Keeping a Lid on It

If you're a bona fide Cub fan, look before you leap was tattooed on your chest at birth. Scarred by years of championshiplessness and near-misses, buoyant emotions like joy escape from you with the frequency that inmates do from a Federal supermax prison.

You aren't given to throwing caution to the wind and cavalierly expressing elation merely because it's May and your team is in first place. No, you have learned to conserve your feelings the way a miser does their money.

Between opening day and the All-Star break, you raise taciturn to a level that is the envy of every Scandinavian nation on earth. You have a stiff upper lip that makes Viagra jealous. If you were any more reserved you'd be a table in a hot and very trendy restaurant.

You—of all people—know the baseball season is a marathon, not a sprint, and that premature displays of emotion only worsen the fall when the inevitable occurs in the latter stages of it.

No sir.

Talk to me in September.

Fast-forward to September. The Chicago Cubs are playing at a 92-win clip and are steaming towards a post-season appearance. And after months of silence, you're ready to blog about it from the rooftops.

There's no chance of overtaking the mighty St. Louis Cardinals for the division title, but the Pittsburgh Pirates' hold on the lead wild-card slot appears vulnerable. And after the arid, desert-like desolation of the past several seasons, any cup of water is a good cup of water.

Even if it's only to play the role of speed bump for the eventual National League pennant winner.

The pitching is still a little thin, but the hitting is stellar and more importantly, timely. The defense is improving, and if they could just get a decent pitcher in exchange for the habitually inattentive Starlin Castro, they could really be something.

Of course, as evidenced by your predictions for last season's Bulls (who died a coward's death against the injury-ravaged Cleveland Cavaliers in the Eastern Conference Semis), prognosticating isn't really your ken.

With the numeric certainty promised by the calender that 2015 is not 2003, anything could happen. And with the Chicago Cubs, anything usually does. The horrors of 1969 and 1984 and 2003 are not as far away as our calculators would have us believe.

October is a portal to failure. A razor-lined pothole set to deflate whatever sort of roll the earnest and wide-eyed Cubs happen to be on. October is a film noir-inspired femme fatale, luring the feckless Cubs to their doom.

But if a half-century of Cub fandom has taught you anything, it's to enjoy the moment. Free of expectation.

The Cubs won yesterday. Life is beautiful.

You hope.

Riffing on the Movies

It’s a bit odd that I don’t post more often about movies, considering their profound impact on me. So many of the most fulfilling moments of my life have been spent in darkened theaters, given over to an absorbing story line playing out on a giant silver screen.

How could I forget the nights of my youth, taking in the cinematic wonders of the thirties, forties and fifties flickering for free on late night TV? Or seeing The Godfather, Raging Bull, The Last Emperor and The Painted Veil in a theater? They looked like beautiful gems on a black velvet pillow.

Like you, I have my favorites. In addition to the above, there’s Out of the Past, Vertigo, Picnic at Hanging Rock, It’s a Wonderful Life, The Last Picture Show, The Wrestler, La Strada, Network, The Unbearable Lightness of Being and Casablanca. And Fargo, The Hustler, A Streetcar Named Desire and Ikiru. And Rashomon and Citizen Kane and Mulholland Drive.

Can I really ignore Lawrence of Arabia, Chinatown, The Treasure of the Sierra Madre or 12 Angry Men? Or Mr. Roberts, The Shawshank Redemption and One Flew Over the Cuckoo’s Nest?

Hell no.

Just to make it an even thirty, let’s throw in His Girl Friday and My Cousin Vinny. (I don’t broadcast the fact, but yes—I like to laugh. Sometimes.)

Billy Wilder, Alfred Hitchcock, Martin Scorsese, Akira Kurosawa and Roman Polanski are geniuses. John Huston, Werner Herzog, Steven Spielberg, Federico Fellini, Sidney Lumet and Peter Weir aren’t far behind.

Which leaves out Sydney Pollack, the Coen brothers, Stanley Kubrick, Bryan Forbes, Alejandro Gonzalez Inarritu, John Schlesinger, Robert Altman and Anthony Minghella!

Crap. No wonder I don’t post more about film.

As best I can, I reckon I have seen approximately 1,057 movies in their entirety. The decade most often represented is the eighties, which makes sense since a.) I was young, and b.) had disposable income.

I have seen more of Hitchcock's films than any other director’s, and find it very appropriate that, given the extravagant imagery of his films, Fellini died on Halloween.

In a really peculiar bit of coincidence, the countries which produce my favorite cars are also the country of origin for my favorite foreign-language films (Japan, Italy and Germany).

I tend to like movies featuring conflicted and troubled individuals. Individuals facing dilemmas, moral and otherwise.

That said, I love film noir. It is, without a doubt, my favorite genre. And for my money, Out of the Past is the ne plus ultra of the species. Razor-sharp dialogue, great cinematography and one of the best performances of Robert Mitchum’s career.

Not surprisingly, the female lead--Jane Greer--is my femme fatale of all-time. Her Kathie Moffat has a heart colder than a stripper’s smile. To borrow a line from the Gene Hackman movie Heist, she could talk her way out of a sunburn.

This is also one of Kirk Douglas’ earliest films, and for an actor lampooned for his over-the-top performances, he turns in a taut, no-frills one here, conveying a violent menace barely contained by a cool exterior.

OK. That's the end of this post. If you’re of a mind to, leave your favorites in the comments section. I am nothing if not curious.