The best of times, the worst of times: blockbusters presage the end of movies

News flash—after one weekend, Star Wars: The Force Awakens is already the 136^th highest grossing film of all time, based on worldwide revenues.  I guess the force is with them.

The Force Awakens will no doubt become one of the top ten highest grossing films of all time.  When it does, it will join Avengers: The Age of Ultron, Furious 7, Jurassic World, and Minions as the five releases from 2015 to make the top 11 (it would be top ten but Minions is about $100 million behind Iron Man and unlikely to catch up).  So, obviously, 2015 will go down as the greatest year in box office revenue.

Except that outside those five films, the picture ain’t that rosy.  With a week to go, total grosses for the year ($10.316 billion) are about even with last year, which was 5.5% below 2013.  Total grosses for 2015 could possibly come in below the total gross for 2009 ($10.595 billion), although The Force Awakens might single handedly prevent that.  However, some of that is due to higher prices; more tickets were sold in 1993 (the year of the original Jurassic Park) when tickets cost half as much.

So it is the best of times, and the worst of times.  How to explain this conundrum, with a handful of films succeeding wildly and other not?  It is feast or famine.  Either a film is a blockbuster, or it sinks to ignominious defeat.  The window for making money has narrowed; after opening weekend there isn’t much reason to stay in theaters, better to get the DVDs out and start counting revenues from sales.

An article in Hollywood Reporter recently quoted a movie executive as saying “You can’t cheat opening weekend” anymore.  If a studio served up a turkey, in the past anticipation might draw people to the theaters even if there was some unsettling buzz.  Now with “social media” (as the kids are calling it), once a flop sees the light of day, the word spreads to twitter accounts, via Instagram, on blogs and whatever the latest thing is.  Then the media reports, not on the failure, but on the social network reports of failure.  The next thing you know, before you can say “Sue Storm” the Fantastic Four is looking at a third week gross of $3.7 million. 

The concept is similar to the idea of flash crowds as coined by science fiction writer Larry Niven in 1973.  Niven posited that in a world where teleportation is available and inexpensive, whenever something interesting would happen anywhere in the world, a large group of people would decide to go there.  The more people that were there, the more people wanted to go there.  Films that generate buzz on social media are swarmed with movie goers, while those films not so lucky play to empty houses. The media reports on the swarms, and more people go.

Such a wide variation in box office grosses can only make studio executives more risk averse.  If the difference between a film making $500 million and $50 million is subtle and unknowable, then best to take no chances.  Test screen everything and let market research drive the decisions.  One shudders to think how Raiders of the Lost Ark would have done with test audiences (“One person didn’t like the melting heads; better take them out.  And put in more of the cute monkey!”). 

Maybe we are on a course where fewer and fewer films will go to the expense of opening in theaters.  If studios think they have a clunker, either trash it and take the tax write-off, or sell it to Netflix and let them stream it.  There will be far fewer screens, and only three or four mega releases will be shown at any one time (plus some arty theaters for the crowd who like subtitles). Anything unlikely to gross $20 million on opening weekend will be relegated to TV in one form or another.

The thing is this—I’m not sure this is bad.  Well, it is bad, but not for the obvious reason.  I am still convinced, as I said in a previous blog, that films seen with a traditional projection system at 24 frames per second create a special rapport with the viewer.  Studies indicate that watching celluloid projected films is more interactive and engrossing than watching a digitally projected image.

But digital project is ascendant.  Watching a film with digital projection system is psychologically indistinguishable from watching a big TV set.  So you might as well watch these films on your big TV set at home, instead of in a theater with sticky floors and people who talk. 

Documentaries don’t usually gross a lot, and they have adapted to the new distribution mode like small mammals after a meter strike.  Documentaries are far more available now than ever, and better documentaries are being made as a result.  If your target isn’t a $200 million opening weekend, there is something to be said for DVD distribution.

Maybe films will be like dinosaurs, getting bigger and bigger until the system collapses under its own weight.  Films will become so expensive that an opening weekend of $150 million is a disaster, and each studio goes bankrupt after one Fantastic Four sized failure.  A few theaters will still exist, reducing distribution costs; meanwhile revenues will come primarily from streaming, DVD sales and merchandising. 

Don’t say it can’t happen; nickelodeons used to be the primary method of distrusting films.  When was the last time you paid a nickel to see a movie?

Rajon Rondo's slip of the lip

Lest anyone think that sports are not capable of creating subtle philosophical conundrums, let’s look at the penalties involved for the use of the F word in basketball.

Not “the” F word, but the other F word, the one that is a slang derogatory reference to being a homosexual.  Sacramento Kings player Rajon Rondo was recently suspended for one game for using the F word in referring to a referee.  This has been done before, but the difference here was that the referee was, in fact, gay.

In previous instances of players using the F word, a fine was deemed sufficient penalty.  Rondo was suspended for one game.  Does this reflect the fact that the league is becoming more sensitive to players using homophobic slurs, or is it due to the fact that the application of the insult in this case was literal and not just a schoolyard taunt?

I’ve always been amused when, in the past, a player who used the F word as an insult would always apologize by saying he didn’t mean it literally.  Right, because actually calling someone gay is so odious you would only do it as a joke. 

But now that more people have come out of the closet, there is the increased possibility that a player throwing around the F word will direct it at someone to whom it is, literally, applicable.  Should this result in a greater penalty?  Or should all usages of the word reap the same whirlwind?

One can’t draw a parallel to the N word, as that rarely gets used as an insult to white players.  But you do have circumstances where the race of the person uttering the word changes the context; an African-American using the word may not have the same connotation as a Caucasian player using it.  However, I believe the NFL policy is that any use of the word is forbidden.

I mentioned that I love how players apologize for using the F word; I basically love all apologies drafted by teams of lawyers and management.  Rondo apologized, saying that he did not mean any disrespect to the LGBT community.  Really?  You used a slur describing one member of the LGBT community as an insult against someone who was a member of that group.  How can you respect the community if you use a term to describe someone in the community as an insult?

