Israel Has Attacked Iran

This news broke very late Friday, at least in the U.S., but Israel has launched what it calls a "preemptive strike" against the Iranian capital of Tehran.

At the moment, nobody in the media seems to know exactly what the target was. And obviously, it is not yet known if and how Iran will return fire. The one thing you can be sure about is that Israel would not have done this without some sort of sign-off from the United States. That conclusion is supported by the fact that the U.S. has been maneuvering in the region, and Donald Trump has been talking about striking Iran for at least a week.

We wanted to post a brief note for now; we will undoubtedly have something more substantive tomorrow, assuming there are further developments. (Z)

Saturday Q&A

Non-political questions day! (Although, we will admit, one of them is borderline.)

If you are still working on the headline theme, here is a second hint: The theme is rather on-point when it comes to the rhetoric of the current administration, particularly as practiced by one Stephen Miller. (It's also a little tricky, as judged by the number of correct responses we've got so far.)

Gallimaufry

F.S. in Cologne, Germany, asks: Who are the 10 most influential filmmakers in U.S. history?

(Z) answers: There are two very different kinds of influence, and most directors who rank high in one barely rank at all in the other. So, I am going to give you two lists of five, instead of one list of ten:

Directors Who Influenced Other Directors

1. Orson Welles: Yes, it is something of a cliché to put him on a list like this. And I will admit that I don't really know enough to fully appreciate how some of his technical work in Citizen Kane—the deep focus shots, the use of lighting—influenced other filmmakers. But I have read, over and over, that it did, so I will take that as a given. What I do know is that "film that teases you with a secret, and doesn't pay that off until the ending" was not really a thing in 1941, outside of murder mysteries. These days, twist endings/late reveals are all over the place. So, I am going to point to that as the primary indicator of Welles' influence. Thanks, Rosebud.
   
   
2. John Ford: He is, of course, the only director to win four Best Director Oscars. As chance would have it, none of them were for Westerns, and yet it is his work within that genre that causes me to put him on this list. Though Westerns got limited respect on a critical and artistic level, at least in their heyday, the Western was the most popular and profitable genre in America, in film, and later in television, for at least three decades. Ford, with all those movies set in Monument Valley, did more than any filmmaker to create the look and feel of Westerns. And by casting John Wayne, over and over, Ford was also responsible for establishing the template in terms of characterization and pacing. The director also anticipated the evolution of the genre into revisionism; films like Stagecoach (1939) and My Darling Clementine are considerably more... uncomplicated than The Searchers (1956) or The Man Who Shot Liberty Valance (1962).
   
   
3. George Lucas: He's not actually a great director, and may not even be a good director. Anytime he has been left to his own devices, without a really good editor (e.g., Marcia Lucas) to clean up after him, he's kind of made a mess of things. However, he is clearly a visionary, and he deserves as much credit as anyone for ushering in the computer-aided effects age, while he shares with one other filmmaker the lion's share of the credit for ushering in the modern blockbuster. It is hard to think of any film series that has had more of an impact on movies and culture than the Star Wars films have had. The James Bond and Godfather series are pretty high on that list, but the Star Wars films are surely king.
   
   
4. Steven Spielberg: I have made no secret of the fact that I am not a fan of a lot of Spielberg's work, since I find it to be kind of hammy and obvious. However, thanks to Jaws, Jurassic Park, the Indiana Jones films, etc., he shares with Lucas the lion's share of the credit for ushering in the modern blockbuster. He also joined with Lucas and a couple of dozen other directors to destroy the old studio system, and to create the modern "auteur director" model. And finally, while Spielberg's visual style is also kind of hammy and obvious, it's had a big impact on many other directors. Watch a J.J. Abrams film sometime, and count how many lens flares you see.
   
   
5. D.W. Griffith: I have a fairly substantial discussion of him in my lecture about the rise of Hollywood. And, I point out that to make the 3-hour-long Birth of a Nation (at that time, a revolutionary film length), he had to pioneer a bunch of things like stunts, special effects, close-ups, fade-outs, etc. Since 99.9% of movies made since then have used at least some of these things, I argue, that means that he has profoundly influenced every director who came after.

Note that I pondered including Alfred Hitchcock, but I tend to think he doesn't quite displace Welles. Plus, while Ford very clearly left Ireland in the rear-view mirror and fully embraced his Americanness, I think Hitchcock was more of a British ex-pat who just so happened to live in America (though he did acquire citizenship in 1955). Anyhow, he's a leaner, but I ultimately decided he's not eligible for a list of most influential American directors.

