MovieMonday: Battle of the Sexes

I enjoyed this movie more when I saw it in the theater than when I thought about it afterward.  

It's nicely made and well acted, but its organizing concept and ultimate conflict is a silly 1973 spectacle that pretended to have something to do with women's liberation, as it was called in the day.  Why should we care? 

The body of the movie is the story of the two tennis players in that event.

Billie Jean King, the American tennis star, is rightly outraged that women's events draw audiences equal to those of men but offer much smaller prizes.  She and others form their own league.  She is absolutely right, and good for her.

Bobby Riggs, a middle-aged gambler and showboater who used to be a tennis star, challenges King to a tennis match and, when she refuses, convinces Australian Margaret Court to play him.  He wins.

King is challenged again by Riggs, and this time she says yes.  Her purpose is to assert the equality of women, or something.  "He's going to make women's tennis look like a sideshow," she worries.

A fair question, in 1973 and now, is this:  Why would a legitimate tennis star at the top of her game agree to participate in an actual sideshow with a middle-aged, washed-up, attention-seeking has-been?

Emma Stone plays King, who is ardent, serious and sexually confused.  Long married to a supportive husband, she finds herself attracted to a female hairdresser and they begin an affair.  This is presented in a credible way that is true generally to the facts of the situation, which was almost certainly an open secret in 1973.

Steve Carell plays Riggs, who is fun to watch but irresponsible.  His long-suffering wife finally tells him, "I need a husband who is steady, and that is not you."  His son Larry also seems to have had enough and refuses to attend the big match.

King trains for the match like the serious person she is.

Riggs does not train for the match.  He mugs for the press in silly costumes and makes outrageous sexist statements that even he does not believe. 

Then comes the match, whose result has been telegraphed pretty effectively.  And that's the movie.

Effectively, "Battle of the Sexes" portrays a 1973 event through a 2017 template.  We do a lot of that now, but every once in a while I find it grating.  This is one of those times.

To be fair, the whole thing works better than it should, which redounds to the credit of directors Jonathan Dayton and Valerie Faris, who also made the charming "Little Miss Sunshine," described once as "a thinking person's 'National Lampoon Vacation.'" 

Notes

If you care about that 1973 tennis match, you might enjoy a 2013 article that suggests a couple reasons why Riggs may have planned deliberately to lose to King. 

Margaret Court, the Australian tennis star, ultimately won 23 grand slam events to King's 12.  The movie treats her with a bit of disdain.  Long ago she intemperately said, "There were lots of lesbians in tennis," and she more recently has been been strident in her opposition to gay marriage.  There is now a movement afoot to take her name off an arena in Melbourne.

Boots of the Season

It is a truth generally acknowledged that there are two kinds of fashion -- one kind that screams for attention and the other for us normal people.

The "boots" above fall into the former category.  They are very tall. Their uppers are made of stretchy synthetic fabric instead of leather or suede.  Their colors are pretty darn vivid.  And their heels are at least 4 inches high.  They are not for everyone.

But they are interesting.

Spain's Balenciaga house appears to have been the first to release such boots.  Last spring it convinced (or paid) one celebrity to wear a bright red pair under white gown with a slashed skirt to the annual Met Gala.  Then Kylie Jenner paired a purple pair with a  not-long-enough tee shirt for a less prominent red carpet event and paparazzi.  

These have been named "knife boots," and are featured in the Balenciaga fall advertising campaigns.  To the extent they are bought, it is fair to guess that women mostly will want them in basic black.  Still, as footwear goes, they're pretty far out there.  

The knife boots' antecedents over the last 10 years are over-the-knee boots.  A early-adopter friend of wore a leather pair of these to a holiday event some years back; they looked rather stiff and seemed to bother the hem of her skirt.  This may be why new versions are coming out in more pliant suedes and as "sock boots," the latter of which used to be short, sturdy numbers appropriate for tramping through the frozen north. 

Here is a Balenciaga advertisement, including the knife boot in blue, that ran in the all-important September fashion magazines.  

Naturally other designers are offering their own versions.

Here's a photo from a Salvatore Ferragamo ad.

And one from Stuart Weitzman

And one from Ralph Lauren.

Slouch Boots

These boots have wrinkled leather shafts.  This is a trend that comes and goes and then comes back again.  This year it's back.

Some examples:

Marc Jacobs

Vanessa Seward

Michael Kors  (Note the triangular heel, which seems seems to be a thing this year.)

