miffedone

Well, with a title like "Not at all convincing", it will surprise some readers to know that I am a supporter of nuclear power. Unfortunately, this film is polemic, one sided, and so entirely slanted that it works against its own purpose.

Anti-nuke protesters are shown, but only the most extreme ("1,000,000 deaths in Chernobyl!") and holes are so wide you could drive a nuclear submarine through them ("Look! Chernobyl! Almost radiation free!")

The reality is that Chernobyl is a decaying mess, and it is the failure of the nuclear plant that caused it. Even if not directly, *it doesn't matter!* When the nuke plant blows up, nobody is going to stick around because some filmmaker found 27 souls who moved back to Chernobyl 10 years later and they're OK.

The problem of nuclear waste is real. It doesn't matter whether we've poured $30 billion into Yucca Mountain or not, the people of Nevada are unmistakably against it (nearly 75%!) so pretending it's a problem that will somehow go away is akin to howling at the moon.

Solar (and other renewables) are dismissed with "You can't do everything with solar power." Well, I don't know of anyone outside a few oddball extremists who ever thought that. Pretending that's a legitimate argument may allow you to demolish it, but then what have you accomplished? You've demonstrated that you can mount an effective argument against a lie? Good show.

I happen to be one who believes that humans have a limitless appetite for energy. I am sure that nuclear has to be part of that, and probably a BIG part of that. But reducing opponents' arguments to caricature and showing lopsided and occasionally irrelevant factoids is not the way to convince anyone.

Here's the question: do you want people to say "Yes, the industry should only use government approved designs, or should the 'free market' be allowed to produce anything it wants" flies in the face of the ideology of most of the supporters of nuclear power. Do you think anyone, anywhere wants the nuclear waste in their backyard? No? Why not? (I know, I know, everybody's irrational except you.) What would happen In New York City if that happy little nuclear power station on Long Island went up in smoke, as Fukushima did (which we were assured could never happen, of course.)

These are the questions I hoped the documentary would answer, for the good of the industry, global warming, the nation and the planet. Unfortunately this film is more of an infomercial for the nuclear industry, as phony as the chicken that come so perfectly baked (every time!) from that stove-top rotisserie grill you can buy for only 3 easy payments of $39.99.

There are some people who toil anonymously in the music business: session musicians, recording engineers, producers and so on. And then there are the backup singers. Many of those, probably most dream of being out front, becoming a star, and gaining worldwide fame, applause, respect.

For most, it doesn't happen. Once in a while somebody breaks through: Whitney Houston, Mariah Carey, Elton John, Barry Manilow, Sheryl Crowe, Phil Collins. More often, it's a day job, and they are called for sessions, sing their part and go home. Sometimes they will be a permanent part of the act, like the Raylettes with Ray Charles, but they don't get the big rewards the upfront star does.

Such is the story of "20 Feet From Stardom", where we meet a half dozen or more who have had a career in the back light, occasionally getting the break to record their own album, and then ... nothing. Darlene Love was the voice of the Crystals, except Phil Spector kept slapping somebody else's name on her recordings and she got nothing. (She ended up cleaning houses for a living. But two years ago, in much belated recognition, she was inducted into the Rock & Roll Hall of Fame.) Merry Clayton is another; she's the haunting female lead on the Stones "Gimme Shelter", but as a solo artist she just never took off.

It's a well constructed film, and if a bit indulgent here or there, it's just a matter of choice in the editing booth, not a failure of the director to deliver.

If you have any interest in the music industry, or have ever thought of a career as a singer, this is a great lesson on the realities of that business. (This would also apply to acting, where "That Guy" did a similar riff on that equally competitive business.

Of course it's worth noting that while there are lots of people "20 Feet from Stardom", there are legions more who never even get that close, and who wind up singing in saloons, street corners, and even subway stops. It's a tough world out there. "20 Feet From Stardom" picks a point closer to the pinnacle, but not quite, and that's what makes it interesting.

I was in fifth grade in 1957. Northern New Jersey, having just moved from California. "Racism" was a word, not to mention concept, I had never heard. It wasn't as though I ignored it, I was entirely unconscious that such a thing existed (something that would change a few years later when my family went to visit a Great Uncle in Florida.)

1957 was a time before pee-wee or Pop Warner football, at least in my town, and even predated most NFL broadcasts on television. Baseball was the national pastime, my pastime, and the subject of all my classmates' sports adoration of the era. And living in Jersey I had three teams from which to choose: Yankees, Dodgers, and Giants (at least for a couple years.) I chose the Yankees, home to Mickey Mantle, Phil Rizutto, Yogi Berra and others. I had all their baseball cards and many more.

I played Little League; my team was "Local 207", which I now understand was sponsored by "a union", although at the time I had no idea what that meant. I was All-Star Second Baseman one year, saved the final game of the year for my team by catching a hard-hit line-drive in the bottom of the ninth, and I was a hero for the next two months. The following year I made 16 errors, and did not try out for the team, or any baseball team again after that.

There is one other memory, burned into my brain so deeply I can remember the color of the sky and the exact location of the milk truck my teammates and I were sitting in; it belonged to one of the fathers and he used it to deliver to the neighborhood every morning at 4AM. It was a box truck, white with a rear door that slid out of the way, and on afternoon it was lousy with fifth graders, all jabbering about nothing as fifth graders often do, voices rising, rising again to be heard above the din. I sat in the back doorway next to two teammates. One of them was black, the only minority on the team, and one of the only ones I knew, our entire school having had only three that I recall, none of whom were in any of my classes.

Something out the back, and this part eludes me now, caused me to focus, then count aloud "Eenie, meenie, miney, moe, catch a n!gger by the toe." I instantly understood that I had made a terrible gaffe, but was too shell shocked to do anything but let my head fall and shut up. My black teammate got up, walked to the front of the truck, and we were never friends again.

I have never told that anecdote except once, this afternoon, to my wife as we left the showing of "42", the story of Jackie Robinson. She was aghast, I suppose it goes without saying. My tale only amplified the film, a revelation to her, for not only did she not know the Jackie Robinson story, she did not understand the pervasiveness of racism that existed throughout America at the time, in so many levels of society.

The bravery of Robinson, as well as Dodgers' owner Branch Rickey and others came as news, and for only the second time that I remember, she enjoyed "a baseball picture" ("Moneyball" was the first.)

Harrison Ford turns in a surprisingly good performance (to my surprise), and the rest of the cast is marvelous, including, of course, Chadwick Boseman as Robinson and Nicole Beharie as his wife. But it is the story which has such power, brought low only by the swelling trumpets at the end and the cliché ending which I will not spoil except to say, well, you know, baseball and a man at bat and...

If the "n" word bothers you, you will not enjoy the film, as it is used nearly as much as "Django", but if you, like me, ever had occasion to seek forgiveness for having used it, perhaps the film will help set you free. It was part of the landscape and we were all unconscious then.

Well, not all of us. Not Branch Rickey, and certainly not Jackie Robinson. Two heroes of America, who might just have changed the world.