All Rondo’s apology lacked was heartfelt remorse “if anyone was offended” and apologizing for “what happened” (as opposed to “What I did”).

Rondo further said that his use of the term was the result of frustration.  News flash, Mr. Rondo: you play for the Sacramento Kings; get used to being frustrated.  You play for one of the most dysfunctional franchises in the NBA, one that looks relatively decent only compared to fire sales like Philadelphia and the LA Lakers.  The Kings have their first decent (i.e. experienced) coach in over ten years, and the team’s star player, Demarcus Cousins, hates him.  The owner has said he wants to consider playing 4 on 5 on defense to keep an offensive player in the backcourt.  With the expansive playoff roster in the NBA you can’t rule out a run for the #8 seed in the West (FiveThirtyEight gives them a 24% chance of making the playoffs) but anything past the first round is out of the question.

Hopefully we will all live in a word where the F word is no longer used as an insult (except as South Park said, to refer to people who ride excessively loud motorcycles).  Until then the NBA should consider increasing the penalties for using the word, as a single game seems a small price to play for insulting a large group of people.

TV Review: Childhood's End and The Expanse

You have to give Syfy credit for swinging for the fences.  Several years after their breakout hit Battlestar Galactica (who saw a reboot of a cheesy 1970’s TV show as a critical and commercial success?) Syfy is now looking for the next Big Thing.  They have been biding their time, putting out pleasant science fiction that appeals to their fanbase, but nothing that grabs a wider audience.  First they produced the ambitious Ascension, which starred Battlestar alum Tricia Helfer (and showed off her butt on at least three occasions).  Now they waited for the Holiday programming doldrums to put out two more ambitious shows; the series The Expanse and the mini-series Childhood’s End.  The results are mixed, which is probably not what Syfy was hoping for.

Childhood’s End is based on the seminal science fiction novel by SF megastar Arthur C. Clarke (whose science was so solid that he actually invented the idea of geosynchronous satellites).  The novel, about how aliens come to Earth and prepare mankind for the next phase of their evolution, is a standard bearer of science fiction over 60 years after its release (I read the novel back in the 1970’s; I meant to re-read it before seeing the mini-series but didn’t get around to it).  Syfy’s production is impressive, but the results are less than satisfactory.

Part of that is because the novel is SO influential, some of its concepts have become part of standard SF argot.  Seemingly benevolent aliens come to Earth, but there must be some agenda; mankind’s push for material things is counter-productive.  There are familiar tropes to anyone who has dipped into science fiction in the past 30 years.

After watching all six hours, another thing is that the ending is unremittingly bleak.  What few characters we’ve come to know don’t end up well.  We are told the fate of the human race is for the best, but it looks a lot like extinction.  During the course of the mini-series, almost nothing good happens to anyone we care about, which may be realistic but it is hardly uplifting.  The main character, Ricky Stormgren, is offered interaction with his dead first wife in exchange for cooperating with the aliens, which may seem like a reward but is hardly fair to his new fiancee.

And then there is the Colm Meany character.  Called Wainwright, he is supposed to be some media mogul in the vein of Rupert Murdoch.  He reminded me of what Roger Ebert said about a character in the film Die Hard: he exists solely to be wrong every time he says something.  He asks why the aliens chose a Missouri farmer as their liaison, then says he’s “from a flyover state, he won’t ask the right questions.”  So everyone living more than 50 miles from an ocean is an idiot?  The character might think that way, but he’d be more careful expressing himself.  He then develops a plan to drive the aliens away which involves polluting the planet to the point of uninhabitable-ness.  Does he even listen to the words coming out of his mouth?

The show makes some interesting points about religion, essentially taking the position of Vique’s Law that a man needs religion like a fish needs a bicycle.  It’s a daring position to take with the religious right flexing their political power more than ever, but there could have been some debate without every religious person being portrayed as a nutcase.

The Expanse is based on a series of books that are set in the solar system in the 23^rd century.  Earth is a paradise for the elite; Mars is a warlike (get it?  Mars, God of War?) independent colony, and the asteroid belt is populated by rabble who toil for the resources that make Earth enjoyable.  There are three separate stories that I am sure will interlock eventually.  On Ceres, a detective (Thomas Jane) is tasked with finding a runaway daughter of some elites; on Earth, a UN interrogator (silky-voiced Shohreh Aghdashloo) tries to uncover evidence about a terrorist plot; and near Saturn, a ship that captures ice chunks from the ring system is inexplicably attacked.  Syfy broadcast the first two episodes this week, with the next two episodes available On Demand or at their website.

The Expanse takes the “dump the audience in the middle of everything” approach (after an opening crawl setting up the basics), which some people like but I find lazy.  Establishing characters is hard, and to expect the audience to catch up after starting at full tilt puts the burden on them, not the writers.  I also dislike the whole notion that there are three plots at once and we have to trust the creators that they’ll tie together eventually.  But some progress was made in episode two, so maybe the wait won’t be a long one.

There seems to be an effort to inject some verisimilitude into the segments set on the spacecraft, with g-forces and lack of oxygen treated as realistically as possible.  The special effects are good, although the shot of two people having sex in zero-g looked a little too computer-simulation-y (Syfy’s The Magicians preview did it much better).  The first two episodes establish a broad tableau, so there is definitely room to grow.

Given that they are working from a series of books, the show as the potential to create a realistic fictional universe much as Game of Thrones has.  If they can balance the broad strokes of the plotlines (Earth vs. Mars, poor vs. Elites) and do a slightly better job of developing the characters (ok, we get it, the detective is morally ambiguous but good at heart) The Expanse definitely has a chance to run for a while, although I don’t think it has the breakout potential Battlestar had.  It is better than Syfy’s Killjoys or Dark Matter, which are entertaining in a B-movie sort of way but not as good compared to some more ambitious.  

