Bruce Lee

As mentioned earlier, some time ago I took aikido classes at a school in Burke, up until fall of 1999.  To my knowledge the school has now closed.  I took the classes for several years and worked my way up to first degree black belt.  The tests involved fending off attacks from opponents.   We cross-trained in tae kwon do, but did not have to do all the forms which TKD students are required to do.  I learned punches and a variety of kicks.  Aikido is mainly defensive, turning an opponent’s attack against himself by redirecting the momentum or twisting arms or legs in the wrong direction. 

The most famous martial artist associated with aikido is Steven Seagal, and while watching his films I recognized the various moves we did in class.  By now I’ve seen most of his earlier movies, but I zoned out when he drifted into a personality who was overly mystical and friendly with Putin.  From 1988 (Above the Law) until now (Attrition) he has done 53 movies, with “Above the Law 2” and “Under Siege 3” in development. 

Before Steven Seagal, there was – BRUCE LEE.

I’d seen “Enter the Dragon” a few times before and even had it on DVD.  But up until now I hadn’t bothered to watch his other films.   Cue Robin Leach: “I don’t know WHY.”  Anyhow, after watching “The Last Dragon”, I decided to rectify that oversight and watched these films.

Born November 27, 1940 in San Francisco, but grew up in Hong Kong.  His family brought him back to the US to avoid problems and he went to college in Seattle.  He spoke fluent English and seemed to understand both Chinese culture back in Hong Kong as well as US culture, at least on the West Coast.  He died of a stroke complicated by negative interactions with a drug given to him to cure the condition – neither misadventure nor negligence on his part, nor anything like his son Brandon’s death in the process of making the movie he was working on at the time. 

Jeet Kune Do.  His martial arts style of “no style”.   I’ve never been to a JKD school nor do I know anyone else who has.  I can’t claim enough familiarity with the various styles to offer any coherent analysis of this, so I’ll leave it at that. 

The Green Hornet.   He played the title character’s sidekick, Kato, for one season.   No US studio, either for TV or movie, would give Lee a starring role as the main character. 

The Big Boss.  His first movie, a wholly Chinese (Hong Kong) affair.  The bad guys are Chinese gangsters using an ice factory as a front for a drug smuggling operation.   [NOTE:  some sources equate this with “Fist of Fury”.  They are two completely separate movies.]   Nora Miao, who has more substantial roles in later films, starts off here as a cute ice cream girl. 

Everything starts off ok, until various workers notice that the ice has drugs in it, and “bring this to the boss’ attention”.  Then they disappear.  Their co-workers wonder where they went.  Big boss makes excuses which initially satisfy them but eventually fall short.  Eventually it’s up to Lee’s character to take on a series of bad guys, each more important, until the final showdown with the head bad guy, and of course Lee’s guy wins.  Note: as with all these films, I recognize tae kwon do and judo moves but little or nothing in the way of aikido.

Fist of Fury.  This takes place in Shanghai and the Japanese are bad guys, though outright war doesn’t seem to be going on, so it must be before 1937.  The Head of a martial arts school, who had been old but in good health, mysteriously dies.  The top student, Chen (Lee) suspects foul play, and he’s right:  the Japanese (twirling mustaches diabolically) poisoned Old Man.  Chen sets out to avenge the Old Man’s death.   There’s a Cute Asian Chick (Nora Miao), a burly Russian martial artist, Petrov (Robert Wall), a collaborating Chinese interpreter consistently mistreated by the Japanese (“crawl for us like the Chinese dog you are!”) and disliked by his fellow Chinese, a few geishas (one goes full nude, which is interesting) and of course plenty of martial arts.  The top bad guys are Japanese, and a samurai sword enters the equation.  Naturally, Lee wins. 

Way of the Dragon.  This is the next one, taking place in Rome.  The local Chinese are being bullied and oppressed by the Mob.  BL, visiting from Hong Kong, of course does something about it.  Cute Chick Nora Miao is back, as are many of the other actors, including Robert Wall, again playing a goon, though not as prominent and not Russian.  Ultimately the bad guys send for Colt (Chuck Norris), who faces off against Lee, appropriately enough at the Coliseum itself.  [It turns out that Norris’ appearance in “Game of Death” is actually scenes from this film spliced in to that one, not a new appearance.]  In any case, this Lee vs. Norris battle is what makes this film a must-see for Lee & Norris fans alike, and in that regard make it competitive with “Enter the Dragon”.

Enter the Dragon.  His most famous, with John Saxon and Jim Kelly; Jackie Chan supposedly appears as a nameless opponent he summarily dispatches, but I was unable to recognize him.  He starts off in Hong Kong, of all places, and winds up at a martial arts tournament at a secluded island, run by the bad guy, a Shaolin monk who went the wrong way.  Actually both the Shaolins and an unnamed intelligence agency sent him:  the former to avenge themselves from this man who is corrupting their “faith”, and the latter because they believe he’s been running criminal operations from his island but no one has been able to infiltrate the island to prove it – they lost contact with their prior agent.  Eventually he dispatches the bad guy, whose hand is gone and replaced by various nasty weapons. 

