Monthly Archives: November 2021

The Death of the Plot Twist


Spoiler alerts have become to movies what the Surgeon General’s warning became to smoking: a perfunctory caution before ill-advised behavior.

Remember plot twists in movies? The stunning revelations in films such as Psycho, The Crying Game and The Sixth Sense? Good times.

And getting rarer. When was the last time you were surprised by a movie’s plot?

Studios are trying to maintain the mystery: In the ad frenzy promoting Daniel Craig’s final film as James Bond, No Time To Die, trailers exclaimed (and still do) “You won’t believe the ending!”

Perhaps. Unless you read the Wikipedia entry for the movie. It spelled out the ending in detail — on the movie’s opening weekend.

This is the new rule, not the exception, in Hollywood’s click-bait reality. Movie reviews and plot secrets air on social media the day a movie opens, if not before. Some YouTube movie critiques are ad-libbed on cell phones outside the theater that just aired the film.

And it’s not only the ending. The Eternals, Disney’s latest comic-book entry, led all moves this weekend with a respectable $70 million in the U.S. — only in theaters.

But for those who enjoy Marvel’s trademark end-credits for their cameos and plot clues, bad news: Wikipedia listed that as well. Twice, actually: Eternals had a mid-end-credit scene, too. Both were duly described.

This poses a conundrum for an industry that must tease a film without giving away away too much. Studios are already laboring to sell kids on the theatrical experience itself, no small task in a pandemic. That job becomes tougher without intrigue.

So what fate, the movie twist? Already, fans are calling on fellow cinephiles to be more discreet.

Studios are asking reviewers sign agreements that they will not write on social media about a movie before their reviews. And more film reviews and analyses can be found on YouTube with a “NO SPOILERS” guarantee.

But for now, it’s up to the viewer to provide the suspension of disbelief. And surprise.

2021 World Series: Cheaters vs. Racists

When did sports become about who you hated more than about who you loved?

My guess is around the time of my childhood. While free agency was introduced to the NFL in the 1940’s, it wasn’t until the 1970’s and 80’s that it reached the MLB and NBA and turned baseball and basketball from local sport to national commerce. Allegiances were born of pocket strings over player strengths, commercial appeal over competitive zeal, Name, Likeness & Image over Wins, Losses & Ties.

In short, Villainy over Heroism.

Not that villainy ruins sport. One of the great pursuits in pro football is an undefeated season, capped with a Super Bowl win. The Perfect Season has happened only once, with the 1972 Miami Dolphins. And watching the enormously wealthy (and politically conservative) New England Patriots lose that bid in the 2012 Super Bowl was to witness one of the greatest upsets in NFL history.

But that is exception, not rule. Most sports today — particularly in a pandemic — hold all the drama of an eBay auction.

So what to make of this year’s World Series, between the Atlanta Braves and the Houston Astros? At best, we have an ugly option: Root for racists or cheaters.

The cheating has been well-established. In 2017, the Astros were found by Major League Baseball to have stolen signs from opposing pitchers and catchers with the team’s centerfield camera, tarnishing their World Series win. Some opposing players have accused them of swiping again to get into this championship, though baseball has provided no evidence of further swindling.

The Braves are a trickier question. Atlanta has long been home to the “Tomahawk Chop,” where fans cheer a guttural war cry while flexing elbows in a chopping motion.

“The tomahawk chop chant will be all over your television screens this week with crowds perpetuating the worst forms of cultural appropriation,” The Toronto Star opined.

The paper is not far off, though I don’t think fans are trying to appropriate anything. They’re trying simply to offend. Where once the cheer was to support a team and mascot, now it supports a political view and mascot.

Like anti-vaxxers and the mask-and-science defiant, the hawkers’ purpose is not to make a statement other than ‘No.’ No to common causes, No to greater goods, No to the browning of America. It is hard to hear the chants out of Georgia and NOT hear the not-so-faint faint echoes of Trumpism in the stands.

It would seem a fool’s folly. Name a single American issue that voters are less liberal on than they were 50 years ago. Name a single business in America not tasked with becoming more diverse. Name a time in the last half century when science got it wrong.

Other than the voting booth, that is.

And those days are numbered: There is no stopping the browning and liberalization of advanced civilizations, only feeble gestures of protest, like cheating and passive aggressive moaning, which is all the Tomahawk Chop really is.

Can we pull for a double disqualification?

Open Letter to a Puppy, Chapter VI: Highway One


My Kodachrome,

I brought you home last night.

You have never been small, but you fit inside the oversized hoodie I wore to pick you up in Oxnard. As a guardian angel drove us home, we sat in the backseat, me whispering to you the whole ride back. I’d read somewhere about the importance of “imprinting” your presence on a new Earthling.

“It’s okay, baby,” I told you during the chilly trip down the 101. I had to keep the windows open and the mask on, but our bodies warmed each other.

“You’re going to a safe place. Good Jadie. Everything is going to be good and happy and warm there. This home is yours. Good Jadie.”

You were a pandemic puppy. The biggest, loudest and most nipple-insistent of a half dozen siblings. You were not thrilled to leave mom and whimpered softly the first leg of the trip.

But around Camarillo, you were chewing my hoodie. And my sandals. And my blanket. And my rose bushes. And my baseboards and my gazebo and mygoddidsomeonedareyoutoeattheworld?

As we neared Malibu Canyon, you were grudgingly accepting the notion of peeing outdoors.

Around Northridge, you had become a regular at the Victory Dog Park, where witnesses (one of them your dad) reported seeing you run with a discarded bucket on your head more than once.

By the time we turned onto Sherman Way, you were the size of a small Shetland pony. A shedding, shameless Shetland pony.

At bedtime, you wanted out of the cat crate I was supposed to leave in a separate room but brought to bed with me anyway. Another soft whimper, and I folded immediately: I opened the door and you tucked back to the belly that harbored you home, from the squall of the day.

I know I could have been a more resolute parent, but what can I say? I’m ten cents into the dime for you girl.

You fell asleep. I did not. But I had the most amazing dream.

I dreamt you told me that the vets are full of shit. That you don’t dig because you are nervous; you dig because I am. That you aren’t colorblind; you just can’t see what-ifs. That the reason you jump as much upward as forward when you run is not because you’re working new legs; it’s to see more of a new world.

And I wake up. And it is your birthday. And you are one. And those silly vets now consider you a dog, though we both know the truth: You will never stop being my puppy.

Whaddya know? I guess you were the one imprinting.

Happy birthday, Jadie. You really shouldn’t have, but thank you for the presence.