Also, some readers will be surprised that Quentin Tarantino did not make the cut. I certainly like his work better than at least one or two people on this list. But I reiterate my view that there is one filmmaker out there who makes films like Quentin Tarantino, and that filmmaker is Quentin Tarantino. I just don't see the evidence that he's shaped an entire genre of film, or generation of filmmakers.

Directors Who Influenced the Broader World

1. Morgan Spurlock: The original muckrakers were around before practical motion picture cameras were invented, so there really aren't any important films from the original movement. But many filmmakers of later generations embraced the muckrakers' general approach, and one of the most important of those is Morgan Spurlock. Spurlock's Super Size Me got people talking about America's food supply in general, and about fast food in particular, and certainly forced some companies, most obviously McDonald's, to clean up their acts, at least some.
   
   
2. George Holliday: He's the fellow who made the Rodney King video, which sparked a national conversation about racism and police misconduct, and also laid the groundwork for the L.A. Riots of 1992. We also place him here as the "founding father," for lack of a better term, for the genre "Americans who happened to stumble on some sort of problematic event, caught it on video, and made that event a national news story." Think the folks who got the footage of George Floyd being murdered, or of Alex Pretti/Renee Good being shot, among other examples.
   
   
3. D.W. Griffith: Note that while I said that MOST directors belong only on one list or the other, I did not say that was true of ALL of them. Griffith's impact moved beyond the screen, in that he made the KKK look glamorous, and gave a budding xenophobic trend in American culture a means of expression, while also helping to legitimize Black Americans' second-class status. Ford very nearly qualifies for this list on a similar basis. His work played into ideas about American exceptionalism, and suggested that might makes right, which certainly shaped the mindset of the Cold War era. After all, if America was right to impose itself on the Native Americans, then it was surely also right to impose itself on the Koreans, the Vietnamese, etc.
   
   
4. Michael Moore: He's another modern-day muckraker, though we'd say his films embrace the tools of the propagandist considerably more than Spurlock's. In any case, Moore has inspired fury among many on the left, whether that fury is over the 2000 presidential election, or America's gun culture, or American health care, or the evils of corporations, or 9/11, or something else. He has also inspired fury among many on the right, invariably over... Michael Moore. I think it's fair to say that, among other things, he helped lay the groundwork for the election of Barack Obama and the passage of the Affordable Care Act.
   
   
5. Abraham Zapruder: His 26.6-second recording of the assassination of John F. Kennedy is the film that launched a thousand conspiracy theories. That, in turn, undermined trust in the government, coarsened political discourse, and made Kennedy into even more of a martyr than he already was.

Again, the rule is Americans only. So, no Leni Reifenstahl (though see the next list).

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L.W. in Edina, MN, asks: What does the Electoral-Vote.com staff consider to be the best politically themed documentaries of all time? Besides Melania, of course.

(Z) answers: I teach a class on film and history, so I am definitely the Electoral-Vote.com staffer best situated to answer this. I have not seen all of the politically themed documentaries out there, of course, especially the older ones, but I've seen more of them than most people by virtue of that class and of the blog I write. Here are a dozen or so that folks should consider seeing, presented in chronological order:

1. Triumph of the Will (Leni Riefenstahl, 1935): It's reprehensible, but it's also brilliant. Its original purpose was to help audiences to answer the question: "Why should I support this Hitler fellow?" Nobody reading this site is going to be looking at it in that way, but you can watch it in order to help answer the question: "How does evil market itself?"
   
   
2. Why We Fight (Multiple, 1942-45): Some people believe that documentaries are, by definition, dispassionate and even-handed. This is nonsense—they all have a point of view, and many of them flog that point of view... aggressively, shall we say. Put another way, there are plenty of films that belong on a list of great propaganda films AND a list of great documentaries. Triumph of the Will is one of those, and Why We Fight—the seven-film series created by the U.S. government as a response to Triumph of the Will—is another. Directed by Frank Capra, and written by the Epstein brothers (of Casablanca fame), it's a very compelling breakdown of the Axis war effort, as the U.S. understood it. Why We Fight is also the title of a 1960 film about the military-industrial complex, which is also worth a watch.
   