Game of Death.  He started making this before “Enter The Dragon” and picked up again after, but was cut short when his death made it difficult for him to do much more.   So they got a stand-in to replace him, and spliced in footage of him already shot to try to make a coherent whole of the entire thing, with mixed results.  I’d say it works remarkably well given the circumstances but still doesn’t match “Enter the Dragon”.  The highlights are donning the yellow, black striped one piece track suit while taking down various enemy motorcyclists in a warehouse, followed by his successive defeat of various martial arts masters in a tower, going up floor after floor and finally dispatching the Boss Level Man, played by none other than the insanely tall Kareem Abdul Jabbar, aka Roger Murdock. 

Martial Arts & Porn.   I noticed a similarity in the format:  each type of film is oriented towards physical interaction, of clearly different types.  The dialogue is not particularly brilliant, the plot is fairly simple, there are no twists and eventually you wind up with the… physical interaction.  On the other hand, I don’t really see porn as a main “actor” screwing his/her way up a series of partners until finally taking on the big boss one for one gigantic simultaneous orgasm, so the analogy isn’t entirely fair to martial arts films.  

The Heart of Darkness at Noon

Just the other day, inspired by numerous mentions of “#1” in Darkness At Noon, by Arthur Koestler, I printed out and posted on the wall a picture of #1 himself, Josef Stalin.  No one in my office recognized him, so I wrote this off as “today’s unsolicited history lesson”.  A few hours later I finished reading the book itself.  And few weeks earlier I had completed Conrad’s book with a conveniently similar name.

Heart of Darkness (1899), by Joseph Conrad.  Despite having been aware of this short novel ages ago when the Vietnam war movie came out, I only read it recently.  Marlow, the narrator, is charged with delving deep into the jungle on a river boat to retrieve Kurtz, the manager of an ivory station with whom they have lost contact.  As he ventures further down the river he plunges deeper into a dark place and further away from the light of civilization, e.g. London, where he started out and later finished the story – in fact, from where he narrates the story himself to his fictional audience and the reader himself (or herself).

 

Marlow does in fact find Kurtz and takes him back on the steamer.  Sadly, Kurtz dies on the way back, his last words being “the horror, the horror”.  Back in London, Marlow is dissatisfied at how things turned out and gives Kurtz’s fiancé some other story.  The big deal is the contrast between “civilized” London and the heart of the jungle, the heart of darkness, with Marlow unconvinced the contrast is actually as substantial as the civilized world would like to believe. 

Apocalypse Now (1979).  Remarkably, the most substantial movie adaptation of this story is this movie, with which we’re almost all familiar.  The story is transposed from the Congo to Vietnam, Kurtz turns into a Green Beret (US Special Forces) colonel (Marlon Brando) who went nuts and set up his own personal kingdom deep in the jungle.  It’s up to Marlow – er, Willard (Martin Sheen) – to go up the river and take care of the matter, in fact to kill Kurtz, which he does.  Along the way we experience a full scale attack, with Duvall’s “napalm” remark, a USO show featuring hot chicks, a tiger (!), and overall a surrealistic journey away from civilized Saigon and into the primordial jungle.  In essence the movie is faithful to the basic plot.

Having seen the movie multiple times and finally read the book, sadly I’d say reading the book was a waste of time.  It really gives us nothing more than an alternate context for the same story, and the movie was very well done – with all the extra elements which make the movie more interesting but do not compromise the basic plot.  As a practical matter, reading the book itself doesn’t give you much more than you would enjoy than watching the movie.  I did so out of compulsion to seek the source material, which in most cases gives you something more.  Hell, A Scanner Darkly, the book, even had a few things the movie left out, and I find – as noted – reading the book is worthwhile.  But not here. 

By the way, a few items about this movie I’d like to address before I move on.  First, there’s now an extended cut version of the film, “Apocalypse Now REDUX”, which I have on DVD.  It adds more footage.   This footage is mainly two extended scenes.  First, the boat crew, amidst heavy rain, come across the Playboy chopper and its "mates", and trade fuel for some intimate companionship with the girls.  Second, they come across an isolated plantation of French who somehow stayed after the French officially left in 1954.  They are heavily armed (mostly with M1 carbines), and provide an official funeral for Clean (Larry Fishburne).  The head of the plantation talks about Dien Bien Phu, while Willard enjoys opium and nude fun with the owner's widowed sister.     

