Wednesday, July 27, 2022

 A Place Called Here

CHAPTER ONE

Grace, 1988


            This isn’t the way it happened. But this is the way I tell it.

            With a name like Eve, one would think she came from a religious family. But that wasn’t the case. Her father, a practical but mirthful man, too busy to think about such things, had called her Eve—short for Evening—simply because she was born in the evening. Although Eve never liked her name, she fared far better than her sister, Mornie. You can guess what time of day she was brought into the world.

            Nonetheless, Eve preferred to be called Grace, for no reason in particular. As this is a story, and we can change whatever we please, we’ll call her Grace.

            One day, Grace did what she wasn’t supposed to do. This was more likely than not a bad thing, for which she would be punished later. But then again, if no one ever did what they weren’t supposed to do, we would have no stories to tell, would we? Or, at the least, we’d have very few. In any case, the thing that Grace was not supposed to do, and which was probably a bad thing for which she would get in trouble later, was going into the woods, alone, at night.

            Grace and Mornie and their Mother and Father lived in a small house with a big garage in the farmland of Michigan, in the Southeast corner of the state, just north of the Ohio line. It was several miles from the nearest highway—several miles from anywhere, really—and fairly secluded. Mr. Carlo Day (that was Grace’s father’s name) was the town librarian,[1] and he puttered off every morning at seven in his cobalt blue Buick, thoughts racing through his head. Ms. Tala Day (obviously, Grace’s mother) spent her days looking after Grace and Mornie and working on cars and farm equipment in the big garage—she was the town’s best (and only) mechanic.[2]

Grace and Mornie, being children, Grace ten and Mornie barely five, spent their summer days doing absolutely nothing. Well, by adult standards they did nothing. They ate chocolate cookies, drank chocolate milk, danced when dancing was called for, ran when running was called for, imagined themselves as princesses and warriors, pilots and nurses, and dirtied clothes they shouldn’t have dirtied. Above all, they were in the woods—the unending and mischievous woods—where they played in leaves, touched strange bugs, and climbed trees as if they had steps.

            In the trees, four feet in the air but on top of the world, Grace and Mornie felt the limitlessness of the world around them. They would climb these trees and sing, with no particular song or tune in mind, but they would join in together and sing. Just sing.

            It was then, when they sang, that Ms. Day would call to them as she tinkered on a rusting Ford or a John Deere tractor.

“Come home,” she’d yell, “Dinner!”

Invariably, Grace would call back: “What is it?”

“It’s good! Come home!” Ms. Day would yell back.

“What’s good?” Grace would yell, unswayed.

“Yeah, what is it?” Mornie would shout too loud, trying too hard to match her sister’s volume.

“Shut up, you’re hurting my ears,” Grace would yell, “C’mon.”

And they would climb down the tree and argue all the way home, invariably missing Ms. Day’s detailed yet loudly voiced recitation of the evening’s menu.

One night, after a day exactly like the one described, they gathered around the dinner table to eat but something was noticeably different—Ms. Day had her coat on.

“Where are you going, Mom?” Grace asked.

“I have to go to town.” Ms. Day replied.

“What for?”

“Wouldn’t you like to know?”

As Mornie often did, she repeated this phrase through an irrepressible giggle.

“Shut up, Mornie! Why are you going to town?” Grace asked again, crossly.

“Eve! How many times do I have to tell you, do not say shut—” Ms. Day started to say, but Grace cut her off.

“Okay, I’m sorry—Mornie, don’t shut up. Mom, where are you going?”

“Nowhere in particular, I just have to run and get a few things.” Just then, the door swung shut. “Oh, there’s your Dad. Okay now, I gotta go. Be good for Daddy.”

“Okay.” Grace said.

            “Okay.” Mornie said in the exact same voice, albeit through a laugh.

“Yello, Mellow!” This is what Mr. Day always said to Ms. Day when he walked in the house and gave her a slight peck on the cheek.[3] “Yello, Kittens!” This is what Mr. Day would say to Grace and Mornie when he walked in the house and gave them slight pecks on their cheeks. “How are my girls today?”

            “Mom’s leaving.” Grace informed Mr. Day bluntly.

            “Really?” Mr. Day asked, feigning surprise.

            “Yeah. Mom’s leaving.” Mornie chimed in, still struck with the giggles.

            “Where to? Only Mommy knows…” Then Mr. Day did the evil bad-guy laugh he always did. With that, he sat at the table, opened his newspaper, and Ms. Day set down a long tray of Salisbury steak.

Grace, without being told because she was (occasionally) a good girl, set the place

settings. Mornie struggled with the weight of the gallon of 2% milk, but finally got it to the table.