Saint Laurent.  This tall boot is being marketed in various leather colors, but the shiny silver version has drawn the most attention.  If you want a pair, you will need to put your name on a wait list, and then save your money to pay for them.  The price is $10,000. 

Normal People

The Idiosyncratist already has purchased a pair of winter boots, block-heeled black ankle boots that will be good with pants or skirts.  These replace a previous pair of black ankle boots that died of overwear.   Regular readers know that the Id is something of a minimalist, constrained by limited closet space and a frugal nature.  

MovieMonday: Kingsman 2: The Golden Circle

What to make of this film?  It is a sort of double spoof of superhero movies and James Bond movies rolled up in a long and utterly preposterous series of set pieces.

This is the second Kingsman show.  The first, in 2015, made more than $400 million, making a sequel inevitable.  This new edition opened well over the weekend, grossing $100 million in theaters worldwide.

The Kingsmen are schooled in elite manners and warfare. They also are outfitted in bespoke suits, which they sell at The Kingsman Tailor Shop, the Savile Row front for their undercover good-guy organization.  They always know which fork to use at fancy dinner parties, but they do use the F-word rather more frequently than one might expect.

The story opens with Eggsy, a young man who joined the team in the first movie.  He immediately establishes his props in an extended battle with another young man, Charlie, who has gone over to the dark side, in this case a drug cartel called Poppy Pharmaceuticals.

Eggsy and Charlie tangle with ju jitsu moves, weapons, and Charlie's bionic arm in a lethally loaded Kingsman taxi that is being pursued by bad guys in SUVs with roofs that open to expose rocket launchers.  It's all very exciting and displays the range of tactical and online support that the Kingsmen can bring to bear in a fight.

Then, suddenly, the Kingsman organization is wiped out, and the world is plunged into peril.  The two survivors, Eggsy and a tech backup called Merlin, join forces with Statesman, an American counterpart organization whose front is not a clothing store but a whiskey distillery in Kentucky.  

There are many, many battles on three continents.  Harry Hart, a Kingsman who was shot dead in the first movie, is revived, somehow and in fits and starts, and he joins Eggsy and Merlin.  Harry is played by Colin Firth who, as ever, looks smashing in a well-tailored suit.  

It's clear the whole story is meant as a giant over-the-top parody, which renders any nodding glances at character development or motivation pretty much beside the point.  The effect is a very long two hours and twenty minutes of joke characters saving a joke world.  

If you like this sort of thing, you might as well go.


Notes

Actress Julianne Moore plays Poppy, the film's very bad bad gal, but she is not given much to do except bark orders to her minions.  Actors Jeff Bridges, Halle Berry and Channing Tatum also languish in small roles.  Perhaps the whole bunch are there to interest American audiences.

The film's two British screenwriters also have thrown in American stereotypes.  In one case, a Kentucky redneck provokes a bar fight by saying this: "Kiss my southern dick, bitch!"  In another, a generic American president is a secondary bad guy, comfortable with the idea of millions of deaths of his countrymen and other people worldwide.

The film opens with a bagpipe rendition of the John Denver's "Take Me Home, Country Roads," a set-up planted for an exaggerated payoff toward the end of the film.  Turns out that Merlin the Kingsman is a John Denver fan.

Elton John plays himself with good-natured humor, even when he is required to wear a ridiculous feathered costume.  His "Saturday Night" song provides the accompaniment for a fight scene, and he kicks a very tall platform boot to good effect.

Cities, Growth and Amazon

I've been spending time the last couple years in downtown Nashville, where the most common street sign is either the first or the second one below. 

It's nearly impossible to walk or drive two blocks in any direction without having to maneuver around at least one of these. 

Nashville is booming, thanks to its three big industries:  county/pop music, healthcare and state government.  The Economist reported last year that 81 people were moving into the metropolitan area each day; others say the number is higher.  Home prices are increasing, and so is construction of apartment buildings and townhouses and, farther out, single-family homes.  

In addition, the city is playing a huge game of infrastructure catchup.  Its population, 174,000 in 1950, has blossomed into an MSA (metropolitan statistical area) population of 1.8 million as of last year.  Traffic is pretty bad, and while there is talk of a five-spoke light-rail system, there is no plan to fund such a thing, whose buildout would take perhaps 20 years.

This of course is the sort of problem cities would love to have.

