Deep Dive Docs
An underseen doc takes a new viewpoint on capital punishment.
Easily confused with last year’s Clint Eastwood drama, Lindy Lou, Juror Number 2 is more like Two Days, One Night meets 12 Angry Men in documentary form. Though less dramatic than the scenario concocted for Juror #2, this movie shares a central figure conflicted about the role they play in the justice system.
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Lindy tracks down her fellow jury members from a double homicide trial to see if, 22 years later, any of them also feels regret over sentencing the defendant to die. Some express years of remorse. Others shrug it off as finished business well done. What is the point of this? asks number 9. He remembers no details but believes they did the right thing.
There’s complicating factors, of course. The defendant had been sentenced to die by another jury for the first murder already. Lindy got to know the killer in the following years through correspondence and a couple visits. She’s clearly rethought her position on the death penalty, even while she shows off the two pistols she keeps in her car for protection – one of which is for when she really wants to inflict damage, she chuckles.
But while she connects with a few of the jurors on an emotional level, most of the time she’s an island of empathy in a sea of indifference and irritation. And, as is the case in many of these trials, the heinous and undisputed facts of what the killer did don’t gain him any sympathy. The people who didn’t have a vote in the decision are especially quick to agree with the sentence. Lindy’s own husband weathers her regrets like she’s complaining about a bad day at work. “You make your own bed and sleep in it,” he says, ostensibly talking about the killer though one wonders how his wife interprets the phrase.
The film’s greatest accomplishment is its depiction of the invisible barrier between those who invoke the death penalty and the act of carrying it out. Lindy attempts to break through the bureaucracy that hides state-sponsored murder and finds it’s not as easy to get others to look. The death penalty is often discussed, understandably, in terms of those whose lives are taken by it. Less discussed is the effect on the people – jurors and executioners – directly involved in carrying it out, not to mention the weight on the justice system as a whole. An easy thing to make palatable intellectually, appealing to our logical senses of justice, while going against the emotional or even spiritual instincts of humanity.
It’s as inconspicuous and provocative as a good piece of lengthy journalism. There’s a few interesting notes discovered (like a memory of glancing out the window at an oblivious public headed to lunch as the jury deliberates on whether to kill a man) but for a film attempting to translate cold facts into emotional fallout it stays a bit stiff. Lindy Lou, a hung jury of one, probes the feelings of those around her on the death penalty, but the audience is let off the hook.
About the writer
C. D. Ploughman
The weary Ploughman is a writer and filmmaker, focusing these days on documentary and educational projects. He obsesses over movies with his very patient wife and children.
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M*A*S*H, Season One, Episode Fifteen, “Tuttle”
Genuinely iconic. This is probably the most Shieldian this show ever got, both in the sense that it’s a bureaucratic lie that forces the protagonists to move fast to cover it up, and in the sense that it all spools out from a single action – after Hawkeye’s initial donation to the orphanage, the only thing he does to escalate the situation is secure Tuttle’s backpay, and everything else is simply a response to a consequence for the initial lie.
Oddly, there’s not much substance to it; mostly it shows the absolute glee Hawkeye has in his self-imposed job, like the pleasure he takes in making up Tuttle’s file. The main joke is the way each character projects onto the idea of Tuttle. Frank gets the lion’s share of time on this as well as the clearest emotional arc, moving through jealousy and sucking up, but Henry is my favourite, pretending to know exactly who Tuttle is while constantly asking Radar for assurance.
Two notes: this contains our only actual scene with Sparky, and Tuttle gets one of Hawkeye’s half-dozen proper salutes.
The expression on Hawkeye’s face when Henry asks him to do the eulogy is my biggest laugh. (“In fact, you might say that all of us together made up Tuttle.”)
This is usually the M*A*S*H episode I show people when I’m endeavoring to get them to try out the show, and for good reason. This kind of snowballing lie is one of my favorite comedic premises–Better Off Ted‘s “Jabberwocky” is another winner–and it’s done so well here. In addition to that Hawkeye line (which makes me laugh just reading it, since Alda’s delivery is so indelible), I also love Henry’s “I had breakfast with the man yesterday!” and Margaret’s lustful “He’s a fine American.”
Now that you mention that, I probably would actually use this as a commercial for the rest of the show – the side effect of immediately seeing everyone’s characters. Either this one or “Adam’s Ribs”.
The bit about Tuttle being a Druid is pretty funny. It’s absurd and a bit obscure, my favorite kind of joke.
