Plot Problems
French Braid, Nico & Vali, Oshima Brothers, Kentavious Caldwell-Pope and Bruce Brown, Solitary Screw
Welcome to my weekly newsletter. Starting with this issue I will include a weekly Fave Five list on a varying topic. This week’s issue features problems with TV and movie plots, Anne Tyler’s latest masterpiece (French Braid), an Italian eatery, Japanese/Italian brothers from rural Maine, a pair of former Pistons performing well in the NBA playoffs, and a small piece of hardware. I hope you enjoy the picks and pics.
Fave Five 33: Plot Problems. Baltimore to Philly (French Braid), Northville to Plymouth (Nico & Vali), Japan/Italy to Maine (Oshima Brothers), Detroit to Denver (Kentavious Caldwell-Pope and Bruce Brown), and a Solitary Screw.
Fave Five List: Plot Problems
Like many other people, we seek out high-quality TV series and movies to enjoy. Over many years of viewing, I have noticed several consistent problems with plots. Here are five examples.
Disappearing kids: Sometimes the plots focus on babies and small children, so they appear prominently. But much of the time, these young characters are nowhere to be seen or heard, without any explanation as to where they are. They have either just somehow disappeared, or they are sleeping quietly and endlessly.
Short travel times: The time it takes to actually drive or fly between two locations is often completely divorced from reality. In Ozark, Marty and Wendy Byrde can drive from the Ozarks to Kansas City or Chicago in no time at all or fly to Mexico and back all in a short span of time. In This Is Us, Randall quickly commutes between northern New Jersey and Philadelphia. In many shows and movies, characters fly from California to New York with plenty of time left in the day. And the opposite case occurs in the movie Parenthood, which opens with Gil’s family leaving a Cardinals game at Busch Stadium in broad daylight but somehow returning home to a St. Louis suburb in total darkness. As a former St. Louis resident, I know that it could not have taken more than an hour to get anywhere in the area.
Never working: Many TV characters never appear to be working, but they have lavish homes or apartments. Even those who do have jobs don’t spend much time performing them. In A Million Little Things, Gary was supposedly an insurance actuary, but he spent zero time doing his job or going to an office. This trend dates back to Ozzie and Harriet, where Ozzie didn’t have any apparent job.
Everyone shows up: One of the reasons that characters are seldom seen working is that at a moment’s notice, they drop everything and race off to whatever is happening with their family or friends. If one person is in the emergency room, everyone will end up there. Also, people just drop by and knock on the door of other characters, including those they have never visited before. Somehow, despite not calling first, they know the correct address and room number, are able to get into locked buildings, and find the person they want to visit at home.
Miracles happen: No matter how big the obstacle, you can usually count on plots to deliver resolutions that are improbable at best, and often preposterous. In Ozark, it frequently seemed that a problem was way too massive to overcome, only to be solved in some simplistic manner. In This Is Us, Kevin walked off the set of a movie that he was filming in Vancouver and lost his driver’s license when he stopped along the road to assist an accident victim. When he reached the Seattle airport, he was somehow able to sweet talk his way past security and onto the plane, but my question was how on earth did he cross the border from Canada to the U.S, with no identification?
Book Best Bet
After writing about Redhead by the Side of the Road in a previous issue, I ordered Anne’s latest book. I devoured it over the past week and finished it today, in tears. It’s another masterwork by a masterful author. I love how she portrays families, with all of their good and bad qualities, ups and downs, and complicated relationships. As usual, most of the action takes place in Baltimore, but some chapters are set in Philadelphia.
From Amazon: A funny, joyful, brilliantly perceptive journey deep into one Baltimore family’s foibles, from a boyfriend with a red Chevy in the 1950s up to a longed-for reunion with a grandchild.
The Garretts take their first and last family vacation in the summer of 1959. They hardly ever leave home, but in some ways they have never been farther apart. Mercy has trouble resisting the siren call of her aspirations to be a painter, which means less time keeping house for her husband, Robin. Their teenage daughters, steady Alice and boy-crazy Lily, could not have less in common. Their youngest, David, is already intent on escaping his family's orbit, for reasons none of them understand. Yet, as these lives advance across decades, the Garretts' influences on one another ripple ineffably but unmistakably through each generation.
Full of heartbreak and hilarity, French Braid is classic Anne Tyler: a stirring, uncannily insightful novel of tremendous warmth and humor that illuminates the kindnesses and cruelties of our daily lives, the impossibility of breaking free from those who love us, and how close—yet how unknowable—every family is to itself.
A quietly subversive novel, tackling fundamental assumptions about womanhood, motherhood and female aging. — The New York Times Book Review
Restaurant Recommendation
Nico & Vali Italian Eatery 744 Wing St, Plymouth, MI 48170
For Mother’s Day, our son Roger asked me to take Barb out for a nice meal that he would pay for. Given the popularity of dining out on this occasion, I made four separate reservations and then asked Barb which one she preferred. She chose Nico & Vali at 4:30, not the alternative time of 7:15. Channeling Morty and Helen Seinfeld at Del Boca Vista, we finished dining by 5:30 on Sunday. Plymouth is a short drive for us, and we were back home in Northville in time to watch a movie, The Quiet Girl, which we highly recommend.