Where Tower Cranes Are

One rough measure of the health of a city is the number of tower cranes employed on major construction projects in its area.  Recently the Nashville Business Journal crowed about the number of tower cranes here -- 28 -- and ran this national map. Only New York, Chicago, Los Angeles and Seattle had more tower cranes.  If you've read about rents in those areas, you won't be surprised.

Actually, the map is now inaccurate.  One tower crane that had been working just down from our Nashville building was dismantled last month.  The process took a week and closed all traffic on the entire block.  Next month, the new 45-story tower of apartments and condos will open.

Where Tower Cranes Are Not

The US population is shifting.  Some cities like Nashville are attracting new residents.  Other cities have been shedding population for decades.  

Here are a few of those population losers.

--Detroit.  Its population crested at almost 1.85 million in the 1950 US Census and then dropped more than 60 percent by 2010.  Since then, another 50,000 people have left, leaving 672,000 people to maintain a built infrastructure designed for many more. 

--St. Louis.  Its 1950 population was more than 850,000 but is now below 320,000.  As is the case in other cities, residents seem to have relocated to surrounding suburbs.  

--Memphis. For most of its history, Memphis had twice as many residents as Nashville.  Its metro area population now trails Nashville's by 500,000, and the trend seems to be continuing. 

-- Cincinnati -- 300,000 residents in 2010, down from more than 500,000 in 1950.

    

-- Cleveland -- 400,000 residents in 2010, down from 900,000 in 1950.

I could go on about Buffalo and Akron and other cities, but you get the point.

Amazon

Recently Seattle-based Amazon has announced plans to build a second, equal-sized headquarters facility somewhere else in the country.  Every city and town in the Midwest and East craves this business, and for good reason:  Amazon estimates it will need 50,000 employees to staff the new facility, with an average compensation level of $100,000 a year.  

Cities and states are being invited to submit proposals next month, which sounds similar to a professional sports team hinting that it might move its franchise to a city in exchange for a locally financed arena.  We'll see if that analogy holds up. 

Nashville, a go-getter kind of town, naturally wants the Amazon headquarters.  When civic leaders talk of bidding for the project, they fret that the Tennessee legislature's failure to enact a suitably progressive transgender bathroom bill could hurt the city's chances.

More to the point, I would think, is the fact that Nashville is crowded already.  Home prices are expensive relative to local incomes, and traffic, especially for commuters, is very congested and getting worse.

Many commenters have offered free advice to Amazon about where to locate its new operation.  CNN, for instance, suggested these eight cities:  Atlanta, Pittsburgh, Toronto, Dallas, Austin, Boston, San Jose and Washington, D.C.

The selling points for these places, CNN argued, were good schools and large populations of high earners.  In effect, the recommendation was to choose a city that already is winning and to make it even richer.  

(There are people who like Amazon because it has lowered vegetable prices at its recently acquired Whole Foods stores and because its workers are paid well.  

         I'm less sanguine.  It's not that Amazon has demolished the traditional bookstore trade, or that it is doing much the same for retail generally, or that it appears set to try to control the grocery business, or that its founder has bought one of the most politically influential newspapers in the country.  My problem is that Amazon, a company based on algorithms, has done all of these.  To me, this looks like a prima facie case for the expansion of the definition of antitrust. But I digress.) 

If I were advising Amazon, I would encourage it to set its new headquarters in a hollowed-out city like one of the ones I described above. 

Here's what's in it for Amazon:

   -- Those cities have infrastructure -- road systems, empty schoolhouses, underused airports, cargo rail tracks and, in many cases, abandoned intracity railroad tracks waiting to be used again for new urban transit development.
       An influx of Amazon employees -- and Americans generally are happy to move for good job opportunities -- would make use of these and would appreciate the opportunity to buy or rent homes in a location where prices have not yet been bid up to unaffordable levels.

  --  Those cities also have largely empty central business districts and abandoned industrial sites ripe for repurposing and available at lower cost than similar sized, less well-located properties in Atlanta or Boston or Washington, D.C.  

  -- Amazon could show itself to be a good corporate citizen by demonstrating how a city of the industrial past can be turned into a successful city of the future.   

        It might also inspire Alphabet (Google) to abandon its plan to build a totally new techie-enabled city and to focus instead on updating an urban area that could be a showcase for a new kind of redevelopment.  

        Maybe even Facebook would decide to adopt a company town (although I personally would prefer not to live there.)  

Conclusion

Our country has cities that are thriving and cities that are not.  It also has big companies with grandiose plans for controlling larger portions of the economy.