Ms. Day pecked Mr. Day on the cheek, waived bye-bye to the girls and walked out the door.

Mr. Day folded up his newspaper, grimaced slightly at the sight of Salisbury steak, poured the milk, and as he always did, said: “Let us pray.”

The three remaining Days then recited in unison: “Beans, beans, the magical fruit: the more you eat, the more you toot. The more you toot, the better you feel, so eat your beans with every meal!”[4]

Mr. Day, Grace, and Mornie then ate silently but for a few snippets of giggling by Mornie, an occasional whistle from Mr. Day, and Grace’s happenstance hum. Come to think of it, the dinner was not silent at all, but there was nothing in the way of typical conversation. But that was the way of the Days, especially the girls and their Daddy.

After dinner, Mr. Day generously heaped scoops of ice cream into bowls for Grace and Mornie—an extravagance Mrs. Day rarely allowed—and the girls downed them eagerly. They played a game of Go-Fish and a game of Old Maid and talked about nothing with silly grins on their faces.

At 8:30, Mr. Day noted the time aloud and the girls scampered up to bed. Mr. Day oversaw their nightly routine, ensuring that teeth were brushed and clothes placed in the hamper. He kissed them goodnight, assured them that their mother would be back soon, and not to worry, and improvised a very amusing story about a dragon and tennis player (of all things) that whisked the girls off to sleep.

***

Grace stayed whisked (to sleep, that is) until she heard an unusual noise outside. A most unusual sound. Not exactly a howl or bark or a cry—but something like that. An animal or human sound, not a mechanical one. Grace crawled out of the warm comfort of her Pippi Longstocking sheets, scampered gently down the ladder of their bunk-bed, so as not to wake the snoring Mornie, and pressed her face to the window.

The night was cold and her breath sprayed a little cloud of fog in front of her eyes. Wiping the window softly with her right hand, she felt cold beads of sweat develop in her left. She realized she was nervous, but her excitement outweighed it.

Looking out, she saw a coyote—though she had never seen any but Wile E., she was sure of it. But just as she was about to say so, it stood up and stretched out its arms—not legs, arms—to waive. And it was no longer just a coyote, but a tan-skinned woman with a coyote’s head. Then, just as a quickly, her head was human, with a long black braid of hair falling down the back of the brown leather tunic that only a few moments ago appeared to be fur.

For a moment, Grace thought of her mother, oddly. But this wasn’t her mother, but an Indian—no, she corrected herself, a Native American.[5] Without moving her lips, the native woman said sweetly in her sing song voice: “Grace Day, it’s time for you to come Here.”

And that’s the moment when Grace and Mornie Day, after changing into somethings more sensible of course, disappeared for thirty years.



[1]               It may seem strange to you that Mr. Day, the librarian, is referred to as a “busy” man in the second paragraph. But you don’t know the half of it. The town library was quite small when he took it over in 1978: it totaled barely 352 titles. At the time this portion of the story occurs, in the fall of 1988, Grace’s eighth year, the library carried a total of 4,768 titles. That’s nearly fourteen times as many books in eleven years. And that number excludes the VHS and cassette sections Mr. Day had only recently begun. So, yes, he was indeed a busy man, thank you very much.

 

[2]               Years later, Grace was surprised to learn that it was from her Grandmother Windsor, whom she vaguely remembered as a drooling invalid, that her mother learned the fine art of mechanic-ry. Grandmother had worked the assembly lines in World War II, while Grandfather fought the Nazis.

[3]               The origin and meaning of this inside joke between the Days is still unknown. Exhaustive research by this author has failed to turn up any significant information. Imaginative readers should feel free to create the backstory behind this quirky Day family ritual.

 

[4]               The girls always were amused by this second quirky family ritual, even when beans were not served. It wasn’t until much later that they learned that this was not the conventional meaning of the word “pray”—Mr. and Ms. Day having determined several years previous that the girls would have to discover such information on their own and make up their own minds about it.

[5]               Mr. Day had recently explained there was an actual country called India and that the people who came from there were called “Indians.” Grace thought it was pretty silly and confusing to call Cherokees and Chippewas “Indians” after hearing that and resolved never to do so again.

 


Tuesday, February 25, 2014

Cross-Dressing Air Pirate (#69: Stardust)


#69: Stardust

That's all you need to say, right? This movie features Robert DeNiro as the cross-dressing Captain of a crew of air pirates. Sold!