The second concerns the circumstances in which I first saw it – not in a movie theater (we were in Paris at the time) but actually at the US Embassy in Paris.  What later became the commercial library was earlier (late 70s, early 80s) a huge, empty room.  They showed movies there, including this one.  We all sat down to watch this, and the opening riffs of “The End” played as the chopper flew across the jungle.  Then BIZLKDFLIT!   The film crapped out.  “Technical difficulties, folks” turned into postponement – many angry and frustrated noises.  Sometime later, maybe a week or two, we all sat down again to see it.  Robby Krieger’s guitar droning again, chopper across the jungle, and BIZLKDFLIT! Again.   Now the natives were truly restless.  The projectionist narrowly avoided a spear impaling him.  Fortunately this time around the technical difficulties were overcome and we were able to see the entire film.  “And there was much rejoicing….”

Darkness at Noon (1941).  Although actual names of places or historical figures are omitted, it takes little imagination to figure out:  Old Leader is Lenin, #1 is Stalin, and “the dictatorship” is Nazi Germany.  The main character, Rubashov, is a veteran Bolshevik who served in the Russian Revolution (1917), the Russian Civil War (1918-22), and eventually winds up on the wrong side of the power struggle which put Stalin in power.  The NKVD arrested him and put him in jail.  His neighbor, with whom he communicates by tapping in morse code on the wall, is a Czarist officer. 

Part of the story is flashbacks to Rubashov’s assignments in Belgium, but mostly it concerns his current incarceration and extended interrogation.  First he’s interrogated by Ivanov, an old colleague from the Revolution who is likewise an intellectual type, somewhat cynical, but they are kindred souls whose positions could easily have been reversed had things worked out differently.  Ivanov is replaced by Gletkin, a newer officer in the NKVD who was too young to have fought in the Russian Civil War.  He has no sense of humor, no cynicism, nor any compassion or humanity, and is brutal in his ideology.  Rubashov refers to his type as “Neanderthal”, and with the older Bolsheviks gradually purged, they become the only surviving type of communists in the regime.  They may as well be robots. 

Eventually Rubashov realizes he’s wrong, confesses completely and participates in a “show trial” in which he accepts guilt for his crimes, or at least the crimes for which he knows he’s guilty, which are substantial enough; these are ideological rather than specific acts.   Needless to say he does not survive.   Much of the discussion is of the nature of the dictatorship, particularly the Soviet dictatorship.   

In particular, Ivanov articulates something Ayn Rand later articulated.   She argued that the differences between Nazism and communism were insubstantial, relative to the difference both had with capitalism.  Under the latter, individuals have primacy and the government’s purpose is to protect individual rights.  The collective does NOT have the right to sacrifice individuals to the “common good”, however that might be defined.  But the former do enslave individuals to the collective, and individuals’ rights exist only at the convenience of the state as representative of the people.   If this means not merely individuals perishing one by one in jails, but millions dying of famine or starvation, or from genocide, public policies with obviously horrendous body counts, well, too bad.  The collective triumphs over the individual.  That is the value judgment of the statist regime, be it Nazi or communist, run by Hitler or Stalin. 

Note that Nazi Germany was the sole totalitarian dictatorship which was NOT communist.  The other right wing dictatorships were authoritarian rather than totalitarian; the regime demanded full political cooperation and tolerated no dissent, political dissidents perished in jails and camps run by a secret police force, but beyond that the regime did not seek to control everyone’s lives literally from birth until death.

There is also this business of the conflict between those advocating world revolution vs. those who assert that the Soviet experiment must survive above all else.  Stalin, and those allied with him, decided that the world was not ripe for world revolution and that the Soviet version must fight to survive in a capitalist world intent on destroying it.  Everything must be oriented towards defending Soviet interests – even if it meant betraying former communist allies to the Nazis, and shutting down any and all attempts to begin revolutions overseas.  The USSR could and would deal with the capitalist countries and even Nazi Germany.  Once that decision had been made, any such efforts at world revolution worked at cross purposes to Soviet interests and thus became considered, de facto counter-revolutionary or reactionary.  Rubashov’s “crime” was to belong to the latter category, despite his impeccable credentials as an old school Bolshevik and veteran of both the Revolution and the Civil War.  He refers to old photos of the Bolshevik comrades during the revolution, who are identified with numbers superimposed above their heads, each of whom could identify the others.  He and Ivanov were both that old school style of communists.    

Koestler wrote this based on his experiences in the Spanish Civil War, and it’s not hard to ascertain why.   As with other countries, Spain was considered by Stalin not yet ripe for proletarian revolution, rather it needed to fully develop capitalism.  This is why the PSUC supported the capitalist-democratic regime of Spain and treated POUM and the anarchists as enemies, almost as much as Franco and his minions.  In any case, anyone remotely interested in communism, labor camps, interrogation, the subtle nuances of world revolution vs. let’s just focus on Russia for now, and old school Bolsheviks vs. the new hipster millennials running the NKVD, may be well advised to enjoy this.  I can say I did. 