In the US, we admire people who change their lives and succeed when the odds are against them.  Maybe it's time to show our struggling cities a similar way to change their destinies.

If big companies like Amazon took an interest in such projects, they would gain broad respect and the country might regain some of its now-tattered can-do spirit.  

I don't see any downside to this idea.

A Stop at the Kimbell

On a pleasant trip to Texas last weekend, we went to Fort Worth to see the Kimbell Museum.  I had been there once before, but not since the 2013 opening of its second building.

The museum is named for Kay and Velma Kimbell, who made their money in granaries and grocery stores and also collected art by the European masters.  They left the art and a considerable fortune to the Kimball Foundation, and the museum opened in 1972. 

For many years, the foundation was most famous for its building, a late work by Louis I. Kahn, the famed modernist.  It is made of modern materials, cement and travertine limestone, and its chambers nod to the classics with rounded top pieces. 

Here is a traditional southern view.

The first time I visited the Kimbell, its entrance was on its west side and seemed almost obscured.  To enter, you walked through a gravel courtyard with a stand of shapely trees, a Kahn specification that was, in fact, modest and rather charming. In addition, Kahn set other groups of trees and reflecting pools around the site, nice touches in the sere Texas landscape. 

Here is the original entry.

Four years ago, the museum added a second building (below) designed by Renzo Piano to accommodate more of the foundation's growing collection.  This building is more square and more concrete than the original Kimbell, but they work together.

Unfortunately, in my view, the new project included switching the Kimbell entrance to the other side of the building.  (The original entrance now gives way to greenery and leads to the second building.)

The new entry looks out on the street and the museum parking lot, and it is decorated with a great big Joan Miró statue.  The effect is less inviting to the eye but perhaps more functional.

Over the years, the most remarked aspect of the Kimbell's architecture has been its natural lighting.  There are all kinds of unseen tricks engineered into the walls and roofs to bring in filtered sunlight that is subtle and comfortable.  

The interior lighting is the thing I remember most from my first Kimbell visit, and it is true of the Piano Pavilion as well. 

Highlights

Since I just mentioned lighting, let me first note a 1986 Kimbell acquisition: "Interior of the Buurkerk."

This is a 17th century painting by Dutch artist Pieter Saenredam.  It likely is no coincidence that such a work, distinguished by subtle and indirect lighting, was chosen for display in the beautifully lit Kimbell.  

In fact, the Kimbell's team has been recognized from the beginning for aesthetic strength -- first for selecting the right architect and then for thoughtful additions to the original collection. 

In the years since the Kimbell opened, another foundation, that of J. Paul Getty, has been the bigfoot of the classical art world.  While the Kimbell has a fine endowment of about $400 million, the Getty's is much greater, more than $6 billion.  (Notably in this instance, the Getty has TWO Saenredam oils and several drawings, none of which seemed to be on display on my last visit earlier this year.)

The Kimbell Museum now defines its mandate as art created before the year 1950 and includes ancient  and tribal works from Central America, Asia and Africa.  None of the collections is huge, but each is interesting on its own and as part of the overall institution.  

Some other examples follow:

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Here from one gallery are two statues separated by time but effectively quite similar.

First is an Early Bronze Age female statuette from Greece, made thousands of years ago and acquired by the Kimbell in 1970.   

Nearby we find a rare Amedeo Modigliani work, "Head," sculpted in 2013 and donated to the Kimbell earlier this year.  

Do you think these works speak to each other?  I sure do.

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Below is "On the Pont de l’Europe" by French Impressionist Gustave Caillebotte.  The painting is harmonious in color -- blue blue blue -- but it also suggests tension between its human subjects, three men whose expressions are hidden and the prominent industrial beams of a 19th century railroad bridge.  

(Two years ago, the Kimbell and the National Gallery of Art in Washington, D.C., organized the first major Caillebotte exhibition.  The painter came from a wealthy family and did not try to sell his own work but instead collected other Impressionists' paintings and bequeathed them to a museum after his death; that endowment established the most famous names of the Impressionist period, but it took much longer for Caillebotte to get his due.  The Kimbell bought this painting in 1982.) 

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The gallery representing Central American art has a various works in clay and wood and gold, but two struck me particularly.  

This Seated Figure comes from the Olmec culture near Veracruz, Mexico, and may be 2,000 years old.  It is an informal rendering of a child and is interesting for its expression of the subject's personality.  (Who among us has not seen a young person in this mood?)