The Best TV of 2015

It used to be when I had an opinion about the best comedy or best drama of a given TV season, it meant something.  Of course I didn’t watch EVERY television program, because even in a three network universe that was impossible, but I watched most of the major shows, the ones who might get Emmy nominations.  Then it became more and more difficult to keep up.  New networks and weblets arose, pay cable stations made some shows inaccessible, and then the cable landscape exploded.  Now, not only are there shows I haven’t heard of, there are cable channels I have no idea how to find on my system, if they are even there.  There’s even more stuff not to be found on my favorite channels list, as you must subscribe to Netflix, Amazon, Hulu, or God help us even Yahoo in order to watch.

Also, with the Balkanization of channels, everyone is now a niche provider.  There used to be some common ground where everyone could come together and pronounce LA Law or Picket Fences as the finest example of television available.  But the need to reach a mass audience is over.  You can tailor your show to reach a core audience of around a million, and your fans will find it.  A show like The Sopranos could not have existed on network TV as advertisers would have been too afraid of offending someone, somewhere.  But on cable it could reach a smaller cadre of fans eager to see Italian stereotypes whack each other incessantly.

Technically the last broadcast show to win the Emmy for Best Drama was 24 in 2006, but I think the 2005 winner Lost was the last show that was designed to appeal to a mass audience.  Since then the Best Drama Emmy winners have been cable shows that could not have succeeded in a mass marketplace like network television.

So when I pick a show as the best drama or the best comedy of the year, it means nothing.  I am going by my own ascetic tastes, which now can be catered to by small niche TV shows of no interest to 98% of the viewing population.  But still, it must be done.  Mustn't it?

My pick for the best drama on television in 2015 is USA’s surprise breakout hit, Mr. Robot.  How good was Mr. Robot?  Everyone who ever watched Fight Club, or knew of Fight Club, or who had been told a synopsis of Fight Club by a friend, could see the big twist reveal in the final episode coming, and yet it STILL pack a punch.  I haven’t felt such urgency watching a show since the early days of Lost, when all of America demanded answers to questions like who was in the Hatch, and where did The Others come from?  After each episode of Mr. Robot it was intolerable to wait a week to see what would happen next.

Maybe one reason for Mr. Robot’s success (USA announced its renewal for season two before the first episode of season one had aired) was shock at the prospect that a TV series starring Christian Slater could, you know, not suck.  Yes, Slater did his best work in years, suppressing his “Christian Slater” persona most of the time then letting it out for maximum effect.  But the show was much more than rising above diminished expectations.

What distinguishes Mr. Robot from the (literally) hundreds of other TV shows out there?  Chutzpah.  Like another great show this year, Fargo season 2, Mr. Robot is not afraid to take on outrageous, mind-bending plot twists while still presenting human beings dealing with relatable issues.  Mr. Robot was not timid, announcing the title of the series in HUGE red letters and distinctive font at the start of every episode.  Because they weren’t playing it safe, the audience had no idea what was off limits (spoiler: when dealing with a show about a conspiracy to destroy the world’s economy, the one thing you know won’t happen is the destruction of the world’s economy; except, that’s what happened).

Of course the show benefited greatly from a star making performance by its lead, Rami Malek.  The show’s poster, with Malek’s face, hollow-eyed, staring out from beneath a black hoodie behind the words “Our democracy has been hacked” was a brilliant announcement of everything you needed to know about the series; this was not your usual protagonist but a character on the fringes, controlling the center despite not wanting to engage with society.

My pick for best comedy shares Mr. Robot’s flair for the unconventional.  To coin a phrase, You’re The Worst is the best.  The series’ first season, about two narcissistic, hedonistic jerks who somehow form a “relationship,” (they would roll their eyes at the term) defied everything we’ve come to know about romantic comedies.  It became even more daring in its second season, presenting one of the most accurate depictions of chronic depression ever done on a screen, big or small.  As Gretchen (Aya Cash) increasingly withdrew into herself, her befuddled “boyfriend” Jimmy (Chris Geere) assumed that if she was depressed then the answer was to force her to have fun.  This spectacularly didn’t work, with Gretchen yelling at him that she was broken and he couldn’t fix her.  The show, by making a dysfunctional relationship even more dysfunctional, somehow humanized both its lead characters, creating a “gift of the Magi” like resolution where she pushed him away to spare him having to deal with her mental illness, and he chose to stay with her even though she made it clear his presence wasn’t helping.  But it did help (Gretchen’s plaintive wail, “You stayed!” and the end of the last episode is one of the sweetest things ever filmed).

Oh, did I mention this is one of the funniest comedies on TV?  Aside from Gretchen and Jimmy’s issues, both have a dysfunctional best friend (his has PTSD, hers is just a pampered idiot) and a circle of messed up acquaintances who can always be counted on to do something astonishingly stupid, which will then be mocked by Gretchen and Jimmy.

I have to mention my runner up here, Unbreakable Kimmy Schmidt.  You wouldn’t think that a comedy about the survivor of an underground apocalypse cult would work, but with Ellie Kemper’s infectious performance (how was this woman not even nominated for an Emmy?), an excellent supporting cast (including Emmy-nominated turns by Jane Krakowski  and Don Draper himself, Jon Hamm), and clever writing make the show as sunny as You’re the Worst is dark.  Both are excellent.

TV review: Jessica Jones

There are no more “broadcasters” of television anymore; we are in the era of narrowcasters.  Networks, cable channels, even merchandise retailers now produce shows not so much for quality but for branding purposes; you want GOOD shows, but you want to find a distinct voice so viewers know what to expect before they watch something new.

Netflix succeeded previously with its adaptation of Marvel’s Daredevil, so it goes back to the well with another Marvel property, the less-well known Jessica Jones.  Despite the similarities, Jessica Jones has subtle differences that, after four episodes, have me thinking it is actually superior to the critically praised Daredevil.  Daredevil, after all, is in the vein of traditional costumed superheroes, while Jessica Jones’ protagonist doesn’t wear a cape and the show doesn’t clearly elaborate on what her powers actually are.