The Conspirator

Yes, another movie.   Nay, far be it from me to review literally every moving picture I witness, as a matter of principle.  Indeed, just days before I witnessed a decidedly mediocre film, “Stay Hungry”, whose sole distinction is simply a remarkable collection of actors, to-wit:  Arnold Schwarzenegger, basically playing himself, Jeff Bridges, in an early role of his, Sally Field, a year before accompanying Burt Reynolds in a black Trans Am across the southern highways pursued by a vengeful would-be father-in-law, and the infamous Freddie Kruger himself, Robert Englund, minus his fingernails, striped sweater, fedora, or nightmare body count.

Nay, this film is far more impressive and far more worthy of my description and my valued readers’ attention:  “The Conspirator”, a 2010 film directed by none other than the Sundance Kid & Bob Woodward himself, Robert Redford.   It concerns the trial of Mary Suratt, the mother of John Suratt, one of the (alleged) co-conspirators along with John Wilkes Booth, in the plot to assassinate President Abraham Lincoln in April 1865. 

The Young Professor Xavier, James McAvoy, plays Frederick Aiken, an attorney who up to recently had been a Union officer in the just-completed Civil War.   He’s assigned the task of defending Mary Suratt by Reverdy Johnson (Tom Wilkinson), Mary herself played by Claire Underwood, aka Robin Wright – who also accompanied Forrest Gump (mom played by Sally Field, mentioned above) and acted as the Princess Bride, some centuries ago in a galaxy far, far away. 

As it was, Booth himself was killed in the process of capture, and three of his male co-conspirators were caught, including one played by Norman Reedus, who we might recognize from “The Boondock Saints” and “Walking Dead”.  Justice demands not merely that these men hang from the gallows, but surely Mary herself must do so as well.  Her daughter Anna, played by Evan Rachel Wood – who we’ve seen as Dolores in “Westworld” – debates defending her mother or her brother, which appears to be mutually exclusive. 

Milton, from “Office Space” (Stephen Root), acts here as a deceitful tavern owner induced by the prosecutor – Danny Huston, who recruited Logan (Wolverine) and faced off against Wonder Woman as Ludendorff, albeit without a mustache – to give false testimony.   Aiken’s war buddies are played by James Badge Dale – in one of the Iron Man films – and Justin Long, who hasn’t hawked Apple computers in some time.  The war tribunal includes Colm Meaney, likewise far away from ST/NG.

But never mind the cast.   The story itself is compelling in its own right.   Aiken, once he’s assured himself that John, not Mary, is the one who should be on trial, sets to acquit the woman, to the best of his ability.   He manages to damage the credibility of some of the prosecution witnesses and persuades the sister to return from Westworld to defend her mother.  This convinces the tribunal, all Union officers who were heretofore committed to finding her guilty, to reconsider that verdict. 

Alas, not everything works out, and Edwin Stanton, the Secretary of War – a scarcely recognizable Kevin Kline – and the off-camera President Johnson, himself from Tennessee, undermine Captain Aiken’s good work at convincing a judge to grant  a writ of habeas corpus, which would give Mary Suratt a new trial in a civilian court.  Sadly, Mary Suratt joins the three men on the gallows.  Nonetheless, job well done, counsel.  

So we have Civil War subject matter + courtroom drama + stellar cast = movie worth watching AND blogging about.   Available from Netflix.    

Rick & Morty

As promised, here’s my R&M blog.

With food, I like things simple.   No Big Mac or Whopper, with their cacophony of discordant tastes, including mayonnaise:  just the burger, the bun, and ketchup.  Pizza?  Plain.  Subs?  Just steak or chicken, provolone, and the bun.  When I went to Egypt, I just ate pita bread.   When it comes to food, I have zero tolerance for weird shit.  Well, my preference for ghost peppers and habaneros might be a little weird – make that LOW tolerance for weird shit, in the food department.

When it comes to many other things, like music and TV, I’m the opposite:  count me as High Tolerance for Weird Shit.  Woohoo!

Case in point: Rick & Morty, a three season animated TV series.  It began loosely based on Doc & Marty from “Back to the Future” and rapidly generated into something far stranger.   Rick Sanchez, the Mad Scientist, is Morty’s grandfather, the father of Morty’s mother Beth and often a nemesis to Morty’s father, his son-in-law, Jerry, while Morty has an older sister Summer who is fairly normal.  I only watched it recently, initially turned off by the crude animation – which had originally turned me off South Park as well.  Like South Park, once you get past that you can actually enjoy it. 