“Druid, reformed. They’re allowed to pray at bushes.”
This is one of Frank’s finest moments.
“I should have given the eulogy. I knew him best, ya know.”
Eephus — or Bloody Nose, Empty Basepaths. The eephus is a slow yet unhittable pitch that is highly metaphorical, and one of the players in the rec game depicted here who is a bit slow makes the metaphor explicit during a conversation, this is director/co-writer Carson Lund not being clever or obvious but pointing out that while that point is obvious, the point is not the game. But the map is the territory, the Central Mass. baseball field our heroes (mostly middle aged, none pro or even minors) are playing on is set to become a middle school so this is the last game and no one really wants to think too hard about that. So they play, baseball stuff happens at a remarkable baseball-like pace, the boredom is exquisite as runs creep up, the game moves toward a conclusion sure as the sun goes down. But the headlights come out too, playing after the ump leaves because you have to finish what you start, the umpire is not the game. There is plenty of Masshole excellence (and a surprising and hilarious New Yawk reunion of two Uncut Gems actors) in the cast, shouts and wiseassery, rough bluster and needy dweebishness and some dads who just want to keep this bit of youth going, a few spectators and one scorekeeper in particular on the sidelines. And Lund’s location develops some Lynchian notes — the church bells mark the hour in a frenzy of dogs barking, a man searching the woods for a foul ball comes across a fat kid smoking a cigarette left from another player — that are not menacing but the oddity in normality, the weird stuff that happens in a set span like a game. This is very frequently funny and perhaps the best way to describe its hangout vibe is that the national anthem is not played but “Take Me Out To The Ball Game” is sung. The ending manages to somewhat invert Casey At The Bat, that greatest of baseball stories, while being entirely in sync with its spirit. It is sad and mournful (and the unexpected credits song is the perfect capper), there is no uplift in what happens but I felt better for having seen it. “I wonder why stories of degradation and humiliation make you more popular,” an exiled-from-baseball Homer Simpson muses after he tells his tale to approval from his fellow drunks. Maybe because you played the game and the game is worth the candle.
I really hope this gets some decent showtimes in my area next week.
I don’t if anyone here is from Columbus, but the film is screening on March 28 at the Wexner Center, followed by a Q&A with the director and my favorite baseball blogster, Craig Calcaterra.
https://wexarts.org/film-video/eephus
Definitely find the time, you will dig this.
As you know, in the majors position players are occasionally asked to take the mound for an inning or two (typically during a bad beat) to save a relief pitcher for tomorrow’s game. They inevitably end up throwing semi-eephus pitches. And last year, eephus-throwing position players had an incredible record, being nearly unhittable. I was at a ridiculous Nats game last season where practically the only Nats pitcher who didn’t give up a run was utility infielder Ildemaro Vargas.
I left out a crucial fact – the best eephus here is delivered by none other than Red Sox legend and legendary weirdo Bill “Spaceman” Lee, who is a total hoot and a great goof on a certain pastoral baseball flick.
Oh, excellent!
This feels like a movie that will never get a UK release, ever. But as a connoisseur of baseball movies, I hope that it does because it sounds fascinating.
It is an extremely American movie in a regionalism sense but more importantly a refusal to engage in familiar and transferable dramatic tropes. No easy cliches here, this is just massholes playing ball. But that doesn’t make it obtuse either, I think you’d like it a lot.
The Divorce of Lady X – There is a lot to like here. The early technicolor is oddly vivid. The attitudes towards fidelity, adultery, marriage, and sex are not what one expects from a film made in the 30s (though I would not be surprised if there was more interwar experimentation in the UK than is generally known now). Merle Oberon is charming and fun. But aside from some efforts to keep the path of the film fairly chaste and proper, and some sexual politics that have not aged well, there is the matter of Olivier as the lead. The lead is a cad and a blusterer and a fool, and it’s hard to like him or hard to see why Oberon falls for him. And Olivier just doesn’t really alive in the part. Plus maybe the British lacked the right sensibility for screwball. Curve comedy instead of screwball comedy?