Jones, played by Krysten Ritter, appears to be a typical hard-bitten private eye working out of a dilapidated office (she threw her last client through the window in her door) in the Hell’s Kitchen section of New York.  But then she serves process on a low-life by picking up the rear of his sports car so he can’t drive away, then threatens him with her “laser eyes.”  This being the Marvel universe, it should not be surprising that Jones has abilities that exceed those of mortal men, but the fact that her abilities are not announced by a letter on her chest is novel.

I mean it as a high compliment when I say that after four episodes I am unsure where the series is going.  There is an over-arching plot about a super-villain (played with oily charm by former Doctor Who David Tenant, largely off screen through four episodes) who has the ability to make people obey his will simply by asking them to.  Because of Jessica Jones’ strength, he can’t get too close to her, and because of his ability to manipulate people she can’t get too close to him.  So the two circle around each other warily, at a distance, each prodding the other in order to find a weakness.

The characters in Jessica’s orbit include a best friend (Rachel Taylor) with some history that is causing her to learn Krav Maga and barricade her apartment, a local bartender (Mike Colter) who is not only a hunk who gives Jessica free booze (one hopes her super powers extend to her liver because she drinks a lot), and a high-powered lawyer (Carrie-Anne Moss) who gives Jessica detective work and is going through a messy same-sex divorce.  They provide a context for the character of Jessica Jones, giving the abrasive Jones people to interact with instead of being a lone wolf. This helps to define her character and provides the audience some understanding as to why people continue to associate with her even though her people skills are not as developed as her strength.

Why do I say I like Jessica Jones more than Daredevil?  I find David Tenant’s casual sadism a lot scarier than Vincent D’Onofrio’s scenery chewing.  As much as I respect the fight choreography in Daredevil, I like the non-choreography I’ve seen so far on Jessica Jones; when she hits someone, they simply go down, which makes sense.  Jessica seems to be a more grounded character for a more grounded universe, one where a lawyer who shows up to work with bruises and a split lip couldn’t just chalk it up to clumsiness; face it, all of Matt Murdoch’s friends are enablers, while no one gives Jessica Jones a break over anything.  I especially like the way they are taking their time, doling out Jessica’s back story with the villain (named Killgrave, the most comic book thing about the show) in drips and drabs.  Four episodes in and I am still unclear as to the extent of her powers.  I particularly like a shot in one episode where Jessica is spying on someone from a perch wedged between two buildings several stories up, somewhere only a person with superpowers could get to; it implies what her powers are without providing any information on their limits.

Ritter is well-suited to the role of a hard-boiled PI with issues.  After notable roles in Breaking Bad and Don’t Trust the B___ in Apartment 23, Ritter certainly has the gravitas and the command to anchor a series where she is front and center in virtually every scene.  One might wish her dialog was a bit sharper, a la Veronica Mars or Buffy, but again this is set in a more realistic universe than the typical comic book (excuse me, graphic novel) portrayal, so the show can get away with her earthier comebacks.

Jessica Jones is probably an example of a show better suited for release on Netflix rather than on network TV.  Marvel’s Agents of Shield survives on network TV, but is an “episode of the week” series with overarching themes, whereas Jessica Jones is essentially a 13 hour miniseries.  It is interesting to speculate whether Jessica Jones could be episodic, but with Marvel it is all about the crossovers and the tie-ins (the “Battle of New York” that happened in The Avengers gets name checked in some side plots). Also, the language and sexual situations portrayed would probably not get past broadcast standards.

Jessica Jones is an evocative depiction of post-traumatic stress disorder, true evil introduced to a world that only thinks it knows what evil means, and one person not using mundane abilities instead of superpowers in order to make things better.  The one thing that could make it better?  If Jessica knocked some sense into that Daredevil guy; he needs to be taken down a couple of pegs.

Why did Tomorrowland flop?

I recently re-watched the movie Tomorrowland on DVD.  I was glad to revisit the film as my theater experience was less than optimal; the film had left theaters so quickly that I was only able to see it on the big screen at a “$4 anytime” second run theater, with a somewhat anemic light bulb in the projector and parent-free urchins running up and down the aisle.

I enjoyed the movie-going experience none the less, and my impression of the film was only elevated by seeing it under more technologically conducive circumstances.  The film boasts true imagination in writing and directing, a typically insouciant performance by George Clooney, and an uplifting message at the end.  Something for the whole family.

It bombed.  It opened with a ho-hum $40.7 million over Memorial Day weekend, and then took a precipitous 58% nosedive the next weekend.   It finished with an impressive sounding but disappointing $93 million domestic gross, $209 million worldwide.  For something with a $190 million budget, that's called underperforming.

But why?  The film was not an assault on anyone’s intelligence, like John Carter.  The film was not a retread of tired sci-fi ideas, like Jupiter Ascending.  The film did not have amateurish special effects like, oh let’s say 47 Ronin (I actually thought 47 Ronin was okay, but I have no desire to defend it).

I have faced this question with other films.  Mystery Men, a big-budget special effects laden comedy with Ben Stiller, Janeane Garofalo, and William H. Macy was also, to my mind, an inexplicable flop.  Sometimes I understand when a film might resonate with me more than the general audience, or have an approach to humor that may be idiosyncratic, but Mystery Men had a smart script and a great cast (Hank Azaria, Greg Kinnear, Wes Studi, Geoffrey Rush, Lena Olin and Claire Forlani).

I don’t have an answer for Mystery Men, but I have one for Tomorrowland.  The film itself explains why it failed (spoilers ahead!).  In the final denouement, the “bad guy” (played with typical bluster by perpetual Emmy loser Hugh Laurie) makes a speech about why the world is about to end.  In that speech, he points out that, as another great wordsmith Yogi Berra might have said, the future ain’t what it used to be.  In the 1950’s and early 60’s people believed the future would be full of gleaming towers, noiseless monorails, and jetpacks. 