Across the gallery is this Tripod Vessel, a 1,000-year-old piece fashioned by a Mayan craftsman from a single piece of limestone.  Its walls are thin and translucent, and it rests on three round feet.  The shape would be recognized as classic in any culture.  Very unusual.

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Here from from the Asian gallery in the Piano Pavilion is a Bodhisattva Torso, a Buddhist work from the Tang dynasty (618-907) in China.  You can't get the full three-dimensional impact from this image (made available, like the others, by the Kimbell), but the statue's realistic rendering of bodily flesh is almost voluptuous, which appears unusual for its era, and which antedates the European Renaissance and its more realistic renderings of the human form by 500 years. 

Note

The Kimbell Museum is not large, but the pieces discussed here form only a small part of the collection, which is interesting throughout.   What struck me were the common themes in works from many cultures and time periods.  It suggests that art really does speak to us on a basic human level.

MovieMonday: Columbus

If you are interested mostly in superhero movies or shoot-em-ups, "Columbus" is not the film for you.  

On the other hand, if you can abide a story that quietly examines two characters' internal conflicts and their quiet resolution, then it is worth your attention. 

The setting is Columbus, Indiana, home to a remarkable cluster of classic modern buildings by the Saarinens, Eliel and Eero, among notable others, and also a  striking red-masted suspension bridge from 1999.  

Columbus is home to Casey, a recent high school graduate who is avoiding college because she wants to protect her mother, who has had problems but seems to be doing well.  Casey has no formal architecture training, but she studies what she sees and can explain why particular buildings speak to her.

Into the city comes a famous Korean architect scheduled to give a speech.  The architect, an older man, falls ill and is hospitalized in a coma.   His estranged son, Jin, is summoned to the father's bedside by the architect's colleague, an old family friend.  

Jin lives in Seoul and makes his living translating Korean literature into English.  He seems never to have understood his father's work.  "You grow up around something, and it feels like nothing," he acknowledges.  

He and Casey meet over cigarettes, which initially seems to be the only thing the two have in common, given their different ages and residences and personal histories.

But as they talk, they form a sort of friendship.  Casey shows Jin her favorite Columbus buildings (she has a list in her head).  In effect Casey translates architecture for Jin while he prods her to take advantage of an opportunity to continue her education. 

There are only three other characters: the colleague of Jin's father; Casey's mother, who has a small life and great love for her daughter, and a library colleague of Casey's, who maybe loves her, but perhaps at the wrong moment for each of them.   

And that's about it.  In addition to the minimalism of the plot, the film includes almost no other people or traffic or everyday events that we associate with life in a city.  It gives the impression that the city of Columbus is virtually uninhabited.  

Instead there are striking images from the built environment --  the library building, a church, the Miller house, two interior hallways that define locations and, perhaps tellingly, two brick arms that reach toward each other but don't connect.  

In "Columbus," we watch two blocked individuals get acquainted and then help each other take their first steps forward.  That the actors, Haley Lu Richardson and John Cho, can carry the minimalist plot is impressive.  That the film succeeds with great restraint and quiet beauty is remarkable.  For these reasons alone, it deserves an audience. 

The screenwriter and director here is the single-named Kogonada, a South Korean man previously known for criticism and short films found on Vimeo.   May "Columbus" be the first of many.

Sixteen Years Ago

I wasn't in New York on 9/11. It was a beautiful day, and I was 20 miles away, pulling weeds in the suburbs, when my father called to ask after the health of the Significant Other.

"He's fine.  Why?" I asked.

"You better turn on the TV," Dad said.

An hour or so later, I picked up the Younger Person at his school, which closed early that day.  By then, the husband of one of the teachers in the upper grades was dead.  So was the sister of a woman who lived on the next block over.  Among others.

The next week, I talked with an economist whose office overlooked the twin towers.  "I saw things I shouldn't have seen," he said.  He meant hundreds of people jumping from the scorching top floors of the buildings.

The week after that, on Sunday, we went downtown.  Lines of heavy trucks were carting wreckage out of the city, a process that took months.  The harsh, acrid smell was everywhere.

What I remember most are the pictures.  Families and friends had posted notices and photographs all over the area, hoping that loved ones would be found alive. 

All the missing people were dead, of course.  Their families, at best, might recover part of a leg or a piece of jewelry.  For most families, there was nothing to find.

I rarely think of these things now, but on this day every year the memories return.