   
3. Primary (Robert Drew, 1960): This is the film that invented the fly-on-the-wall-of-a-political-campaign genre. And the filmmaker picked a heckuva campaign to document—John F. Kennedy and Richard Nixon—so it still holds up.
   
   
4. Hearts and Minds (Peter Davis, 1974): This is a brutal film to watch, so be forewarned. However, if you want to understand why American culture turned against the Vietnam War, and against war in general, Hearts and Minds will make it all too clear.
   
   
5. The Atomic Cafe (Kevin Rafferty, Jayne Loader and Pierce Rafferty, 1982): This is a tough film to describe, but it's both surreal and brilliant. It is a carefully edited collection of clips from news broadcasts, filmstrips, television programs, etc. meant to illustrate how the media (unwittingly?) cooperated on a decades-long campaign to propagandize Americans into supporting the Cold War.
   
   
6. The War Room (Chris Hegedus and D.A. Pennebaker, 1993): Primary was the first fly-on-the-wall-of-a-political-campaign film, but The War Room is the best. It focuses on the first Bill Clinton campaign, which had a fascinating cast of characters, among them the Clintons, James Carville and George Stephanopoulos. If you want to watch the Clintons on film, watch this, instead of wasting your time on whatever footage Rep. James Comer (R-KY) releases.
   
   
7. Eyes on the Prize and I Am Not Your Negro (Multiple, 1987-90; Raoul Peck, 2016): I just couldn't choose between Civil Rights Movement documentaries. Eyes on the Prize was originally a six-part documentary on the Movement itself. It was then expanded with another eight parts on race and relations in the two decades after the Movement ended. And last year, it was expanded again, with six more episodes that bring the story up to 2015. It's part of the PBS "American Experience" series, all of which are good. Anyhow, if you want an overview of race and racism in America, and you've got the time, then Eyes on the Prize is what you want.
   
   On the other hand, if you want something that is shorter, and definitely not sweeter, then get I Am Not Your Negro, which is a critical analysis told through the eyes of James Baldwin, who was an activist for Black equality, and a (much more understated) activist for gay equality.
   
   
8. Bowling for Columbine (Michael Moore, 2002): Certainly, at least one Michael Moore film has to make the list. Fahrenheit 9/11 is usually rated as his best film, but I always liked Bowling for Columbine better, because I think it's more nuanced. Most people see it as an anti-gun film, but it's not (especially since Moore himself is a gun owner). It's actually a film that asks, and tries mightily to answer, the question of how American gun culture has gotten so out of whack. Note, for example, the regular comparisons to Canada, which also has guns, but does not have weekly mass shootings.
   
   
9. The Fog of War (Errol Morris, 2003): Again, this is not a ranked list. But if it was, The Fog of War might check in at #1. It is primarily an interview with former Secretary of Defense Robert McNamara, framed as a primer on 11 lessons learned from McNamara's life. It is also an absolutely gripping meditation on (some of) the violence that the U.S. government has committed in the name of the American people since 1941. The viewer can reach their own conclusions on whether that violence is completely justified, partly justified, or not at all justified. Depending on which conclusion you reach, the film could also be viewed as an illustration of what historians of Nazism have called "the banality of evil."
   
   If you like The Fog of War, then Morris' The Unknown Known (2013), in which former Secretary of Defense Donald Rumsfeld gets the same treatment, is a de facto sequel.
   
   
10. Murderball and Crip Camp (Dana Adam Shapiro and Henry-Alex Rubin, 2005; James Lebrecht and Nicole Newnham, 2020): Just as I could not decide between civil rights documentaries, so too am I unable to decide between disability rights documentaries. Crip Camp starts with the story of Camp Jened, a summer camp for disabled teens, and uses that as a launching point for a history of the disability rights movement.
    
    Murderball is about men who play wheelchair rugby. The climax is a heated match between Canada and the U.S., but it's not obnoxious, because the massive dose of a**holery that's been injected into that relationship was 20 years in the future. There are some who would say this does not belong on a political films list because it's a sports film. Yeah, and Jackie Robinson, Muhammad Ali and Brady Tkachuk weren't political, either.
    
    
11. The Roosevelts: An Intimate History (Ken Burns, 2014): From 1990 onward, The Civil War has been Burns' definitive film. It will remain so long after he's gone. I wonder if he would do things differently if he had it all to do over again. On one hand, the tremendous success of The Civil War has made it possible for him to get funding for any film he wants to make. On the other hand, he would surely have made an even better version of The Civil War if he'd waited a couple of decades, to a time when he was a fully mature filmmaker.
    
