TRACY SIGNS

We’ve heard for a couple months now from Dodger fans who didn’t understand why Paul DePodesta hadn’t already signed Jim Tracy. Why would Depo let Tracy dangle, after assuring him that he would return as the Dodgers manager? Was Tracy asking too much money? Too much time? Did DePodesta have another prospect in mind?

So now that Tracy’s return has been made official by the Dodgers’ announcement Wednesday of a two-year deal (terms not disclosed), it’s time for the Tracy haters to start hatin’ again. My friend Steve called me, distraught, as soon as he heard about the deal, and he threatened to either boycott the Dodgers in 2005 (it’ll never happen) or mutilate himself in a very personal way (might happen) because of this disastrous news.

But just how is this bad news for the Dodgers or Dodger fans? Admittedly, Tracy’s managerial style is not exactly aggressive and in-your-face, and he’s occasionally too reticent when it comes time to insert or remove pitchers, reticence that plays like indecisiveness and that sometimes come back to haunt him. But he’s well-liked by the players and coaches, over four seasons he’s had four winning seasons, and he’s the first manager to win a Dodger postseason game since the heyday of Tommy Lasorda in 1988. Depo’s not exactly betting the house by bringing Tracy back. The best-case scenario sees Tracy leading the team, hopefully after a couple of tasty free-agent acquisitions to fill holes on the mound and behind the plate, to another division championship—the Giants look poised to help make that happen again in 2005—creating bounty for the team and the fans and writing an insurance policy for his job when 2006 winds to a close. At worst, Tracy completely flops in 2005 and by the All-Star break takes a Jimy Williams-type dive, the Dodgers bring in another manager and eat a contract that turns out to be judiciously short and relatively calorie-free.

The odds are strong that the reality of 2005 will resemble the former rather than the latter. But hey, if Tracy does fold up like a rickety upper-deck chair, at least Tracy haters will be able to say “I told you so,” right? Congratulations. Unfortunately, if that happens it’ll probably mean the team won’t exactly be in the catbird seat, league standings-wise. And I would hope that even if you’re a Dodger fan who doesn’t like Tracy, you’d be able to find it in your heart to at least wish him well in between flaming curses as the season gets underway. Take one for the team, Steve—Tracy’s the boss for the next two years. Everything that goes wrong will not be his fault; nor will he reasonably be able to take credit for everything that very well could go right. Tracy wouldn’t expect that credit, though I suspect he’d pony up for the blame like any honorable chief would. So how is Tracy returning to a job at which he’s had more success than anyone in 16 years anything, at this point, but good news?

THROUGH A SMUDGY CRYSTAL BALL: HOLIDAY FILMS

Forgive me, but I really don't care what Oliver Stone has to say on the subject of Alexander the Great, and I'm not interested in watching Nicolas Cage unearth any kind of National Treasure. Yet I'm inordinately excited to see The Spongebob Squarepants Movie. Such is my reality. With few dollars to spend on theatrical films these days, and even fewer opportunities to make it out of the house even if I was stinking rich, I've got to be choosy. And it says a lot about the state of American film (at least to me) that I'm willing to pass over work by an Oscar-winning director (who, I admit, has never made films, other than Salvador and Nixon, that I admired) or starring an Oscar-winning actor who at one time, before he got the Bruckheimer Jones, was considered one of the best and most original of his generation... in favor of a big screen adaptation of a TV cartoon about a chatty, fast-food addicted loofa.

There are plenty of titles in 2004 that I missed on the big screen that I'm hoping to catch up to on DVD, such as I'll Sleep When I'm Dead (still on schedule for tonight, after my oldest finishes her screening of The Secret of NIMH and heads to bed), Control Room, Gozu, Sky Captain and the World of Tomorrow, The Hunting of the President, Ju-On, The Story of the Weeping Camel, The Ramones: End of the Century and, it seems, Team America: World Police, Tarnation, Z Channel: A Magnificent Obsession and Beat Takeshi's Dolls.

As for what lies ahead, there seems to be less of interest coming to a theater near me than usual this holiday season, which is a development that, come to think of it, meshes rather well with my newly restricted multiplex diet. But the next month or so is not entirely without its promises...

THE LIFE AQUATIC WITH STEVE ZISSOU I have (unreasonably?) high hopes for the new Wes Anderson film based on its refreshingly dry trailer and because I'd see just about anything that features Bill Murray front and center (well, not Garfield: The Movie).