So why are we now beset with innumerable films and TV shows featuring a bleak, dystopian future (an episode of the Simpsons actually catalogged all the recent films, TV shows and plays set in dystopian futures)?  As the bad guy in Tomorrowland sums up, “[People] dwell on this terrible future and you resign yourselves to it for one reason, because that future doesn't ask anything of you today.”

My theory as to why Tomorrowland failed?  It hit too close to home.  It was an optimistic message about hope and saving humanity, but all that optimism was based on one thing: people giving a crap.  The analysis is right, people do find dystopian futures enjoyable because it absolves us from getting off our couches, putting down our iPhones, and doing something.  People reject a film about optimism because if we accepted it, then we’d have to do something about it, and in an era of “too much TV” that’s the last thing anyone wants to do.

So, congratulations, Tomorrowland!  You turned out to be too prescient for your own good.  Next time Brad Bird directs a film, it will be about young teenagers in a dystopian future, where they participate in some kind of bizarre competition for survival.

Hey, that sounds like a script idea.  Let me call my agent and see if it’s been done before.

What to make of the MVP vote

Well, the AL and NL MVPs have been announced, and there were no surprises.  But the results in both races raise some interesting questions about what voters look for in an MVP.

I usually mock the “unwritten rules” of baseball; I want someone to show me just where these unwritten rules can be found, and what is the process for changing them?  But there is one I wholeheartedly buy into—the MVP should be from a playoff team.  Back when one team from each league went to the “post season” (then known solely as the World Series), you could make a claim that a player who took his team close to the Promised Land deserved consideration.  But now that five teams from each league make the post season, it is hard to argue that someone from the sixth best team or worse is that valuable.  It goes back to the famous Branch Rickey line when he was GM for the hapless Pirates in the early 50’s and Ralph Kiner threatened to hold out; Rickey allegedly said, “Ralph, we came in last place with you, we’ll come in last place without you.”  A player is only valuable to a team if they get to play more games because of him.

In the American League, the choice game down to post-season participant Josh Donaldson, and Mike Trout of the loser Angels.  Here, the old guard prevailed, with Donaldson getting the nod despite having a slightly lower WAR (9.4 for Trout to 8.8 for Donaldson).  Of course, it should be noted that unlike stats like batting average, RBI and slugging percentage, WAR is not an exact measurement.  Some of the defensive data still has a little wiggle room, and a difference of 0.6 WAR may be illusory.  But there is little doubt that probably the main distinction was that Donaldson’s team won and Trout’s team didn’t.

Trout’s supporters always tout the fact that he has had the highest WAR in the AL each of the past four years.  I hope we never get to the point where the MVP will be awarded solely by comparing WAR; that will take all the fun out of debating the results.

The situation in the NL was a little different, as the top three vote getters, Bryce Harper, Paul Goldschmidt and Joey Votto, all played for non-playoff teams (Goldschmidt and Votto’s teams were sub-.500).  The 4^th and 5^th vote getters were the closest playoff players got, with the Cubs’ Anthony Rizzo and the Pirates’ Andrew McCutchen.  However, Harper’s season was so epic, that giving him the MVP for a non-playoff performance was an inevitability.  Every dissection of Harper’s 2015 stats that I’ve seen (WAR almost 10, OPS of 1.109, OPS+ of 195) drew comparisons to Babe Ruth, Ted Williams and Barry Bonds.  With no position player on a playoff team posting anything close, I don’t think this is a repudiation of the preference for players from playoff teams, but an acknowledgement of a truly historic season.

There was an interesting by-product of the NL vote that bears mention.  I was somewhat surprised that Mets spark plug Yoenis Cespedes finished 13^th in the voting.  I expected him to finish much higher, with some votes in the top five and ending up in the top ten.  But he received no vote higher than two 6^th place votes; tellingly perhaps, neither of the New York journalists with a vote put him on their ballots.

Before Cespedes joined the Mets, they were last in the league in offense; after he joined, they were much better and went from being .500 to upsetting the Nationals for the NL East title.  The difference is clear: before Cespedes, average team; with Cespedes, World Series contender.

I think the failure of Cespedes to garner much MVP support is a question of marginal analysis vs. total analysis.  Voters could say that Cespedes contributed ZERO to the Mets from April through July because he was playing for Detroit at the time.  Since he only contributed for two months, his total contribution was small.

People with economics training look at marginal analysis, where you look at the change engendered by a new element, and Cespedes’ marginal contribution transformed the Mets into a playoff team.  I admit that the logical extension of this would be to say that if a team was playing for a playoff spot in the final game of the season, and they scored the winning run in the bottom of the ninth when their weakest hitter walked with the bases loaded, then that hitter is the season MVP.  But this is hardly a reductio ad absurdum; Cespedes did more in two months to help the Mets into the playoffs than any other Mets player did through the entire season.

This is a year where there shouldn’t be any angst over the MVP winners, unlike seasons when the Trout vs. Cabrera debate over new metrics vs. slash stats created a generational war over the meaning of statistics.  Trout’s backers really shouldn’t begrudge Donaldson winning despite a slightly lower WAR, and Harper’s season was one for the ages.  The interesting thing to ponder now is how many more times Trout and Harper will be mentioned in MVP debates in the future.

Greg Hardy: A Defense

Greg Hardy: A Defense

In my eternal quest to always at least try to defend the indefensible, I am going to try and offer some arguments that counter the drumbeat from the talking heads on ESPN that Dallas Cowboy defensive player Greg Hardy should either be suspended for a very long time or banished from the league.  The reason for the strum und drag is the release of photos that document the nature of the injuries inflicted on his then-girlfriend.

I suppose the most obvious defense is the same one I offered for Ray Rice, whose punishment was extended after video was released of him clocking his then-girlfriend; he was duly punished, and the release of photographic evidence of what he did changes nothing.  All the photos do is inflame the emotional reaction of virtually all who see them, but they don’t by themselves provide an additional basis for doling out further punishment.

