Thumbnails Jun 22

by Tony Medley

Facing Nolan (10/10): Who is the best pitcher of all time? I never saw Walter Johnson or Cy Young or Christy Mathewson or Grover Cleveland Alexander, so won’t opine on them. But I have seen those from the ‘40s on. The best I ever saw was Sandy Koufax, but Sandy only had six good years (1961-66). Before catcher Norm Sherry gave him the tip during a spring training game in 1960 that changed his life, he was a wild man. Warren Spahn is #2. Maybe Bob Gibson #3 of those I’ve seen. Bob Feller is up there but I didn’t really see him pitch. Today’s pitchers who can’t even complete a game aren’t in the picture.

Now this documentary about Nolan Ryan has me recalculating. One of the best docs I’ve seen about anything, it tells the story mostly through interviews with people who should know; batters who have faced him. Included are George Brett, Rod Carew, Cal Ripken, Jr., Craig Biggio, and many more. Along with, of course, Ryan himself and his movie star gorgeous wife and their children and lots of clips of him in action. As an aside, he has a beautiful family. He blew away lots of records, seven no-hitters, a fastball timed at 107 mph, pitching effectively until he was 47. Maybe he should be near the top of my list?

Downton Abbey: A New Era (9/10): 124 minutes. PG-13. Apparently struggling to find a plot device, director Simon Curtis and writer Julian Fellowes stole one from the iconic 1952 MGM musical Singin’ in the Rain. The minute I heard the voice of actress Myrna Dalgleish (Laura Haddock) it was clear that she was mimicking Jean Hagen, who played Lina Lamont in ‘Rain. Hagen won an Oscar® nomination for her performance as the voice-challenged silent star beauty.

There’s a lot more to this than the takeoff from the classic film, of course. As has become emblematic from the TV series and the first movie, the production values are outstanding. The locations (including the French Riviera) are gorgeous, the color mesmerizing, and the recreation of the post-Edwardian era of the 1920’s superb.

The movie-filming plot is a good setup for the gang to resolve what becomes a big family mystery. Spoiler alert. Everything about this film is top notch…until the ending. I don’t know what Curtis and Fellowes were thinking but it was a bad idea to end this uplifting, happy film on such a downer. Had it ended 10 minutes earlier, I would have rated it 10/10. As a footnote, the movie stands on its own and does not rely on having seen the TV series as a required prelude.

Diamond Hands: The Legend of WallStreetBets (9/10): 89 minutes. How a group of irreverent youngsters took on the Wall Street pros and ran a short squeeze on the stock of Gamestop is told by the whippersnappers themselves and it’s a fascinating tale of risk and reward, ups and downs, gains and losses…and Chutzpah! Bravo.tv and MSNBC.

The Offer (8/10): 10 Episode series. TV-MA. This 10-part series is told from the POV of 42-year-old Al Ruddy (Miles Teller). It shows deep mob involvement, especially Joe Colombo (Giovanni Ribisi), boss of the Colombo crime family. Paramount boss Bob Evans (Matthew Goode in a splendid performance), who post production claimed credit for severely editing writer/director Francis Ford Coppola’s movie, is shown as a crazed, drug-addled over-the-top studio exec who green-lighted the film but fought Ruddy on just about every decision, from picking Coppola (Dan Fogler) to casting Marlon Brando (Justin Chambers, who does a fine job) and Al Pacino (Anthony Ippolito, who captures Pacino’s insecurities). Gulf and Western CEO Charles Bludhorn (Burn Gorman) is the boss of everyone. In real life, he was a unique person. Whether he was as bizarre as Gorman plays him would be difficult to believe, although anything is possible.

As to casting, Fogler captures Coppola’s challenged height (5-4), Goode shows Evans to be probably the way he was/is. The series shows how Ruddy bent over backwards to kiss up to the Mob and he continues that posture with this movie, just a bunch of regular guys who happen to kill people for a living. Unjustly minimized is Peter Bart (Josh Zuckerman), who first optioned Puzo’s book for Paramount, and is a far stronger personality than shown here. Notwithstanding, this series is entertaining and enjoyable. Paramount+

The Most Reluctant Convert: The Untold Story of C. S. Lewis (8/10) 73 minutes. Max McLean stars, in a play he wrote, as C. S. Lewis, the creator of The Chronicles of Narnia. Lewis is probably equally well-known as a convert from strict atheism to devout Christianity. Lewis narrates his story himself and it’s a special journey, indeed. It starts with him as a boy and shows how he lost his beloved mother when he was nine and brought up by his relatively cold father. It takes us through his experiences in the World War I trenches, to his time at Oxford with friends like J.R.R. Tolkien, who greatly influenced his religious beliefs. It’s based on Lewis’ memoir, Surprised by Joy. Prime

Top Gun Maverick (7/10): 124 minutes. PG-13. This is not your grandfather’s Top Gun (1986; yes, it’s been 36 years since the first one!), which was apparently good enough to become seminal. The first hour setup is clichéd, a weak imitation of Robert Conrad’s wisecracking Black Sheep Squadron (1976-78). But after all that folderal, it gets entertaining when the flying and dogfights start. The special effects are spectacular and probably worth the more than 2 hours sit.