BRIGHT FUTURE New ways to get thoroughly unnerved, courtesy of Japanese director Kiyoshi Kurosawa (Cure). It's something to do with a two guys and a jellyfish, and the less I know about it going in the better.

SIDEWAYS Election is one of the best films of the '90s. Can Alexander Payne's new film come close to it? Paul Giamatti and Sandra Oh are two good reasons to seek out stadium seating anyway, but Virginia Madsen's getting the kind of attention that might signal a full-on career revival.

THE AVIATOR Gwen Stefani as Jean Harlow? I'm there!

BAD EDUCATION This is the kind of complex filmmaking for adults that seems increasingly rare, but seems second nature for Pedro Almodovar. If he continues the streak started by Live Flesh and extended by All About My Mother and Talk to Her, Almodovar may be ready to move into the master class.

HOUSE OF FLYING DAGGERS Superstar-in-waiting Ziyi Zhang headlines the second martial arts epic of the year from Zhang Yimou (she had a much smaller role in the director's Hero, made in 2002 but only released here this past August). She could be the Ginger Rogers of a new wave of fight-choreography-as-dance masterpieces.

OCEAN'S TWELVE Redundant? Perhaps. Unnecessary? Almost guaranteed. Steven Soderbergh could get the worst reviews of his career for this sequel to his own spiky remake of the Rat Pack original, and I'd still go see it before I went anywhere near Christmas with the Kranks.

MILLION DOLLAR BABY David Poland at TheHotButton.com has got me really excited about this one. So soon after Mystic River, to hear such effusive advance praise for another Clint Eastwood movie is cause for elevated expectations, indeed.

NOTRE MUSIQUE New Godard. If it plays in Los Angeles longer than a week, I've got a shot.

I'm also intrigued by Closer, Ray, Kinsey, Enduring Love, A Very Long Engagement, I Am David, The Assassination of Richard Nixon and In Good Company, but if I have to choose (and I will have to choose), these titles definitely comprise the second tier.

So, here we go, enthusiasm in check, into the first Christmas season in three years with no astonishments from Peter Jackson to look forward to-- Hey, wait! The extended version (50 added minutes) of The Lord of the Rings: The Return of the King comes to DVD on December 14. By God, all of the sudden I am pretty excited for the holiday movie season!

YOU DIDN'T HAVE TO LOVE ME/BUT YOU DID/BUT YOU DID/BUT YOU DID/AND I THANK YOU...

It's late on a school night, the work week is about to come to a pleasant and early finish, and I've just wrapped up a session with a counterful of filthy pots, pans, plates and sippy cups. Edgar G. Ulmer's Bluebeard, starring John Carradine as a homicidal Parisian puppeteer, kept me entertained amongst the soap suds courtesy of my portable DVD player-- I had rented Mike Hodges' I'll Sleep When I'm Dead as my feature of choice for tonight's edition of Dirty Dishes Cinema, but a quick glance at the damage told me it wasn't quite a 108-minute job (the running time of this potentially nasty British noir, which I will save for Thanksgiving Eve), and that Ulmer's economical 70-minute thriller was more suited to the scale of tonight's undertaking. I dried the last spoon just as "Fin" came up over a shot of mockup of a bridge over the Seine, on which floated (SPOILER ALERT!!!) Carradine's lifeless body, chuckled at my ability these days to so accurately size up just how many crusty cereal bowls and murky drink glasses it takes to get through a feature film, and unconsciously started mulling over all the things I should be thankful for in the days approaching the holiday and, of course, beyond. It's not, as it turns out, a short list, but I'll give it a shot before the swirling sands of sleep form a towering dune from under which I won't escape until my daughter comes calling at the crack of dawn...

When I raise a glass on Thanksgiving, these are some of the things I'll be thankful for:

My wife Patty, who has gone through so much for our little family in the last seven years, and who continues to inspire me with her generosity, her beauty, her humor, her perceptiveness, her intelligence and her capacity for love. The only thing she truly lacks is the confidence and the ability to understand even a fraction of how wonderful she really is. She'll think this is weird, but everything she's given me, and the richness with which she's infused my life, always makes me think of a certain line from an old ZZTop song...

My gorgeous daughter Emma, who I love beyond my capacity to understand, who sings Christmas hymns and country tunes with abandon and enthusiasm, and who surprises me every day as she insists on leaving toddlerdom a little further behind on her journey to become, as Collodi (or Walt Disney) might have put it, a real little girl...

