Cross the streams

Remember how Ghostbusters ended?

The Ghostbusters arrived at the portal between dimensions to confront Gozer as the Lovecraftian ancient god prepares to enter our world and begin a reign of blood. They confront Gozer in the form of a young woman before the eldritch god takes the form of the Stay Puft Marshmallow Man. A lot of hilarious stuff happens - and then they pull a resolution out of their, let’s say, hats.

Just as a fact - the idea that crossing the streams would fix the problem is kind of stupid. I know that they introduced the notion earlier in the film, but it doesn’t make any sense.

But I’m not complaining about it - and I don’t remember anyone complaining about it back in the day. Everybody loved that movie. Of course, maybe the fact that it was a comedy makes a difference, but I think there’s something more going on.

At the point in the movie where they cross the streams, it’s the right time for some resolution. They climbed all the stairs, they met Gozer, they saw Stay Puft. We even got some words to live by: “If somebody asks you if you’re a God, you say ‘Yes’!”

I get as snotty and superior as anyone else when movies use arbitrary devices to get the plot to move along and end the way that people want, but the proof of the pudding is in the eating, and that was a tasty ending.

Let’s cross the streams and get out of here while everyone is still laughing.

What's your stories?

I’ve gotten tired of narrative - not the concept, just the use of the word. People talk about how facts fit into a narrative of this or that. Sometimes, I think they mean theory in its literal sense - a system of ideas that help us organize observations.

Sometimes, they just mean story.

In 2007, Susan Faludi wrote a book called The Terror Dream about the aftermath of the terrorist attacks in 2001. She argued that our reaction as a country followed from one of our stories, the kidnapping of a white woman from under the nose of her menfolk.

You know - The Searchers.

The story of Comanche Station, this week’s feature, is Mr. Cody - and his wife. We first meet him when he rides up to some Comanche with a mule-load of trade goods. He has to sweeten the deal for the chief, throwing in his rifle, but for that princely sum, he receives a woman that he didn’t want.

But he saves her, anyway.

And they meet up with some other cowboys at Comanche Station. The party has to make its way to safety, through Comanche country - because the stage isn’t coming and the cowboys are on their own.

This movie was made before political correctness and before we treated Indians as people, but the Comanche don’t play a big role in this movie. They’re a danger, out there, picking off a cowboy and forming into raiding parties.

The real villain of the movie is another cowboy. He’s after the woman for the reward that her husband put out for her return. Him and Cody pace around each other, metaphorically, building alliances or testing them between the others in the group, waiting for the blow.

It’s a lot about what a man does, in the old west. The bad guy tells the woman, yeah, a big reward shows that her husband loves her, in a way, but he should have come after her, himself, if he was man enough to be her man.

The movie ends up being about two stories, Mr. Cody’s and the woman’s husband. The husband made the reward of five thousand dollars unconditional - whether they brought back his wife dead or alive. One of the cowboys asks why he would do a dumb thing like that, making it just as easy for somebody to bring her back dead.

Mr. Cody understands, though, because he’s been looking for his wife for ten years, now, trading drygoods and rifles for any white woman he hears of in the hope that it was her - hence, his disappointment when he first saw her. Mr. Cody won’t ever know, for sure, but he would gladly pay just to find out whether she’s dead.

Of course, the woman’s husband will never see her again, no matter what. He’s blind, so going after her himself is out of the question. He doesn’t see Cody, either, while the stoic cowboy rides off, without his reward.

Remember, ah, you know

This week’s feature was The Man From the Alamo, starring Glen Ford as John Stroud as the man who was called a coward. Stroud was at the Alamo, but his heart is back with his wife and son, on their ranch, up near Oxbow. Him and five other fellows make a pact for one of them to go back up north to get their families safe, ahead of the Mexican troops. Stroud draws the bad lot and heads north.

But the Alamo falls and everyone thinks Stroud just took off to save his own skin.

Ford plays Stroud as one cool cucumber, letting charges of cowardice and threats of hanging roll off his back. From the moment that he finds that his family is dead and his home destroyed, he sets on killing the men who did it.

This is a good looking movie, by the by. It’s shot in warm tones and it captures the wide open range. The shelling of the Alamo is convincing. A movie should be easy on the eyes.

In the end, Stroud does kill the turncoats who killed his family, saves the townfork, and goes to fight for Texan independence. More importantly, he convinces all the Texans that he isn’t a coward. In the old west honor society, it isn’t enough to not be a coward. You have to have a good name, as well.