Adapted from a novel by Neil Gaiman - who I'd call the reigning king of modern fantasy if it weren't for George R.R. Martin and his pesky Game of Thrones* - Stardust is the type of fantasy film I would have loved as a kid. It tells a light story shadowed with enough sharp edges and dark wit to entertain a child viewer but to give him/her the sense of the larger and deeper mysteries of adulthood. (See also: Neverending Story; Labyrinth; Jim Henson's Storyteller series).

To describe the plot in too much detail would take too long, spoil the movie, and sound ridiculous. Long story short: In England, there's a town called Wall which sits on the edge of our world and the world of Stormhold. Stardust follows the ventures of the half-breed son of Wall and Stormhold, Tristan Thorn (Charlie Cox) (a/k/a the Irish guy who had an affair with Margaret on Boardwalk Empire), as he tries to find his mum in Stormhold, catch a fallen Star (Claire Danes, fine, but miscast), and evade the machinations of an evil witch (Michelle Pfeiffer, excellent). Oh, yes, did I mention that Robert DeNiro plays Captain Shakespeare, the cosmopolitan pilot of a dirigible-boat full of air pirates that assist Tristan in his quest? Even that brief summary sounds ridiculous.

And it is! In a way fantasy films should be. Whimsical, heroic, and, above all, deeply strange.

I don't want to oversell it. This isn't a classic. While Gaiman's world-building is effective and charming and the performances are by and large winning, the direction, art direction, and effects aren't quite up to snuff. It feels like a very good TV movie - solid and entertaining but just a step away from big screen greatness. But it entertains and I look forward to sharing it with the Li'l ReViewing Habits when they're old enough that Michelle Pfeiffer gutting cats to read their entrails won't scare the living daylights out of them. What else can one ask for in a modern fantasy film?


Oh, yes, that.

FINAL VERDICT: KEEPER

NEXT UP: ?????

*Gaiman's run at the helm of The Sandman for DC Comics is appropriately legendary. He is also the writer behind Coraline, Neverwhere, and much, much, more.

Monday, February 24, 2014

How the West Was Weird (#68: Dances With Wolves)

Dances With Wolves belongs in the same sub-category of our DVD collection as The Da Vinci Code: acquisitions of uncertain provenance. We have it; we just don't know how or why that happened.

All the same, I was actually looking forward to this one. So, when we were watching Oscar winners, I suggested it as one of the entries. That suggestion was nixed by Ms. ReViewing Habit. After Last of the Mohicans inspired me to rant and rave about movies with Native American characters, I campaigned hard for it. Again, she was having none of it. Heedless, I plunged ahead on my lonesome. 

I chose poorly.


I really, really wanted to like this movie. Sure, I remember seeing it years ago and thinking it was just okay. Time, however, has not been kind to Kevin Costner's Western epic - which has become synonymous with the Oscars' habit of over-awarding actors turned directors. That it beat out (arguably) Martin Scorcese's greatest film, GoodFellas, for Best Picture makes it even worse in the eyes of many film fans. But I was hopeful I would come out of the film with a contrarian take on why the Academy got it right. Sorry to disappoint.

The buffalo stampede is the only injection of life in an otherwise terminally boring film.
Dances With Wolves commits the cardinal sin of being boring. Its story of a Civil War soldier (Costner) on the outer edges of the frontier, alone, by choice, confronted with the harsh realities of nature and the uncertainty of natives that regard him with suspicion, shouldn't be boring. But it feels endless and pointless.

The shame is that there is a deeper, weirder movie here struggling to bubble to surface. The opening sequence, where Costner's character survives a battle with his leg intact only because the surgeon needs a cup of coffee before sawing it off, told in fuzzy POV, sets an off-kilter tone. That is quickly followed by an odd setpiece with a Major (Maury Chaykin), soaked to his gills, referring to Costner's Lieutenant as "Sir Knight" and speaking of "quests" before offing himself which is (dare I say it?) Apocalypse Now-like in its threatening ambiguity. Then there's Mary McDonnell's alternately fascinating and cringe-inducing performance as Stands With A Fist, a refugee of the white world and a character of uncertain mental stability. A half hour in, I'm excited about what this movie might have to say about the senselessness of war, about man and nature, about our yen to be somewhere new and to hold on to somewhere old.

But Costner's paint-by-numbers direction and strangely lifeless performance and narration quickly suck any ambiguity or nuance out of the proceedings. The movie is ultimately too old-fashioned, and the usually charismatic Costner too restrained, to be interesting or effective. Did I mention it was boring?

It's honestly the first of the films we gave up on before it was over. If I'm not hooked after 2 hours, what's the point of continuing? We have other DVDs to watch.