Rick is usually involved in some bizarre scheme for which he drafts Morty.   Time travel, other worlds, dimensions, you name it.  Nothing is too weird or bizarre.  In fact, you can count on it.  An entire dimension full of nothing but Ricks and Mortys?  Gotcha.  Meet up with Ice-T himself (the rapper)?  Yes. 

South Park criticized The Family Guy as having its joke pattern be diversions into irrelevant tangents – and even went so far as to elaborately speculate on exactly how those tangents are developed (hint: manatees).   R&M has its own pattern, which is Rick being able to have a normal conversation or discuss mundane issues, or to hold that conversation, with whoever, while all sorts of bizarre stuff is going on.  Not quite the same, but I’d say equally entertaining.  Another amusing feature is that Beth, Jerry and Summer frequently wind up participating – usually less than enthusiastically – in Rick’s adventures to other dimensions.   

It was originally on Adult Swim, from 2013 to 2017, consisting of three seasons of 10 episodes each, with more coming up in the distant future – 70, which implies 7 more seasons.   If you share my High Tolerance for Weird Shit, you may well be advised to see what I see and enjoy it yourself.  

Windhand

Last night I saw Windhand – another Sabbath-influenced stoner rock band – play the U Street Music Hall in downtown DC.   This morning I finished off Disc 2 of 2 of Season 3 of 3 of “Rick and Morty”.  Which should I address today?  Well, R&M has Season 4 coming, Rick knows when, whereas last night’s show was the first on the entire tour for Richmond, Virginia based Windhand, so I’d say the concert review is probably more timely.

The U Street Music Hall is fairly new.  It opened in 2010, but this is my first show there.  It’s on U Street, of course, at the corner with Twelfth Street, meaning it’s a block east of the Lincoln Theater, several blocks north of the Black Cat (on Fourteenth Street) and several blocks east of the bottom of Adams Morgan.   I took Uber there and back without a problem.

I got there as the venue opened, and even after purchasing a t-shirt, still got up front to the stage.  Then the opening act, Genocide Pact, started their sad excuse for music – Cookie Monster vocals and tenth rate Metallica riffing – and I immediately sought somewhere else to wait out their set and await Windhand’s arrival.

Note: the stage is about six inches off the ground, so unless you’re front row you’ll see the head and shoulders of the band members and not much more.  This is yet another band who simply get up on stage and play their instruments competently.  I found a stool – one of a mere handful in what was otherwise just a large rectangular room with a stage at one end – conveniently located immediately behind a square pylon, meaning I could hear the band but not see them.  Then again, even had I moved out 3 feet in either direction and stood up facing the stage, again I’d only be seeing a modest portion of the band members on stage, so it was hardly worthwhile – sitting was fine. 

Windhand themselves are not bad.  Four albums:  Windhand, Soma, Grief’s Infernal Flower, and Eternal Return.  They have a live album, Live at Roadburn (2014) which is only on vinyl; I listened to it the night before on headphones to study for the show.  

Setlist:  “Old Evil”, “Diablerie”, “First To Die”, “Forest Clouds”, “Grey Garden”, “Orchard”, “Feather”, “Red Cloud”, and “Cassock”.   Half these songs were from the most recent album.  Maybe I’m getting old and my brain has reached full capacity, but I could only recognize that I’d heard the songs before and no hope of remembering the actual song titles.  They may as well have been Karma To Burn.

Lineup:  Dorthia Cottrell (vocals), Garrett Morris (guitar), Parker Chandler (bass), and Ryan Wolfe (drums).   Yes, the singer is female – she sounds exactly like the singer for Uncle Acid & the Deadbeats (who is male).  No, the guitarist was not on Saturday Night Live and “Two Broke Girls”, even though he shares the exact same name (!) but a substantially lighter complexion.

Nowadays a few stoner rock bands seem to be distancing themselves from slavish Black Sabbath worship and are putting out original material – All Them Witches, Dead Meadow, and Brant Bojrk are the ones who come to mind.  Windhand are not one of them.   If your patience for bands which sound pretty much like Black Sabbath is gone (or never existed in the first place), maybe steer clear of this one.   I did find them enjoyable enough nonetheless.  Your mileage may vary.  

Lethal Weapons

I turned 50 on Wednesday, but couldn’t figure any spectacular thing to say about that, as I’m trying to avoid talking about myself incessantly.   Having recently finished watching #4 of this series, after having seen these films awhile ago, maybe talking about them again, instead of my own “I’m getting too old for this s**t”, would be more fun.

All four take place in Los Angeles, California, featuring a “buddy” team of mismatched police officers with comically different personalities.  There’s a fair amount of humor herein to offset the inevitable violence, or as we testicle-equipped moviegoers prefer to think of it, "action".  “Dirty Harry” (San Francisco PD, Harry Callahan played by Clint Eastwood) and “Die Hard” (various different locales, NYPD officer John McLane, played by Bruce Willis) would be the obvious comparisons, though each of those feature a single detective and few, if any, recurring characters. 