Kojak, “Money Back Guarantee” – An uniformed cop is killed when he and his partner pull over a suspicious car. (OK, a suspicious Black driver, which of course feels all wrong.) Before long, a massive manhunt is underway and we learn about an ingenious plan to find people late on their car loans for fancy cars, arrange to steal their cars and get them the insurance money, and then sell the cars. Maybe too ingenious, but it is a new twist on things. David Ogden Stiers is the ringleader, Bernie Kopell is one of the theft “victims,” and we have a very brief appearance by Bruce Kirby as Sgt. Vine. But the high point is the ending. The cops have finally found Stiers, and in order to get him to open his apartment door unaware, Stavros scratches at it like a cat. It was no surprise, and quite funny, when Stiers opens the door and Kojak naturally says, “um, meow, baby!” A really Gesundheit moment.
Frasier, “Leaping Lizards” – Bulldog keeps pranking Frasier on air, and when station manager Mercdes Ruehl tells him to just get even, things go awry. The whole thing is premised on the idea that Frasier is both lacking a sense of humor and ill-equipped for a prank war. Anyone who remembers “The Heart Is a Lonely Snipe Hunter” from Cheers will beg to differ.
The Brits need to learn to throw an eephus.
The Shield, “Genocide” and “Game Face”
– Shane telling Ronnie that Vic is going to land him in prison for the rest of his life: ha ha ow. Actually, that whole conversation is great–I like that by this point Shane has accepted that Ronnie won’t forgive him, and he’s able to acknowledge that and move on from it to their mutual interest in survival, and it works, his points get through and Ronnie sees the value of them. (Even if it doesn’t do any good because Vic no longer has the box, and Ronnie’s quiet SHIT face at that is great.) “I am appealing to your good judgment even knowing that I will forever be on the wrong side of it” is a surprisingly poetic Shane line, almost Boyd-esque, but it’s believable here because he’s translating himself to Ronnie’s level of clarity.
– Speaking of Shane and Ronnie, one of the details I noticed for the first time on this rewatch is how often pre-S6 Ronnie gets a genuine kick out of Shane’s jokes, and that makes the post-Lem-revelation change in their relationship have even more weight. We’ve gone from “Shane says something, cut to Ronnie grinning,” to “Shane says something, cut to Ronnie trying to set him on fire with his mind,” with fantastic David Rees Snell coiled intensity of I Am So Done With You.
– Vic’s incredulous reaction to Rezian trying to pacify the Mexicans and set up a meet without the blackmail box is hilarious. Obviously part of it is just that he can’t afford for them to make peace, since it would scupper his own plans, but I feel like he also just thinks Rezian is not living up to his gang leader standards. Have some more pride!
– Watching this show is a constant exercise in “why didn’t this actor have more of a career?”, but these last two episodes have me especially irritated about that for Jay Karnes and Laurie Holden.
– The Claudette-Kleavon showdown, redux, is incredible, especially with Insardi as the third element. Her relationship with Claudette has gotten a lot more interesting texture since they reluctantly bonded over Claudette interrogating the baby banger, and that continues here, with Insardi matter-of-factly folding protecting Claudette into her preexisting protectiveness of closed cases and official business, and Claudette having a lot of complicated feelings about that … but ultimately seeing both the necessity and pragmatism of it. And it’s just awesome to watch Pounder and Campbell go at each other again, this time with Kleavon having the smarmy upper hand. As much as Claudette tries not to yield, he’s hitting her again and again, and it’s not about whether or not he’s right–Claudette’s area–but how it would look and play in court–Insardi’s area. Dutch and Danny also orbiting around the whole business is great too; The Shield has an incredible sense of how ensembles and communities work, and the sheer complexity of the entanglement here is really rewarding. I love how Pounder’s performance gets a degree or two softer around Dutch, so you can see Claudette’s still more comfortable with him than with anyone else.
– And we now have Lloyd! Once again, we see Dutch’s ego and his drive to solve the puzzle: there’s a (good) Criminal Minds episode with trying to stop a budding serial killer (the late, great Anton Yelchin, excellent as always) from budding, and it’s very heart-on-its-sleeve and nothing like this. Dutch wants to be a detective so great that his work–preventing the murders before they can happen–is essentially invisible, he wants to solve the puzzle of intervention … and he’s already getting signs (Kleavon’s darkly funny fatalism) that that might not work. It would be different, maybe, if Lloyd wanted to be saved–I wouldn’t say The Shield rejects the possibility of people changing, only that it thinks it’s difficult and doesn’t come with a guarantee of escaping the consequences of what’s come before–but he doesn’t. He’s enjoying himself, and for right now, he can, like Dutch, even treat all this as a kind of puzzle. The way he and Dutch tag in and out of open antagonism whenever Rita comes around is a particularly nice touch.