As if further punishment was possible.  Hardy was on the Commissioner’s “exempt list” (the football equivalent of Animal House’s “double secret probation”) all of last season.  Those who claim that is a paid vacation overlook the fact that, to an athlete, losing a season in your physical prime is an irreversible loss.  To you or me a year off with pay would be great, but to an athlete with maybe a ten-year window on his career, it isn’t so sweet a deal.

The Commissioner attempted to suspend him for ten games, but since the Commissioner’s judiciary system is so messed up an arbitrator held that a four game suspension was the maximum allowed.  You can be angry at the Player’s Union for doing their job and appealing, or at the arbitrator for his decision (based on the Commissioner’s past decisions), but that’s not on Greg Hardy.

It’s hardly fair to condemn the NFL’s justice system when the government’s system has been even weaker.  Hardy was found guilty of domestic violence by a judge, asked for a jury trial, then apparently reached a cash settlement with the victim and the charges were dropped.  This past week the court officially “expunged” his record, meaning that as far as the US legal system is concerned, Hardy never did anything wrong.

Reportedly when Hardy was arrested the complainant said, “Nothing’s going to happen to him.”  The complainant subsequently refused to cooperate with prosecutors, making her statement a self-fulfilling prophecy and not a cynical yet accurate condemnation of the legal system.  The ex-girlfriend was supposedly compensated for her refusal to cooperate, which sounds like the old joke that ends “We’ve established what you are, now we’re negotiating price.”  Hopefully she was well compensated. 

Lastly, just who appointed the NFL as the arbiters of morality and decency?  To all those who say that Greg Hardy should be stripped of his livelihood because of these accusations (that have now been expunged by a court), since when did purity of character become a prerequisite for participation in a game?  Ty Cobb once beat a handicapped man senseless; should he have been banned from baseball?  Lots of professional athletes have treated women poorly in ways that did not rise to abuse; abandonment, infidelity, non-support.  Should every man who ever mistreated a woman be banned from earning a living for life?  If you do a job and you do it well, why should you be disqualified from doing so because of a character flaw that does not affect your job performance (and probably enhances it)?

Greg Hardy deserves to earn a living.  Everyone deserves to earn a living.  Just as child molesters shouldn't work around children, Hardy should probably find a job where he doesn't have any female co-workers.  Hey, last time I checked the NFL wasn't co-ed!  What better workplace for him than one that excludes women.

None of this is to minimize the significance of Greg Hardy’s actions or his complete lack of contrition afterwards.  He has dutifully tweeted out vague denials about being sorry about mistakes in the past, all the while making comments about Tom Brady’s wife and saying he was coming out “guns blazing” (one allegation was that he threw his then-girlfriend on to a futon covered with semi-automatic weapons).  He is a despicable human being, and calling him a human being is giving him the benefit of the doubt.

But he is a very good football player, and as such he will be very well paid as he helps the Cowboys not make the playoffs again this year.  Jerry Jones, the Dallas Cowboys owner, complimented Greg Hardy as a “passionate” team leader after he physically assaulted an assistant coach during a game.  Maybe this is one reason why the Dallas Cowboys haven’t been a threat to win anything for more than twenty years.

My Two Cents on the Best of James Bond

With the 24^th James Bond movie, Spectre, about to come out, the media has been full of features where people name “The Best” this and “The Worst” that.  Never wanting to hold on to two cents when I can throw it, here are my picks.

Best Bond: Right out of the shoot I am going to make the most controversial, hate-mail inspiring choice that can be made: Pierce Brosnan. For those who rank Brosnan as one of the worst Bonds, let me say that he did have the worst material to work with.  Roger Moore was easily the worst Bond (mainly because, at 41, he was too old when he started and he stayed on until he was well past qualified for AARP), but his tenure produced a couple of gems, such as For Your Eyes Only and the popular The Spy Who Loved Me.  Brosnan’s best turn was probably Tomorrow Never Dies, which was buoyed by the presence of Michele Yeoh as the most self-reliant “Bond Girl” ever and Jonathan Pryce as a Rupert Murdoch clone ready to nuke the world to sell newspapers; good, but hardly top ten.  But I think Brosnan best exemplified both sides of Bond: the handsome, seductive ladies’ man, and the gritty paid killer.  Connery always struck me as looking like a truck driver (Ian Fleming’s opinion was similar), Dalton was too humorless, Moore too effete (he admitted he looked silly throwing a punch), Lazenby was too insubstantial, and Craig is . . . too dour.  It’s a shame that Brosnan never had any A material to work with, but just had to make do with the remnants of Moore’s cartoonish stint.

Best Villian: I suppose for the series you’d have to go with Ernst Stavros Blofeld, best portrayed by Donald Pleasance in You Only Live Twice.  But his presence is weakened by lesser actors in the role (Telly Savalas, Charles Grey) and in the end he is just a Dr. Evil prototype.  I am tempted to go off book and choose Christopher Lee’s Scaramanga from Man With the Golden Gun, but that is more for the performance than the character.  Let’s go old school and say Auric Goldfinger, who has a cool name, a cool henchman, and a truly lunatic scheme: he doesn’t want to start a nuclear war or anything so prosaic, he just wants his gold to be worth more money.  An Honorable Mention to Robert Davi’s Sanchez in License to Kill as another more grounded, but still scary, bad guy.

Best Henchman: I won’t make waves here and pick the only henchman who came back for more, Jaws played by Richard Kiel in Spy Who Loved Me and Moonraker. The performance could have been one-note, but Kiel somehow conveyed Jaws’ humanity under his imposing visage and metal teeth.  And let’s face it, he was the one foe Bond never did defeat.

Best “Bond Woman”: They broke the mold when they cast Ursula Andress as Honey Ryder in the first Bond film, Dr. No.  Jaw-droppingly gorgeous, fierce, yet vulnerable.  Later Bond love interests might have been better actors (most were worse), but none had the impact of Andress rising out of the surf in that bikini. My personal favorite was probably the least conventional “Bond Woman,” Michele Yeoh in Tomorrow Never Dies.  She showed less skin and had less, um, physical contact with Bond during the film, but she was his equal as a spy and was sexier dressed up than many Bond Girls were half naked.