Lethal Weapon (1) (1987).  The original.  Sgt. Roger Murtaugh (Danny Glover), a seasoned police detective with the Los Angeles Police Dept., is assigned a new partner, Martin Riggs (Mel Gibson).   Riggs recently lost his wife (no kids yet) in a tragic accident, the full details of which are more explicitly explained in the next film.  As such he is borderline suicidal and subject to the unwanted but professional attention of the LAPD police shrink.   He takes all sorts of bizarre risks, but unfortunately for Murtaugh tends to pull him into this as well.   For his part, Murtaugh has a wife, several children including an inconveniently attractive and provocative teenage daughter Rianne, and is getting close to retirement and as such is ill-inclined to take the exact type of unnecessary risks (e.g. “can’t we just wait for the bomb squad?”) which Riggs seems to enjoy taking. 

The bad guys are Vietnam veterans – spec ops types – running drugs from Southeast Asia.  Conveniently enough, Riggs was also in a similar unit and is likewise overqualified; Murtaugh describes himself has simply having been a rank and file combat soldier in WWI, thus his complaints about retiring.  The top bad guy is played by Gary Busey.  Aside from a good job playing Buddy Holly, Busey generally tends to do a good job playing annoying and unsympathetic villains.   Whether his nemesis is played by Mel Gibson or Steven Seagal, we want to see his damn character die as soon as possible.   

Oh, and the “lethal weapons” in question?  Murtaugh, unimaginatively enough, carries a police revolver, probably .38 and not even the much beloved .44 magnum (“make my day”).  Riggs carries, prominently even to the point of featuring on all the movie posters, a Beretta 92FS, my own gun.  Not only that, he carries that throughout the series, even to the point of  having Li’s character release the slide on it in melee combat (LW4).

As for whether any actual cops carry a .44 magnum, I found this thread rather amusing: https://www.thehighroad.org/index.php?threads/44-magnum-in-law-enforcement.814097/

In my own neck of the woods, I’m not seeing many cops carrying Berettas.  Glocks and SIGs seem to be far more popular.  It turns out that LAPD was using Berettas: https://www.tactical-life.com/firearms/big-10-protection-duty-guns-americas-largest-police-departments/

Lethal Weapon 2 (1989).   As you may have noticed from my Facebook post, I watched this one.  Again, watching it again after a few years I pick up on a few things.

A.         Bad guys: South Africans laundering money.   “Diplomatic immunity” “…has just been revoked”.  I’m sure the State Dept. loved the movie’s assertion that simply shooting the diplomat in question is sufficient to revoke such immunity, which would do wonders to protect our own diplomats abroad.  Actually the movie raises the question of exactly how much diplomats can get away with under that policy.  Do we know?  Speeding tickets and incidental crimes are one thing, but ongoing criminal operations, including murdering local police, might well be another.  If there was a dispute on the issue the respective countries could take it up with Interpol, ICJ, the UN, or whatever.

 

B.         Dean Norris.  Yep, that’s Agent Hank Schrader (Walter White’s DEA brother-in-law in “Breaking Bad” – you have started watching, haven’t you?), though he’s one of Riggs’ and Murtaugh’s buddies who gets blown up.  As if killing cops is a viable strategy for deterring an investigation (“They killed our guys.  Let it slide.”)

C.         Leo Getz.  Joe Pesci’s character introduced in this movie.  Successfully straddling the line between annoying and endearing.  “They F**K you at the drive-thru!” is from this film – oddly edited to “FREAK” when censorship demands a notable catchphrase be edited for profanity if not plausibility. 

D.         Ms. Haagen Dasz (Van den Haas – Patsy Kensit).  They will correct the ongoing lack of a female love interest for Riggs in the next film with Rene Russo.

E.         Dislocated shoulder.  First Riggs uses it to get out of the strait jacket at the station, later uses it to escape from certain drowning.  Tragic – or convenient? – that Ms. Haagen Dasz lacks a similar ability.

Lethal Weapon 3 (1992).  Riggs & Murtaugh start out by blowing up a downtown building instead of letting the bomb squad take care of it, and get demoted to patrolmen.  Eventually they wind up with Lorna Cole (Rene Russo) who is with Internal Affairs (IA), the dept. which investigates corrupt cops.  Leo Getz is here trying to sell Murtaugh’s house, but buyers are put off by his excessive disclosures of all the weird stuff which happened at the house in the last two movies. 

The bad guy is a former cop, Jack Travis (Stuart Wilson) who hires other corrupt cops at his construction company outside town – fairly suave and unlikeable but nonetheless nonremarkable or memorable.  Easily the least interesting of the four villains.  Riggs & Cole hook up, Getz provides humor, and Murtaugh continues to whine about “too old for this” and now “I don’t want to die when I’m due to retire in a week”.  SSDD. 