– Off that last part … love seeing Dutch and Billings’s partnership starting to gel in a more amiable way, with Billings razzing him but complimenting him at the same time and the two of them developing a workable system. Billings knocking on the interrogation room wall is such a YES moment.
– Corrine has already talked about Cassidy traipsing around in lingerie, which means we’re leading up to Vic saying the same, in one of TV’s greatest moments.
– Vic being stunned about Olivia being in the blackmail box isn’t quite as great as his desperate “I don’t know! I don’t know!” when things with Lem were coming down to the wire, but it’s still in the same key: the master tactician suddenly having no answers and staring down the possibility that not only is he screwed, he’s done the screwing. I’m sometimes lukewarm on twists, but this is a good and plausible one, and Holden plays the hell out of the eventual confrontation that comes out of it.
– I can understand Vic initially being thrown and a little bothered by Danny asking him to give up his rights to Lee–there are a lot of things that feel fine as an unofficial agreement but off-putting on paper–but when he pivots to vehement, point-blank refusal, complete with grabbing Danny’s arm as she tries to get away from him (right after he’s had to apologize for doing the same with Cassidy!), I’m yelling at the screen.
I can understand Vic initially being thrown and a little bothered by Danny asking him to give up his rights to Lee…
This is one that always gets to me. In a whole season where I’m yelling at Vic to fucking prioritise because he’s intently focused on solving the complete wrong problem, this pretty much takes the cake. At least chasing Pezuala and Beltran takes down a criminal organisation, even if it’s not going to actually help his career in any way! Strongarming Danny over Lee solves literally no problem he actually has.
It even addds on completely new problems!
I don’t know if you’ve gone past one of my all-time favourite Shane moments yet which is around this point, where Vic is working out something with the Armenians and part of it involves trying to stop illegal guns getting into the hands of smugglers and onto the streets of Chicago, and Shane asks “Well, what does that have to do with us?” Admittedly, Vic immediately concedes nothing, but it’s part of his refusal not to get a 100% win with absolutely no negative consequences. Except Shane at this point knows there’s no action without consequence and they desperately, desperately have to prioritise right now.
Yes, that was a couple episodes back, and it is indeed a great moment. And very illustrative of their priorities–Shane’s like, “Let’s make sure our families are safe and then maybe worry about the bigger picture,” and meanwhile Vic is trying to spin a dozen plates in the air at once, completely convinced he’ll be able to keep them all up.
Live Music – played my first gig since last summer in support of a couple of charming Australians, Winter McQuinn (of the band Sunfruits) and Acacia Pip (of the band Pinch Points) who are doing a duo tour playing songs they’ve written together and also solo. They did great folky pop music, and my set went down well! I made it difficult for myself by playing a load of new stuff and a couple of songs with Weird Emotional Attachments but once I got back into the rhythm of things it was great fun and we got a decent crowd who said a lot of lovely things. Hell yeah!
Wooo, live music and good sets!
Woooo live music! Hell yeah to playing a show! And now you can get those Aussies to talk your music up down under.
Woooo playing live music!!
The Hunt for Red October — McTierman does a great job maintaining tension in a film that is, except for the last 10 minutes, almost exclusively made up of guys talking things over. You could take the same script and film it in a downtown coworking space and you wouldn’t have to change more than six words. (It wouldn’t be any good, but you could do it.) Nobody has played Jack Ryan as well since, with the combination of determination and being aware that he’s the smartest guy in the room but without the arrogance Ford later brought to the role.
Given Clancy’s political leanings, it’s interesting to me how everyone (except Sean Connery’s character, Ramius) recognizes that the absolute ultimate mission is to avoid starting a war, and that they will sacrifice their objectives, if they have to, for that purpose.
Interesting point about Clancy – I think he got warped post 9/11 but his conservatism strikes me as what Reagan projected (as opposed to his actual policies), a belief in benevolent U.S. rule. The dream of Montana conquers the communist mind, as conservatism goes that’s fairly benign.
He’s heading to the wrong state if it’s polygamy he’s after.
Mythic Quest, “Telephone”
Mmm. It was a little shorter than usual, but also still somehow felt kinda rushed on the plot points and a little disjointed. It’s kinda like they realized they had to rush a bunch of plot action to prepare for the finale. It wasn’t, like, awful, but it kinda did feel like it wasn’t really all that tuned in to the real conflict and story that’s been brewing this season, either– at least not beyond the surface. I mean, whatever, if you watch the show you’ll watch this too because it’s part of the story, and if you don’t, you won’t.