My gorgeous daughter Nonie, who I love beyond my capacity to understand, who never lets Emma's shadow get too dark and wide, who is a more relentless little diaper-laden jukebox than even her big sister, who never denies me when I need to hear her laugh, and who recently sat with me through The Incredibles and made yet another dream come true for her old dad...

My son Charlie, who never knew us beyond the voices he could hear from within the womb, and who I believe lives on in the souls of his sisters...

My parents, who were much smarter and full of love than I ever gave them credit for when I was a kid...

Patty's parents, who put the lie to every in-law joke ever told...

My best friend Bruce, who knows me better than anyone save my wife; the endurance of our friendship is something I'm frankly in awe of, and something which I strive never to take for granted...

Marlen, Letty, Nan, Trini, Miriam, Nancy and Juana, the women who take such good care of our daughters every day while Patty and I type and edit and type and edit and type...

People I've worked with over the past 17 years who started out as colleagues and became good friends-- Andy, Brian, Liz, Jennifer, Stephanie, Leslie, Blayne, Rob, Steve, James and Beverly...

This blog, which affords me the chance to, as my friend Katie so aptly put it recently, face up to the terror of writing, get the writing into some shape and form, allow it to be read and hopefully enjoyed, and spark my creativity and stamina as well...

Turner Classic Movies, a new semester of film school every month...

The privilege of hearing Vin Scully at work...

The appearance of both California Split and Charley Varrick on DVD before the end of this year...

Frank Zappa's "Montana" and the You Are What You Is album...

The increasingly rare opportunity to go fishing...

The double cheeseburger at Pie 'n' Burger on California Street in Pasadena...

The fact that Peter Jackson, Joe Johnston, Robert Altman, Guillermo Del Toro, Pedro Almodovar and Walter Hill make movies...

Seeing Cesar Izturis and Alex Cora make a "routine" double play look like it was choreographed by Fred Astaire...

My memories of the Alger Theater and the Circle JM Drive-In Theater in the Lakeview, Oregon of my youth...

Cary Grant in anything, but particularly Notorious...

Sophia Loren, Michelle Yeoh, Carole Lombard, Claudia Cardinale, Maggie Cheung and Shelley Duvall in anything, but particularly More Than a Miracle, Supercop, Nothing Sacred, Once Upon a Time in the West, Irma Vep and Popeye...

Jon Weisman's Dodger Thoughts blog...

Steely Dan's "Don't Take Me Alive" and the Everything Must Go album...

Rain (particularly Oregon rain... more on that in an upcoming post)...

The sublime final shot of Monsters, Inc., and also the whole ending of The Station Agent, perhaps the most mysteriously "right" closing of a movie I've seen in years...

That drive-in movie theaters are not dead yet...

Randy Johnson and Eric Gagne on the mound, as well as my sense of empathy for the poor bastards who have to try to hit what they so masterfully send to the plate...

Pauline Kael, who, more than any film professor, lit the light for me...

David Edelstein, Manohla Dargis, A.O. Scott, Chuck Stephens, Stephanie Zacharek, Charles Taylor and Matt Zoller Seitz, film critics who keeping the flame burning against increasingly steep cultural odds...

Steve Finley's walk-off grand slam, October 2, 2004...

Darin Morgan, Clyde Bruckman, Jose Chung, The Lone Gunmen, Bill Macy and the "Somehow, Satan Got Behind Me" episode from the second season of Millennium (go ahead, connect the dots-- it's fun!)...

Multnomah Falls, just outside Portland, Oregon...

...and the fact that I can so easily smuggle 94% fat-free Orville Redenbacher Smart Pop and diet soda into just about any local movie theater and thus successfully avoid laying down twice the price of a (discount ticket) on relatively crappy movie snacks.

I often feel I don't deserve a life this good, but I'm grateful for the bounty anyway, as well as the desire to continue to make it as good as I can for my beautiful family and faithful friends.

Happy Thanksgiving, one and all...