FINAL VERDICT: PITCH

NEXT UP: STARDUST

Wednesday, February 12, 2014

We Were There (#67: The Last of the Mohicans)

Growing up, didn't it seem like you always covered the same topics in history? Every year, you learned about Jamestown, the Mayflower, the first Thanksgiving, then you'd get to the American Revolution and (maybe) the War of 1812 and stop. The rest was left for high school, we guess, though we picked up most of it on our own (and that most of what we had learned was more folklore than history) from the History Channel or by watching too many movies. 
 
It's always seemed weird, then, that there are so few films about pre-Civil War America. Or, for that matter, pre-America America. Sure, we remember watching the Johnny Tremain Disney movie and way too many Daniel Boone VHS tapes as a kid. But with all the force-feeding of creation myths in schools, where is our cinematic propaganda? Where's the treacly George Washington biopic bathing his apocryphal cherry-tree chopping in a magic hour halo of light and a John Williams score?
 
In all seriousness, there's a rich vein of American (and Native American) history left unportrayed on film. Which is a shame.
 
 
 
Michael Mann did his part to fill the void with The Last of the Mohicans. Adapted from James Fenimore Cooper's classic (but slightly arduous for modern readers) Leatherstocking Tales, this is the story of Hawkeye (Daniel Day-Lewis) the adopted European son of Chingachgook (Russell Means), the titular last of the Mohican tribe. Hawkeye does his best to stay out of the turf battle between the British and French taking place in and around his upstate New York  trapping grounds (a little tete-a-tete later called the French and Indian War). But when Cora Munro (Madeleine Stowe), the gutsy daughter of a British general, needs an escort to her father's camp, he volunteers. When the escort party ends up mostly slaughtered and Cora kidnapped by Magua (Wes Studi), the nefarious Huron allied with the French, he vows to find her. Guess how it ends?
 
Wildly romantic and lushly shot, Mohicans is filled with the grandeur and adventure that can only be mustered by classic Hollywood epics. It's quite a departure from the rest of Mann's oeuvre, which is mostly filled with chilly, slow burn crime thrillers with one word titles (Manhunt, Thief, Heat, Collateral). In researching this review (yes, we do research!), we discovered that the 1936 version is the first movie Mann can remember watching. Clearly a passion project for the director, the movie bursts with nostalgia: from the swelling score to the gorgeous landscape, everything feels like a film memory the first time you see it.
 
Needless to say, Day-Lewis is fantastic. His sardonic intensity and dangerous physicality are perfect for the enigmatic Hawkeye. Madeleine Stowe is an ideal Jane to his Tarzan: sharp and daring. Means and Studi make you wonder why Hollywood didn't crank out Native American epics every single year in the 90's, as they had two readymade stars executing in top form. 
 
We're not qualified enough to opine on whether the film's treatment of the lives and dynamics between the different groups (Natives, colonists, foreign military) is truly accurate. To that end, we're not sure the ending, with Means solemnly intoning about the loss of his way of life and all the characters' ways of life, is truly earned. But with that glorious view of unspoiled wilderness and manipulative underscoring, it sure feels like it.
 
FINAL VERDICT: KEEPER
 
NEXT UP: DANCES WITH WOLVES

Monday, February 10, 2014

We Can Smell It (#66: The Rock)

A wise person once said that there are two types of people in the world: Nicolas Cage fans and liars.


We qualify as both.

#66: The Rock

The Rock stands for everything we hate about modern Hollywood action: gleefully illogical plotting; one-note/full-volume characterization; melodramatic nationalism; shameless product placement; and frenetic close ups as far as the eye can see. Throw in a few more lens flares and you have a recipe for ReViewing Habit hater-ade.
 
But, goddamn it, The Rock works.
 
No, we don't believe for a single second that Ed Harris and David Morse could so easily swindle a rare deadly gas, arm rockets, and take over Alcatraz. (By the way, you should totally check out the Alcatraz tour if you're ever in San Francisco, it's really cool. Even without Nicolas Cage. Though adding Cage to the cages [groan!] would be a coupe de grace.)
 
No, I don't buy that the lowly FBI bomb detonator played by Cage (with the uber-ridiculous handle of Stanley Goodspeed) would be sent into such a dangerous mission with hardly any real field training.
 
Moreover, would the real Michael Biehn (Commander Anderson), were he in charge of such a mission, allow a liability like Goodspeed to come along? No way. Amiright, sexy '80's Michael Biehn?
 