Russo’s appearance, both as a new character and as a love interest to Riggs, are what essentially distinguish this film from #1 and 2.  The absence of Chris Rock (see below) is what distinguishes this film from the next one.

Lethal Weapon 4 (1998).   Here’s why watching movies again helps.   My initial impression was that LW4 was running on fumes, so bereft of anything worth showing that they pulled in Chris Rock to make THREE bonus characters.  The truth is actually more fun.

Some poor Chinese people are smuggled into the US illegally by the Triads (Chinese mafia), some of who are enslaved in making counterfeit Chinese currency.  The bad guy is played by Jet Li, as charming and dangerous as ever.  In addition to Riggs (Gibson), Murtaugh (Glover), Getz – get it? (Pesci), and Cole (Russo – now pregnant with Riggs’ baby) we get Butters (Rock), unbeknownst to Murtaugh, having not merely impregnated his daughter Rianne but also married her without her father’s knowledge, much less permission (though as adults they don't legally need it).  He’s actually a junior member of LAPD and often involved directly in the pair's adventures.  I’d say Rock does a good job of making the new guy fit in and be as entertaining as the rest of the cast. 

Stuff blowing up?  Yep.  High speed chases on L.A. Freeway – much of which is entertainingly implausible? Gotcha.  Riggs fighting somewhat martial arts?  Yep.  Bad guys leave good people to die in dangerous situation (house burning down while victims are tied up and presumably unable to escape) without simply summarily executing them at point blank range with the handguns they’re carrying?  Need you ask?

Oh, now RIGGS is beginning to suspect that he’s getting too old for this.  While in the prior film both he and Murtaugh were summarily demoted to patrolmen in black uniforms, now due to the city’s insurance & union issues coinciding, they are both summarily promoted to captains, presumably junior to perpetually exasperated Captain Murphy himself (so where’s Captain Morgan?).  Yes, he’ll dislocate his shoulder yet again, and have a brief spat with the LAPD shrink, played by the same woman – again (“Mary Ellen, it’s your agent, I’ve got another police shrink role that’s perfect for you!”). 

Here ends the series, about as properly as it should, with Lorna giving birth & marrying Riggs, Rianne giving birth and making Murtaugh a grandfather, and none of the major characters dead.  Incidentally, they have a fifth film (!) ready to go, with Gibson and Glover on board, but no word yet on when it will be done.

Overall, the four movies are equally good, but after a point they melt into one another and I have a hard time keeping track of what happened in which movie.  I can keep track of when Getz (2), Cole (3), and Butters (4) were introduced and who the bad guys were, but even then only because I watched the films again recently, years after originally seeing them. 

New series.  They actually made a TV series of the show, starting in 2016, and actually used the original characters, though obviously using new actors.  Martin Riggs was played by Clayne Crawford, and Roger Murtaugh is played by Damon Wayans.  Seann William Scott, best known as “Stifler” from the “American Pie” films, took over as a character Wesley Cole when Crawford was fired for being a jerk and Riggs’ character killed off.  I haven’t actually seen this, but I’m vaguely aware of its existence.  Maybe I’ll look into it.

RIP Sears and Toys R Us

Recently two major companies, with large stores in my area, finally went out of business, permanently.  These would be Sears and Toys R Us.  At this point both are in CH11, not CH7, but all their stores are closing permanently.  It’s unclear as to whether they will be resurrected in the future.   I have seen the local stores of each company close and go dark, but I have not seen anyone else move into them or the stores demolished for something completely different.  The Sears at Landmark Mall has a large sign indicating it is still open, though this may be because the mall itself closed.  I have not tried to ascertain whether it’s actually still open as of now.  I have been there numerous times in the past and have had automotive work done at various Sears locations in this area over the years.  See below. [As of 1/16/19 the Sears chairman won a bankruptcy auction for the firm, and may keep it in business.  As of now, 400 stores remain open.]

Hostess recently went out of business, only to be resurrected again by new owners with considerably more imagination and ingenuity, the variety of flavors available expanding well beyond the prior line which had continued with few (if any) changes for entire decades.  I’m guessing the original owners had grown fat, lazy and complacent on their own snack foods and showed little inclination to do anything different.  Roy Rogers also enjoyed a remarkable rebirth once new owners with a conscientious commitment to expanding the chain did a fantastic job of opening new locations to satisfy our insatiable hunger for their delicious roast beef sandwiches – and no, Arby’s is NOT an acceptable substitute.  AMEN!

For the time being, though, it appears that Sears and Toys R Us are effectively gone.  Here are my thoughts.