PROGRAM NOTES FOR THE WEEKEND

Turner Classic Movies has, as usual, plenty of good stuff to offer this weekend. A few of the titles I'll be looking for are:

Strange Illusion (1945) A visit to an insane asylum courtesy of Poverty Row director Edgar G. Ulmer. Saturday, 11/20, 5:00am PST

Northwest Passage (1940) The true story of Roger's Rangers and their fight to open up new frontiers for Colonial America. Features Spencer Tracy, Walter Brennan and Robert Young. Directed by King Vidor. 11/20 8:30am PST

Lawman (1970) By-the-book sheriff Burt Lancaster takes on corrupt town boss Lee J. Cobb in this western, one of the only movies directed by Michael Winner (Death Wish) I can think of that could be classified as good. Robert Ryan is terrific here too. 11/21 1:30am PST

Mr. and Mrs. Smith (1941) Unusual entry for Alfred Hitchcock into the realm of screwball comedy is a fantastic showcase for the luminous Carole Lombard. Robert Montgomery co-stars as the other half of a bickering couple who discover they were never legally married. Don't miss this. 11/21 3:15am PST

UNSUNG PERFORMANCES: SHAWNEE SMITH IN "SAW"

The dank and derivative horror thriller Saw opens on the photographing of a grotesque murder scene, each shutter click tricked out with discordant screeches lifted directly from the soundtrack of Tobe Hooper’s The Texas Chainsaw Massacre, which also began with extreme close-ups of rotted, mangled flesh illuminated by a sudden flash and those same agonized shutter screeches. Any modern horror film that jumps out of the gate with this kind of borderline plagiarism had better have something else up its sleeve, and that something turns out to be its titillating high concept: two men (Cary Elwes and screenwriter Leigh Whannell) wake up chained at the ankles to the walls of a shit-smeared bathroom located they know not where; one is told he must murder the other in six hours time, or else the deranged serial killer responsible for their imprisonment will execute his wife and daughter. As an ostensible means to escape, both are supplied with flimsy handsaws inadequate to cut through their shackles, but more than sufficient to cut through flesh and bone…

Whannell and director James Wan structure the movie as an over-elaborate A.D.D.-addled series of flashbacks, interwoven with that nasty men’s room scenario, which detail the killer’s previous Se7en-esque attempts to teach his victims lessons in appreciating life through wildly improbable Rube Goldberg murder methodology. I say over-elaborate because Wan and Whannell’s imaginations as storytellers and technique as filmmakers never seem quite nimble enough to imbue the film with a sufficient subcurrent of dread and perversely moralistic fury to carry it beyond the insider references and tonal plagiarism that prove to be its meat and gristle. Inevitably, Saw ends up collapsing under the weight of its own narrative contraptions.

There is, however, another link to the Tobe Hooper film, a more indirect and most likely unintentional one, and it ends up being the unexpected source of the only real power the movie possesses.

In the original Texas Chainsaw Massacre (or as I used to refer to it, oddly enough, Saw), poor Marilyn Burns spent the last 30 minutes or so of the movie in a state of unrelieved terror at the hands of Leatherface and his family that seemed uncomfortably real, horrifically pure. Few, then, were surprised when stories about the making of the film, detailed in the commentary tracks and bonus material on the movie’s DVD release, revealed that much of Burns’ hysteria was indeed the real thing. Hooper’s methods in staging much of the action surrounding Burns’ torment at the hands of Leatherface and family were said to be less than sensitive. Those methods, along with the Texas heat, no budget to allow for actor comfort, the grisly subject matter, and several actual injuries to the actress, are said to be reasons why Burns holds few fond memories of the making of the movie, and also perhaps partially why hers is one of the most vivid portrayals of pure fear in all of horror cinema.

As a junkie who ends up at the center of one of the killer’s puzzle traps, Shawnee Smith’s face spends nearly a third of her time on screen masked by a heavy metal framework that has been designed to rip her jaw off. She must retrieve the key to unlock the mechanism without setting its nasty purpose in motion, a key that has been embedded in the abdominal cavity of a man lying motionless next to her, who turns out to be not quite dead. Now, as frightful and potentially fatal situations go, this one is a lot more convoluted and cumbersome than the relatively elemental threat of dismemberment by chain saw, and Wan’s hyperactive camerawork during the sequence in which Smith tries to free herself does a lot to undermine the possibility of protracted audience agony inherent in the setup. But if you’ve seen the one-sheet for Saw, you’ve seen a distillation of the core of what’s effective about the scene, a core that Wan’s jittery camera often won’t let us settle on but can’t ultimately dilute. That deadly headgear allows us to see Smith’s eyes, and she uses them to project the most palpable straight-to-the-spinal-column sense of naked fear since those infamous close-ups of Marilyn Burns’ bloodshot, tear-soaked peepers darting about, looking to find escape where there is none, from 30 years ago. Smith’s eyes visible amongst the gears and rods surrounding her skull and face, alive with electric jolts of terror, is the image used in the movie’s advertising, an image promising a level of intensity that her performance delivers but, alas, the movie in toto does not.