Best theme song: Nobody Does it Better from The Spy Who Loved Me by Carly Simon.  This has become the unofficial theme song for the entire Bond series.  A lot of other theme songs are excellent, but this is the only one that distinguishes itself and comments on Bond himself, not the movie at hand.  Honorable mentions to Goldfinger, Live and Let Die, View to a Kill, and You Know My Name from Casino Royale.

Five Best Bond films: 5) Man with the Golden Gun.  Stay with me on this—I know this is usually considered one of the worst Bond films, but consider: it had not one but two great Bond Women, Britt Ekland and Maud Adams; it had a great actor playing the Sacramange, Christopher Lee (who would have made a great Bond in 1960); it had a great henchman in Herve Villechaize’s Nick Nack; and it had a signature Bond stunt, the car that rotated 360 degrees as it jumped over a river. That’s enough to make me forget the two 12 year old girls beating up an entire dojo, the return of Clifton James’ cracker southern sheriff, and a plot about the energy crisis that sounds so 1974.

4) You Only Live Twice. Script by Roald Dahl, the best writer in the Bond series until Paul Haggis contributed to the second Casino Royale.  The aerial battle with Little Nellie.  The fight onboard the tanker at the Kobe docks.  The assault on Blofeld's encampment in the volcano. Donald Pleasance as Blofeld, in all his cat-stroking glory.  Yes, disguising Sean Connery as a Japanese fisherman was silly, but again you have to give a little.

3) Casino Royale. You don’t realize how much the Bond franchise orbited around mediocrity through the Lazenby, Moore and Brosnan years until Daniel Craig came in and the franchised was re-energized.  The opening action sequence is both brilliantly staged and acts as a metaphor for the new James Bond; his quarry nimbly leaps and hops through windows while Bond bulldozes through walls.  He is not a scalpel, he is a blunt instrument who will win at all costs.

2) From Russia With Love. Whatever inabilities Danielle Bianchi had as an actress were more than made up for by her looks, as she stands out among Bond Girls even among the likes of Halle Berry, Teri Hatcher and Eva Green.  Rosa Kleb and Red Grant were worthy adversaries for James Bond and the film had a real world verisimilitude absent until Casino Royale.

1) Goldfinger.  A perfect analogy: Goldfinger is to From Russia With Love as Fast and Furious 7 is to the original Fast and Furious; the prior film was a quasi-realistic look at a small part of the world, while the latter is a globe-hopping extravaganza that swings for the fences and connects.  Goldfinger’s mad scheme to irradiate the world’s gold supply is more believable than the more elaborate plots to rule the world, and throw in characters liked Odd Job and Pussy Galore (“I must be dreaming.”) and you have the blueprint for the Bond franchise that was never quite equaled.

Worst Bond film: Die Another Day.  Invisible cars?  Wind surfing on icebergs?  Brosnan starting to look like Roger Moore at the end of his reign?  Just stop already.

Worst theme song: Die Another Day by Madonna.  Wow, nothing else is even close.

Worst Villain: Michael Lonsdale as Hugo Drax in Moonraker.  Completely lifeless and lacking menace.

Single Worst Performance in any Bond Film: Denise Richards as Dr. Christmas Jones in The World Is Not Enough.  Denise Richards can be a good actress, in something trashy like Wild Things or campy like Starship Troopers, but she cannot pull off playing a nuclear physicist no matter how many pairs of glasses she puts on.

Most overrated Bond Film: The Spy Who Loved Me.  The first two Roger Moore vehicles, Live and Let Die and Man With The Golden Gun, were both box office disappointments, threatening to kill the franchise. So producer Cubby Broccoli went all in and made Moore’s third film, The Spy Who Loved Me, the biggest, most expensive Bond film yet.  It worked.  Why, I don’t know.  Yes, there is the exhilarating opening sequence (the theater audience I was with broke into applause when Bond survived skiing off a cliff), and the Carly Simon theme song, and the addition of Jaws to the Bond oeuvre.  But the film has a lackluster villain with a silly plan for world domination, and a blah Bond Woman in his supposed Soviet counterpart played by Ringo Starr’s wife Barbara Bach.  For Your Eyes Only and Man With the Golden Gun are both far superior; I’d even rank this below Octopussy.

Harbaugh leaves, 49ers suck; coincidence?

Football is the most synergistic of sports.  If a player excels at baseball or basketball, that will probably come out no matter what team they are on.  But if a football player is drafted onto the wrong team, or plays for a coach whose system is not simpatico with his skill set, then more often than not the player looks bad, not the situation (if Tom Brady were drafted by any other coach than Bill Belichick, right now he’d be the proud owner of a discount carpet store in San Mateo, California and only get to see Giselle Bundchen in his wife Judy’s Victoria’s Secret catalog).  In baseball they have metrics that can compensate for a hitter playing in a pitcher’s ballpark, but there is no such adjustment for football. 

Under Coach Jim Harbaugh quarterback Colin Kaepernick, a second round draft pick out of obscure University of Nevada Reno, rose to prominence, ousted overall number one draft pick Alex Smith for the starting job, and took the 49ers to a Super Bowl.  Flushed with success after years of sub-mediocrity, the owners of the Niners decided that Harbaugh wasn’t good enough, that they could do better with Jim Tomsula, and so ushered Harbaugh out the door.  49er ownership said that Tomsula was another Steve Kerr, someone who could take the 49ers from the unacceptable record of 8-8 and win a championship in his first year as coach. 

Fast forward to November 2015.  The Niners are 2-6, in last place in the NFC West.  They are the laughing stock of the league, one of the few teams that have no chance of even hoping for a wildcard spot in the playoffs.  The 49er brain trust has looked around and decided that the problem wasn’t that they hired a completely incompetent coach, but All-pro tight end Vernon Davis, whom they shipped to Denver in exchange for magic beans (a 6^th round draft pick in 2016 and 2017), and Colin Kaepernick, whom they benched in favor of Blaine Gabbert.