So, is John Stroud a coward? The movie goes out of its way to say that he isn’t. First, he was leaving to protect his family and the families of others. Second, he was given permission by his commander to leave. Finally, he meant to go back, as soon as the families were safe.

It doesn’t wash, for me. Stroud knew that his family would face hardship without him. The battle of the Alamo was not a sterile feat of glory, fighting simply to fight. The longer they held that mission, the longer that the Texans had to get a force ready to fight. Putting his own judgement ahead of that of the commanders is not the same kind of act of bravery that fighting is.

The Elephant on the Table

I don't mind cliches. They seem to bother lots of people something fierce.

It does bother me, though, when people get them wrong.

For instance, “That’s the million dollar question!”

Well, the quiz show that spawned that expression was The 64,000 Dollar Question. The highest prize, if you answered all the questions correctly, was $556,315 in 2013 dollars.

But the cliche mutated.

In some usages, it was a benign mutation. If you wondered whether to buy a house, you might say, "Well, that's the $229,000 question."

More commonly, though, people just upped the amount to a million dollars.

Here's another one - where does a four hundred pound gorilla sleep? Wherever he wants to.

So, just reference a four hundred pound gorilla to suggest someone so powerful or important that he always gets his way.

Until cliche inflation strikes again. It's pretty common to hear about a five hundred pound gorilla or an eight hundred pound gorilla. Gorillas do grow to four hundred pounds (thank you, Wikipedia), and I guess that a five hundred pound gorilla isn't out of the question, but where does an 800 pound gorilla sleep?

Right where he is, because I don't think he'd be able to stand up.

And the gorilla cliche cross-pollinates with another cliche, and suddenly there’s a four thousand pound elephant in the room.

This week’s matinee feature had an elephant in the room. The film was Public Enemy starring Jimmy Cagney as Tom Powers, a prohibition era gangster. His war-hero brother, Mike, doesn’t approve of him being a violent thug, and let’s him know it.

When their mother has the family around for a welcome home dinner, Tom and his sidekick bring a barrel of beer - and set it up on the dining room table.

You would not do it this way. First, it is on a stand, so it’s a little precarious. One person bumps the table and Ma Powers gets barrel in the lap. Also, it takes up a good chunk of the modest dining table, forcing everybody to talk around the barrel.

And that is the elephant in the room.

For the rest of the scene, the barrel is in every shot. Mike leans to his right to see his mother, leans to his left to talk to his sister. Tom’s bootlegging is tearing their family apart!

It’s obvious storytelling, but it isn’t bad. Movies should make use of visuals - and here one is, in the middle of the table. Tom and the family do try to ignore it, at first, and just talk around it.

The film had some other fun bits - when Tom Powers is getting ready to charge into a meeting of the enemy mob, Cagney treats us to performance of malevolent glee that Joe Pesci has not yet equaled.

Most of it, though, required a suspension of disbelief that might sprain your hip. Their first big caper, as bootleggers, was to rob the booze warehouse, draining the “booze” into a gasoline truck. What do gasoline trucks smell like? That's what their booze going to smell like.

There was a fun scene when Prohibition set it, Apparently, they only announced the Volstead act a few hours in advance, so everybody ran to well-stocked liquor stores that had to be empty at midnight. People filled their baby strollers, passed armfuls of bags into waiting taxis, threw away all the flowers in a flower truck to fill it with booze. They just threw the flowers on the ground! To make room for BOOZE!

Tom Powers came to a bad end, just like all Public Enemies. The movie is a morality tale about How Awful Gangsters Are!

That’s the million dollar elephant sleeping in the room.

Sorry, Fritz

Last week's matinee was Fritz Lang's Dr. Mabuse, The Gambler - or a very much shortened version of his two part movie.

I have nothing to say about Dr. Mabuse.

Oh, wait - Fritz Lang is an important director. He made awesome use of visuals through out the mov-

No, still nothing to say about Dr. Mabuse.

Oh, wait - I don't care for anti-heroes and super-villains as heroes. It leads to several sloppy -

No, still nothing to say about Dr. Mabuse.

I could talk about -

No, still nothing to say about Dr. Mabuse.

Did you know that it takes the earth 23 hours and 56 minutes to rotate around its axis?

No, still nothing to say about Dr. Mabuse.

Sigh.