Sears.   Originally established in Chicago in 1893, much of the business being mail order for farmers in the Midwest.  The largest and tallest skyscraper in Chicago, now known as the Willis Tower, was originally called the Sears Tower.  We have one of those hardbound reproductions of a catalog from 1897, complete with practically anything you might expect to buy at that time:  the boys’ clothes are knickers, you can buy guns (hunting rifles and shotguns, though, not Lewis or Browning machine guns), and the most bizarre thing is complete houses, a program which lasted from 1908 to 1940; apparently Montgomery Ward had a similar program, which appears in their (similar) 1922 catalog, which they referred to as Wardway Homes.   The firm would ship you literally all the pieces in a rail car to the vacant lot where your house would be built, and either you or your contractor would build it on the spot (“some assembly required”).  Very useful for farmers, but what’s even more remarkable is that many of the houses in Arlington, Virginia are Sears houses as well.  They’re fairly small by modern standards but have that obvious early twentieth century style to them.   By comparison, the houses built around WWII and the 1950s are brick and very plain and boring – 100% utilitarian with zero style or charm whatsoever.  Finally by the ‘60s and ‘70s we start seeing some actual character again – a home, not just a brick box to live in instead of a cardboard box or a tent.  Anyhow.

As kids, our primary interest in Sears were the officially licensed NFL products, in particular the jerseys and letter jackets.  Oddly, the former would have the actual name of the team on the front over the player number, presumably because the children for whom they were intended might not be sharp enough to recognize the specific team simply by the colors on the jersey.   By now our stuff is way too small and long gone, Minnesota Vikings for me, Pittsburgh Steelers for my brother – both doing particularly well back in the 1970s, with Fran Tarkenton and Terry Bradshaw at the helms of their respective teams; in 1975 the two teams actually played each other in the Super Bowl.  Sadly, unlike the more successful Steelers, the Vikings have 4 Super Bowl appearances all within a ten year period but as yet no victories.  In the late ‘70s Lakeforest Mall opened, in Gaithersburg, Maryland, with a Sears there as well.  My recollection is that we ordered the products through the catalog and either picked them up at the local store or they were mailed to our doorstep – along with our Funny Face cups. 

As an adult, my primary interest in Sears was tools.   In early 1994 I lost my job, as my employer could no longer afford to pay me.  With a surplus of free time, I decided to teach myself about cars, something I knew almost nothing about.  I bought a high school auto mechanics text book, read it from cover to cover, and voila – looking under the hood of my 1992 Firebird, I could suddenly identify every item there.  Soon thereafter I started taking classes at NOVA Alexandria, and eventually passed ASE exams.   I changed my own oil, my transmission fluid, my brakes, and was also able to have meaningful conversations with the technicians when I went to get my car serviced for anything I couldn’t handle myself.   That also meant buying tools, and Sears’ Craftsman tools, built to high standards of quality with lifetime warranties, were excellent.  And like their ancient catalogs of the early century, the Craftsman catalog had tons of special tools like micrometers, rare low demand things they didn’t sell in the local stores. 

Driving School.   Before I forget!  In summer 1986 my brother and I learned to drive at the Sears school at Montgomery Mall.  Our classes were in the breakroom over by the auto shop, and our actual driving classes were in downtown Silver Spring.   We can honestly say that Sears (!) taught us how to drive.

Toys R Us.   Of course we can remember this as kids.  Not nearly as old as Sears, this company essentially began in 1957, twelve years before I myself came into business in Maryland as a baby.  The main stores we went to were in Rockville, Maryland, now long gone as well.  There was one on Route 7 at Bailey’s Crossroads, Virginia, within walking distance of where I live now.   As kids the whole place was a wonderland of toys. 

Whenever we wanted to go someplace my father wasn’t thrilled about taking us, he’d joke, “didn’t you hear?  There was a huge fire, it burned down.”   Typically, the burned down place would be a Toys R Us, of course.  My dad had a warmth and humor which Red Forman couldn’t hope to match.  All my cousins remember “Uncle Eddie” warmly and fondly, as do I.   As yet, my father’s humor notwithstanding, I’m not aware of any toy store actually closing due to fire. 

The other thing was “lights on”.   Later at night we’d pass by a Toys R Us, and I’d ask to go there, seeing as the lights were still on, which meant it must still be open.  My dad explained that this was to deter thieves, and not because Toys R Us was open 24/7.  (“It’s 2 a.m., I want a toy…now!”)

As an adult, Toys R Us was to buy presents for my nephew Ian and nieces Zoe, Beatrice, Shelby and Eleanor, or Intellivision games – when they were still available – and more recently XBOX games.  My last Toys R US purchase was a South Park XBOX game, at half price.

Incidentally, a backwards “R”, as in the Toys R Us logo, is in the Cyrillic (Russian) alphabet as “YA”, and means “I” (first person singular). 

RIP SEARS and TOYS R US.