Good Cop / Bad Cop, “Family Trees”
A story about a stolen rare apple tree leads to some fun undercover work as well as revelations and realizations about family. I do quite enjoy Lou and Henry together, and how they seem to be rubbing off on each other. If Henry is supposed to be autistic, he’s not some heartless rule-following automaton with no social skills; if anything, Lou and Big Hank seem to regard him as someone who just needs to stop treating other people as beneath his time, and we start to see the impact of that here. Meanwhile, Henry seems to be having an impact on getting Lou to open up and not be a self-sabotaging mess in her personal life… and we learn maybe why that is.
Also, some fun undercover work this episode, as well as a fun B-story with Szcezepkowski trying to connect with a shoplifting kid… as well as the consequences of Big Hank’s attempt to juke the juvenile-arrest stats to get a bigger budget.
The Equalizer – Rewatch for both my mom and myself. She loves these kind of movies. Having only seen the first two I think it’s safe to say it is the snooziest of action franchises. Fuqua may have gotten Denzel his second Oscar but he only owed the man one of these.
Watch the third! It’s not as good as 2 but better than 1 and more importantly it is the Under The Tuscan Sun of ownage, a surprisingly fun dynamic. I think Fuqua is actually significantly better at filming Denzel loose and chill than in action mode, he knows how to let the man cook in the sense of a dad working the grill – low-key but charismatic as hell.
I had to research this. So you *do* mean Under The Tuscan Sun and not Fuqua’s own Tears Of The Sun.
Righteous Gemstones. Man, Walton Goggins is going HAM this year on tv acting, and with two very different roles with very different styles. Dude has got some panache. Every line delivery is perfect.
But the real arc, the real interesting thing that’s happening is the Eli-Jesse-Gideon arc. Following the example of the first Gemstone to inherit the family curse, Eli has been pulled between grift and faith; Jesse does not seem to have any sincere religious beliefs; Gideon, who started out as an extortionist, is turning into a true believer. Eli, acting as a mentor-figure to Gideon, has a chance to fix the mistakes he made with Jesse and cultivate someone who takes the religion part more seriously than the business part.
Also, I would like at some point for Jesse to explain why, while giving out biblical names to his kids, he went with Pontius? It’s also funny that we have this line of Gemstones with names from the OT heroes (Elijah, Eli, Jesse, Gideon) and then also Kelvin.
I also hope we get a bit more magical realism, like with the locusts. Danny McBride’s next project should go fully magical realist. I want a redneck hundred years of solitude. Hear me out: danny mcbride as Aureliano. Walton Goggins as Jose Arcadio. John Goodman as Jose Arcadio. Bradley Cooper as Aureliano. Jeff Bridges as Jose Arcadio. Skyler Glisondo as Aureliano. David Batista as Jose Arcadio. Michael B Jordan as Aureliano.
“Lindy attempts to break through the bureaucracy that hides state-sponsored murder and finds it’s not as easy to get others to look” — I oppose the death penalty completely, but this is the kind of thing that half makes me want to bring back public hangings. You want this, own it. Make the death yours instead of a function of the state.
Good write-up, it has me thinking on the other Juror #2 being very smart about not making the crime a capital one and bringing all of this into the film — it’s meant to be pointed about a moral choice and having Hoult be on the hook for letting a man die (while his crime would almost certainly not face that level of punishment) would imbalance that.
Yeah, there’s a lot of things people are in favor of that I suspect they would have less of a taste for if they were presented with the reality rather than an abstraction (then again, people are a constant source of surprise). I’d say go two steps further and require the jury to attend the execution and have it held in a neighborhood corresponding to the median income of the jury members.
A friend of mine made a documentary (which is not available anywhere I know of at the moment) that talked about capital punishment from the point of view of the executioners, which are often workaday prison guards or other prison employees picking up an extra job like a teacher doing driver’s ed, and the impact of the process on them (spoiler: not typically positive).
Definitely let us know if that documentary ever turns up anywhere: that sounds great, and watching it paired with Lindy Lou would be especially interesting.
That sounds like a very grim but good doc.
I knew a woman who was providing health care to the local women’s correctional facility (can’t remember if it was jail or prison or both) and I think we take for granted how much facing The State affects you.
I thought this was the book it was adapted from. By Dr. Seuss.