What really raises Smith’s brief appearance (she’s in the film for not much more than five minutes, which prompted David Edelstein, film critic for the online magazine Slate, to describe her as “criminally underused”) to another level, though, is what she does as she recalls her night of terror later in a police station. She is the only one who has managed to survive a torturous scenario laid out by the Jigsaw Killer, and the film cuts back and forth between her telling of the horrific event and the event itself. Many an actor, eager to grab attention at any opportunity, especially given such short screen time, might extend the character’s hysteria from the depths of the dungeon straight into the interrogation room. But Shawnee Smith risks accusations of underplaying (a rare-enough phenomenon in any film, but especially so in a hyperactive horror thriller) to suggest post-traumatic shock through trembling quiet, denying us the chance, with a down-turned face, to look into those eyes again and see what ripples of the horror that we saw earlier might remain. This simple, inconspicuous choice, the contrast between the wide eyes that witness madness and the closed ones that retreat away from it, and consequently from all comfort, provides an added pulse of identification that Marilyn Burns was never allowed to explore, and it single-handedly makes Saw worth seeing. When Smith delivers the kicker to the scene, a line which somewhat subversively suggests that the killer, by forcing her to commit murder in order to save herself from a gruesome death, has functioned for her as a sort of homicidal psychotherapist, she doesn’t punch it home for showy effect. She infuses the words “He helped me” with equal parts regret, disgust, amazement and confusion, and with enough subtlety that the resonating, dissonant tones from the utterance could easily be lost among the cacophony and moral chaos of the movie that surrounds it. It’s a terrific performance.

THE 21st-CENTURY CINEPHILE

Film critic Manohla Dargis, late of the LA Weekly and The Los Angeles Times, has written a terrific article about the resurgence of cinephilia in the digital age, and given the eulogies written over the last 10 years on the death of film culture Dargis's conclusions are remarkably optimistic. Check out the article here:

http://www.nytimes.com/2004/11/14/movies/14WWLN.html

You may have to register (it's free) to access this article and other online content with The New York Times. Although it may not always be the case, this time it's worth the extra 15 seconds.

CONGRATULATIONS TO VLADIMIR GUERRERO

Well, at least the American League got it right. Guerrero spurred the Angels on to a division title and inspired the whole team to step it up a notch to get there. Even though Arte's Angels (hey, there's a catchy new name!) went down to defeat at the hands of America's Team of Destiny (or as I like to think of them, the Cursed Little Bandwagon That Could), Guerrero deserved the honor.

Too bad the writers are too blinded by the spotlight shining on Barry Bonds to come to the same conclusion for the National League.

Yes, Bonds' personal stats were amazing and, in most cases, league-leading. But to this observer, the phrase "Most Valuable Player" implies a value as applied not to one player's ever-increasing glory, but to that player's ability to elevate his team, to demonstrate that that team's fate would have been considerably different had he not been on the roster. If a player is most valuable primarily to himself, then how can he really be the Most Valuable? Certainly you can say that the 2004 Giants, with their mediocre batting order, would have been a lot further away from the postseason than they ended up without Bonds. But the fact is, the Giants still watched the postseason on TV like the rest of us schmoes.

Adrian Beltre, on the other hand, much like Guerrero, spurred his team on with a breakout performance in 2004, contributed mightily to 52 come-from-behind Dodger wins, and was instrumental in keeping them in the National League West lead for all but a couple of weeks or so over the course of the season. (Oh, yeah, and the Dodgers won their division too.)

So the writers award Barry the MVP honor because swings the bat like no one else in the history of the sport and he forces the managers to change their pitching strategy like no single other player ever has. Good! He should be keeping them on their toes, making them squirm. Adjusting to the talents of every batter in the opposing lineup is integral to how managers do their job, and if managers choose to pitch him out it's because they're trying to win a game, not contribute to Barry's highlight reel.

But Beltre's league-leading home runs, his all-around power at the plate and ability to use the entire field, and his prowess as a third baseman (that's offense AND defense-- how many of these writers gush on about how Barry can't or won't run down a ball in left field?) aren't good enough for more than six first-place votes?

Well, Adrian, Randy Johnson pitched a perfect game on the worst team in baseball this year, and he came in second in the Cy Young voting too. That oughta cheer you up a little before you put on the big suit and head up to Mr. McCourt's office with Mr. Boras for your big meeting. Here's hoping you're at third base in Chavez Ravine next year and for a good long while after that. The MVP award can wait.