump's doctor. It didn't look at things from a medical standpoint, but merely how the letter itself was written.
I have no idea if the Trump doctor actually wrote it, but the author makes interesting points backed-up by explicit reasons. It certainly reads like it's the voice of Donald Trump, who we know has posed as a PR person promoting Donald Trump -- and in the most effusive way possible. As is the case here praising Trump's health, as being the healthiest individual ever elected to the presidency. Of course, it's also possible that the doctor did write it all on his own. Or that he wrote it, but was told "This is what I want you to say." I'm clearly not a doctor myself, so I can't say. I have been surrounded by such things my whole life, with my father having been a physician, as was my brother, and know they've said how doctors are always always pretty circumspect in making prognoses. And this is anything but. And I know too that when it comes to medical tests, you want the results to be "negative," since anything positive can be a sign of trouble. And this letter glows about how positive everything is. None of that is meaningful and substantive. But it's a personal perspective. By the way, for a 70-year-old man to be in such near-perfect health, with pretty much nothing needing the slightest attention, is surprising on its own merits. But who knows? It's an intriguing article, though, as the doctor-authors goes through the letter point by point. You can read it (and the original letter) here. The bottom line for me, though, is that some people have earned our trust, and some haven't. Given his history of falsehood, going back far beyond this political campaign, but exacerbated by it, Donald Trump hasn't even come close to earning that trust. We watch everything so you don't have to.
Well, today is the last full day of competition. Sigh. Ah, well, life will not only go on, but have a whole lot more time to do it in... As I've noted, I like the long races -- I think it's because the point isn't just to be the fastest, but there's strategy involved and a lot of maneuvering going on, as a story develops. And early Saturday morning, another long race took place, as the women's triathlon was run. And swum and cycled. At the Olympics, they don't use the standards of the more brutal, marathon-length "Ironman Triathan," but it's still pounding. About a mile-long swim, 25 mile bike ride, and six-mile run. Last Olympics, bizarrely, after all that, it came down to a photofinish. That winner, Nicola Spirig of Switzerland, wasn't favored this year, though, because her top competitor was American Gwen Jorgensen, who's won her last 14 triathlons. They two were running side-by-side with about 15 minutes to go -- and there was some amusing jockeying. Spirig was in front, but Jorgensen was a step or two behind, "drafting for the wind block. A couple of time, Spirig tried to slow down, almost to a stop, so that Jorgenson would pass her -- but the American wouldn't. Eventually, they began talking to one another in some gamesmanship. Not long after, though, Jorgensen took off and left Spirig behind, becoming the first American to win the event, coming in first by almost half a minute. There was an intriguing competition for the Bronze Medal, as well. Two Brits, roommates, best friends, and training partners. Almost step-in-stop, seemingly very friendly -- as I'm sure it was, up to a point. But that point was the reality that only one would get a medal. That ended up being Vicky Holland, who came in third just three seconds ahead of Non Stanford. By the way, I had an idiotic gaffe yesterday when writing about the 50K walk race. I'd written how that was about 12 miles, and of course it isn't. As eagle-eyed reader (and scientist, which helps...) Greg Van Buskirk wrote in to remind me that, in fact, it's just over 30 miles. That's a long stroll in the park. My brain freeze was that, in my mind, I was converting kilograms to pounds, rather than kilometers to files. Since one kilogram is 2.2 pounds, I multiplied, moved the decimal point, and got it wrong... And there was yet another long race that I quite like, the women's cross-country mountain bike race. I always find this a hoot, though a grueling one, as the cyclists crush their way up hills, around curves, over boulders, down inclines, across fields and more. With one lap (out of six) to go, the two leaders were within a half-second of one another. It was won by the Swedish cyclist Jenny Rissveds who pulled away by 37 seconds. I've grown to like the rowing events all the more. Today they had the pairs sprints. I don't recall sprints all that much in the past, but they're becoming my favorite of the rowing. Rather than sitting with two-sided paddles, for the springs an athlete is kneeling, with a single paddle on the end, and stroking the beejeepers out of the thing. It's fun to watch -- and being a sprint, is much more focused. The soccer final was one of the dramatic epics that you wouldn't even write for movies. Played n the home country, where soccer is a religious experience, where they've never won an Olympic Gold Medal, where they remember getting crushed in the most recent World Cup by with an horrifically embarrassing 7-1 loss to Germany, plays Germany in the Olympic final before the packed home stadium, plays to a tie, goes to a shoot-out, takes it down to the very last shot -- and that last shot is taken by the current god of Brazilian soccer, a player who only days ago had to be carried off the field on a stretcher, and he scores, to win the Gold Medal. But from a broadcast and historic perspective, what I especially liked when watching it live in the afternoon, is how NBC covered that last shot from several angles, and so you could so the maniacal reaction from so many different views. Though NBC has been derelict in showing featurettes from Mary Carillo, they at least have still showed quite a few pieces by Jimmy Roberts, that are always very good themselves. Not a amusing, or as much about the culture of the land, but very thoughtful, entertaining, and eloquent about the athletes and competition. The one they ran today was about "firsts" at these Games. On this "Not My Job" segment of the NPR quiz show, Wait, Wait....Don't Tell Me!, the contestant is Keegan Michael-Key, of the Key and Peele Show, who precedes the game with an interview with host Peter Sagal,
|
AuthorRobert J. Elisberg is a political commentator, screenwriter, novelist, tech writer and also some other things that I just tend to keep forgetting. Feedspot Badge of Honor
Archives
May 2024
Categories
All
|
© Copyright Robert J. Elisberg 2024
|