Yes, THE Blaine Gabbert who has the lowest QBR, 22.6, of any quarterback of the past ten years with more than 1,000 snaps.  The Blaine Gabbert who has a lifetime record of 5-22 and hasn’t won a game since 2012.  Meanwhile, one QB rating metric rates Kaepernick as having a higher Total QBR rating (47.6) than Cam Newton (46.9), whom no one is considering benching.  The only thing Blaine Gabbert gives the 49ers is the best shot at getting the number one draft pick in the 2016 draft.

If Jim Tomsula thinks Blaine Gabbert gives the Niners a better chance of winning than Colin Kaepernick, then he is even more incompetent than I thought.  Maybe Kaepernick can’t be as successful in Tomsula’s offensive scheme as he was in Jim Harbaugh’s, but his accomplishments over the past few season’s dwarf those of Blaine Gabbert.

Gabbert inherits the same sloppy offensive line that allowed super-mobile Kaepernick to be sacked 18 times, plus the depleted running back corps (bring on the Hayne plane!), plus the loss of Vernon Davis.  He takes over against an Atlanta Falcons team that is somewhat porous but in the top half of the NFL in fewest points per game allowed.  It’s a home game, but that won’t be much help if Gabbert struggles and the crowd starts calling for Kaepernick.

Frankly, almost nothing could make me happier than if at every remaining SF home game this season the crowd would start chanting Harbaugh’s name when the Niner struggled.  One reporter referred to Harbaugh as “he who must not be named” in 49er HQ, so having a stadium full of 49er faithful chanting the name of the coach at Michigan would send the ownership a message they needed to hear.

This is about ownership that thinks it is bigger than the team.  It is about ownership that says they want to win, but then fires the guy most responsible for the team’s success and replace him with a ham sandwich (excuse me, defensive line coach).  It is about a coach handed a team that went to the NFC conference championship game in three of the past four years and turning them into a 2-6 team looking for a new quarterback, possibly with next year’s first pick in the NFL draft.

The 49ers were irrelevant before Jim Harbaugh, and they are now irrelevant after Jim Harbaugh.  Is this what the fans thought they were getting when all those tax dollars were spent on building their shiny new stadium?

Harvey the goat

If I was the editor of a New York tabloid sports page today, the headline would be “Harvey’s Ego Costs Mets World Series.”

Maybe that’s unfair.  Maybe it wasn’t exactly ego.  Maybe it was adrenaline.  Or hubris.  Or a well-intentioned desire to help his teammates.  Whatever it was, it was stupid and now the season is over for the Mets.

Some have defended the decision to leave Matt Harvey in the ninth inning of Game 5 of the World Series, but by any logical, rational calculus, the move was wrong.  It’s wrong to say it cost the Mets the series, because at 3-1 down and the Series heading back to Kansas City, even if they had won their odds of winning were not good.  But what it cost the Mets was the chance to get the Series back into the hands of Jacob deGrom and Noah Syndergaard.

What I am saying is unfair, to the extent that in the situation the Mets found themselves in of course Matt Harvey, the player, is going to want to stay in the game.  I seem to recall a story about an NBA player who received a concussion and was blind and insisted he could still play.  But it was up to manager Terry Collins to be the rational adult and tell him no.  Collins made the decision to pull Harvey, but then relented when Harvey said there was “no way” he was coming out.  In 1986 John MacNamara left veteran Bill Buckner on the field in the ninth inning, using his heart not his head, and it cost the Red Sox the Series.  Another Red Sox manager, Grady Little, inexplicably left Pedro Martinez for an inning too long of Game 7 of the 2003 ALCS and the result was a catastrophe.

But it is much more fun to blame Harvey.

There was no upside to leaving Harvey in.  The Mets’ closer did not need a day off.  The psychological bump would have been dissipated by a day off and the next two games being in Kansas City.  Would Matt Harvey leave as a free agent when he got the chance because he wasn’t allowed to finish the game?  Doubtful.

The downside was a tired Harvey (who had thrown only one complete game in his entire career) blowing a slim two run lead that the closer would have been more likely to preserve.  The downside was Harvey, who had been on a notorious innings limit all season, re-injuring his arm.  No upside; huge downside.  Easy decision.

This sort of ties into a theme I kept hearing over and over from the Fox announcers that was patently hogwash.  They kept saying, “This Royals team finds a way to win.”  That’s like anthropomorphizing a fight between a mongoose and a cobra by saying the mongoose was looking for an opening.  Teams are a collection of human beings, they no more think collectively than animals following centuries of instinct plan battle tactics.  The Royals do not “find a way to win” they simply win, and the fact that they do it in a variety of ways is meaningless.

But the thing is we like the narrative.  We accept the narrative. We like the idea of a team forming a single brain and coming up with a plan for scoring more runs, when in fact all they are doing is scoring more runs because they get hits.  Teams do not “find a way to win.”  They win or they lose.

The narrative Matt Harvey wanted to believe in was the savior, the heroic athlete overcoming fatigue and physical strain and being triumphant.  It’s a nice narrative.  Sometimes it works (Jack Morris in the 1991 World Series, pitching a 10 inning shutout).  Sometimes it doesn’t (see Pedro Martinez in the 2003 ALCS, referenced above).  But people believe in the narrative and believe it is fate, and therefore it is okay to make an irrational decision.  Because, you know, fate!

Manager Terry Collins should have told Matt Harvey thanks for the last eight innings, but you are done for the season.  Unfortunately 40,000 fans were chanting Harvey’s name, and Collins listened to them instead of his brain.  40,000 people are not smarter than one man with years of experience.  But he listened to them and became as dumb as them.

Of course, Mets closer Jeurys Familia DID blow the one run lead in the ninth, so there is no guarantee bringing him to start the ninth would have sealed the deal.  But it was the smart thing to do.

The Mets always have the Cubs’ ancient motto: wait ‘til next year.