Nico & Vali has excellent Italian food at reasonable prices and delivered with efficient service. I ordered a Caesar salad (with parmigiano and house-made croutons) and bucatini carbonara (with pancetta, onion, egg, and pecorino) and I liked them both. We had enough food left over to make another meal on Monday.
From the restaurant: Passion for food, the Italian way.
Generation after generation, the Italian pursuit of love, life and family has always been influenced by the age-old passion for food...fresh, simple, and home-cooked. NICO & VALI, whose name was inspired by the newest generation of DePalmas - Nicola, Valentina and Liliana, invites you to experience that passion. The DePalma family has long held the tradition of sharing their kitchen with warm affection and large appetites. From your favorite regions of Italy, NICO & VALI will awaken your senses with Nonna’s traditional recipes, warm ovens and welcoming smiles as if you were one of the family.
Marvelous Musicians
My friend Denise Feikema is a big fan of this duo, so I wanted to see them when they were in Ann Arbor recently. They put on an entertaining show with innovative technology in which Jamie provides vocals, guitar, and drums both live and via using loops and videos to back up Sean and himself. I like their harmonies and would like to have heard even more of them.
From Wikipedia: Oshima Brothers is an American folk-pop duo known for each playing multiple instruments and looping their own samples on stage to create a complex soundscape as if they were more than two. They share responsibilities based on natural proclivities, with Sean in charge of external communications and songwriting, and Jamie focusing on mixing and production. Almost every song is paired with a music video, which they produce on their own.
As siblings raised by American folk musician parents in rural Maine, Sean and Jamie Oshima are self-taught musicians who started singing and playing music together as young children. Performing together as a band since 2015, they attracted a fan base within Maine following the release of their eponymous debut album in 2016.
Sometimes described as "a self-made boy band," Oshima Brothers' genre has been described as "folk-pop", "folk-adjacent", "contemporary folk and acoustic pop", "neo-folk", "indie pop", "roots-based pop", and "Americana". The musicians themselves consider their genre to be fluid and open to interpretation by the listener. The brothers claim that Maine's rural landscape is a major influence on their work. Musical influences include albums by the Beatles and Gillian Welch they heard at home growing up, plus music by Ed Sheeran, Lake Street Dive, and Thirdstory they discovered later on.
These Cold Nights
My Playlist
Sports Stars
Two former Pistons coming through for the Denver Nuggets
In last night’s win over the Lakers, Kentavious Caldwell-Pope (aka KCP) started for the Nuggets and had 21 points, 2 rebounds, 3 assists, 2 steals and 1 block in 36 minutes. Bruce Brown came off the bench to score 16 points, grab 4 rebounds, and dish out 2 assists in 24 minutes. Both have been key players in support of stars Nikola Jokic and Jamal Murray in Denver’s playoff run as the top seed in the Western Conference.
KCP and Bruce were both drafted by the Detroit Pistons and showed promise as shooters and defenders but were traded away. Prior to last night’s game, Detroit received the gut punch of dropping to the fifth spot in the draft lottery, despite having the worst record in the NBA this season. Thus, they missed out on the chance to draft one of the can’t-miss, top-three players in this year’s draft: Victor Wembanyama, Scoot Henderson, or Brandon Miller. They will have to content themselves with finding another KCP or Bruce Brown and then having the patience to hold on to them until they blossom.
Kentavious Caldwell-Pope brings needed traits to championship hopeful Nuggets
From Wikipedia: Kentavious Tannell Caldwell-Pope (born February 18, 1993 in Thomaston, Georgia) is an American professional basketball player for the Denver Nuggets of the National Basketball Association (NBA). He was named a McDonald's All-American as one of the top high school basketball players in the class of 2011. He played college basketball for two years with the Georgia Bulldogs in the Southeastern Conference (SEC), and was voted the SEC Player of the Year as a sophomore in 2013.
Caldwell-Pope was selected with the eighth overall pick in the 2013 NBA draft by the Detroit Pistons. He played four seasons with the Pistons before joining the Lakers as a free agent in 2017–18. He won his first NBA championship with the Lakers in 2020. He spent a season with the Washington Wizards after having been traded there from the Lakers in August 2021, and was then subsequently traded to the Denver Nuggets in July 2022.
Kentavious Caldwell-Pope's Electric 21-point Performance in Game 1 of Western Conference Finals Against the Lakers
How Bruce Brown’s ‘Lonnie Walker’ moment helped Nuggets cruise in Game 5 against Suns
From Wikipedia:
Bruce Brown Jr. (born August 15, 1996 in Boston) is an American professional basketball player for the Denver Nuggets of the National Basketball Association (NBA). He played college basketball for the Miami Hurricanes and was selected 42nd overall by the Detroit Pistons in the 2018 NBA draft. He has also played for the Brooklyn Nets.
Bruce Brown Drops 25 points in Game 5 Against Suns
Picture Pun
I thought about picking this up, but then I said, “Screw it.”