Yes. Yes, you are.
On the other hand, we totally buy that an aging and likely entropied British spy (Sean Connery) would not only have the werewithal to break back into Alcatraz and kick Army dude ass after 30 years behind bars, but also ESCAPE his FBI entourage and steal (and namecheck!) a Humvee. Yes, a HUMVEE! HOW DOES HE EVEN KNOW WHAT A HUMVEE IS? HE WAS IN JAIL SINCE THE SIXTIES! HUMVEES WEREN'T A THING UNTIL THE 80'S! WHAT IS HAPPENING?!?!?!
 
That "what on earth is happening?" vibe - epitomized, of course, by a trademark gooftactular Cage perfomance - is what makes it all work. The Rock is so breathless in its craziness, you can't help but get caught up.
 
But maybe we're weak...we do have a soft spot for the Cage.
 
 
FINAL VERDICT: KEEPER
 
NEXT UP: THE LAST OF THE MOHICANS
 
 

Sunday, January 26, 2014

You're Thinking and Explaining Again (#65: The Da Vinci Code)

So, when we fell off the Best Picture wagon, we fell hard. Inspired by the looming threat of winter storm and maybe one too many Yuengling Lights, we decided to throw The Da Vinci Code into the DVD player and see if it was bad was we remembered.
 
 
Surprise! The answer is yes! It's awful. Jawdroppingly, how-did-this-happen awful?
 
(Sidenote: We have no idea how we came to own this DVD.)
 
On paper, this movie looks great. Adapted from Dan Brown's mega-selling page turner, directed with typical workmanlike efficiency by Ron Howard, starring the fantastic Audrey Tautou, Ian McKellan (in a role that lets him play in his impish British gentleman wheelhouse), and America's favorite leading man, Tom Hanks. What could go wrong?
 
For starters, all the weaknesses of Brown's writing are exposed on film. Brown is a master plotter and the book unfolds with relentless urgency; any dead spots brightened up by the puzzle after puzzle for the reader to work through. The wooden prose and silly conspiracy stuff doesn't even matter because we are racing to find out what happens next. But the film viewer doesn't get the satisfaction of seeing and working through the puzzles for themselves - at least not in this script. What we're left with is a lot of watching other people sit around, thinking out loud, and explaining things.
 
That can work with the right characters (have you seen any Richard Linklater film?). But not here. Robert Langdon was a bland facsimile of Indiana Jones without the whip on paper, and he's even less than that here. Hanks gets almost nothing to work with. It feels like he has less than 25% of the dialogue and mostly then just to express surprise at what he's being told. And he gets told a lot of stuff. And a lot of what he's told thuds as expositorily as an entry level religious studies lecture.
 
What was a catch-your-breath whodunit on paper thus becomes a when-does-this-thing-end quasi-history lesson on film.
 
And we really, who in god's name forced Tom Hanks to do that to his head? The man is living icon. FOR SHAME!
 
 
Don't even get me started on Paul Bettany.
 
FINAL VERDICT: PITCH

Here Endeth the Lesson (#64: The Untouchables)

OK, so maybe the plan was to watch only Best Picture winners for a while. But then Andy Garcia in Godfather, Part III happened, which can only, inexorably lead to one conclusion: WATCH THE UNTOUCHABLES.
 

Welcome to Chicago.

While The Untouchables did take home an Oscar for Best Supporting Actor (Sean Connery), it was not a best picture nominee. Be that as it may, The Untouchables is a classic of the gangster film genre, made all the better for having actual protagonists - Eliot Ness (Kevin Costner) and his gang of "untouchable" super-cops. Sure, Robert DeNiro chews his share of scenery as Al Capone - and to great effect. But this is the rare modern gangster film with the gumshoes and cheap suits as the stars and not just cannon fodder.

Directed by that underrated auteur Brian DePalma, The Untouchables tells the story of how Eliot Ness handcrafted a delicious amber lager on the shores of Lake Erie. Actually, no, it's about the Treasury Department's full throttle push to take down infamous Chicago ganglord Capone. Ness assembles a crack team: a streetwise Irish beat cop (Connery); a nebbishy accountant (Charles Martin Smith); and a hotheaded rookie (Garcia). Together, they declare all-out war on Capone and see plenty of casualties along the way, all rendered in thrilling and anxiety-producing detail with DePalma's steady hand behind the camera.
 
Many of the set pieces in this film are so iconic, you may know them already, even if you've never seen it. 
 
 
Fantastic direction and crackling performances asides, my favorite thing about this film might be the part they couldn't make up. Ultimately, what got Capone? Failure to pay taxes. That's the thing about criminals. No matter how powerful and rich they become, they tend to get caught because they're not smart enough to tend to the little things.
 
FINAL VERDICT: KEEPER
 
NEXT UP: THE DA VINCI CODE