    In any event, while The Civil War is certainly very good, The Roosevelts is a virtuoso display of documentarian skill, as Burns and his team weave together the stories of three very prominent people—Theodore, Franklin and Eleanor Roosevelt—who were all towering figures of the first half of the 20th century. I have no proof of this, but I suspect the basic structure of the film was inspired by a Civil War book, namely Doris Kearns Goodwin's Team of Rivals.
    
    
12. Weiner (Josh Kriegman and Elyse Steinberg, 2016): Our third fly-on-the-wall entry, and the one to watch if you like unhappy endings. And note that this is a Weiner documentary. If a wiener documentary is what you're looking for, by contrast, then you want either Unhung Hero (2013) or Lord of the Wiens: A Dachumentary (2005). Depends substantially on what kind of wieners hold your interest.

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S.T. in Asbury Park, NJ, asks: There are many discussions about where the Academy got the best Picture Oscar wrong (ahem, Crash), but not as many on where the Oscars got acting categories wrong. What are examples in modern times (let's start in the 1980s) where you think Best Actor or Best Actress was, in hindsight, wrong?

My vote: In 1987, Oscar for Best Actor should have gone to Robin Williams for Good Morning, Vietnam and not Michael Douglas for Wall Street. I think Robin Williams will be remembered for a long time and this role was iconic. Other than the "greed is good" speech I don't see much in the Douglas performance.

(L) answers: I agree that Robin Williams should have won over Michael Douglas.

(Z) answers: I agree with you that the lead categories are where the clunkers are going to be, because the competition in the supporting categories is actually much stiffer (by virtue of the fact that a given film can have one or two or maybe three leads, but can have eight or nine or ten juicy supporting roles). I also think the correct answer is, more likely than not, going to be someone who was being recognized for their career—a lifetime achievement award—rather than for that particular film. And that leads me to my answer: Al Pacino should not have won for Scent of a Woman, where his performance was over the top and utterly lacking in nuance. If we are limited to the other nominees from that year (1992), then Clint Eastwood should have won for Unforgiven. If we can go off the board, then the real Best Actor that year was Tom Cruise, for his absolutely brilliant (and underrated) performance in A Few Good Men. Incidentally, the film that Pacino should have won for is The Godfather, but he was nominated in the wrong category (Supporting Actor), and then, in a travesty, he got beat out by Joel Grey, who was nominated for Cabaret. Who even watches that film anymore?

Among actresses, there is one performance where I can remember leaving the theater and saying to myself, "That was a godawful, scenery-chewing performance, and yet I know she's going to win the Oscar." I speak of Cate Blanchett in Blue Jasmine, whose character had two modes in that film: "deadpan" and "out of control blubbering." If I was picking from the other nominees that year (2014), I would have gone with Amy Adams for American Hustle. If I am allowed to go off the board, then my pick is Keira Knightley for The Imitation Game.

I did like Cate Blanchett's other Oscar-winning performance, as Katharine Hepburn in The Aviator. That said, I am often somewhat suspicious of actors playing real-life people. Are they actually acting, or are they just being lauded for doing a pretty good impersonation? How sure are we that we aren't just watching a glorified Saturday Night Live sketch? Among recent Oscar-winning performances, the one that most seemed like an impersonation to me was Rami Malek in Bohemian Rhapsody. That said, pretty much everyone nominated that year (2018) was playing a real person. But if that's what I am stuck with, I would have preferred Christian Bale, for playing Dick Cheney in Vice. And again, I'd really prefer to go off the board, and pick the actual Best Actor, Chadwick Boseman in Black Panther. But that's a comic book film, and we just can't have that.

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S.C. in Bellaire, TX, asks: I am curious as to y'all's thoughts on the Academy Awards nominations and particularly on Sinners' record number of nominations. I thought Sinners was a good film, and it certainly did some unique things very well. But I have trouble seeing it as an Oscar-caliber movie. Genre-wise, it was, of course, a horror movie, which is unusual for an Oscar darling to say the least. Moreover, its horror elements were pretty routine, even tropey. It also had a post-credit scene reminiscent of lesser Marvel Universe fare. That said, the characters were mostly very good and the Blues history elements were excellent. But the most Oscar nominations in history? What am I missing?

(A) answers: Although I watch the Oscars every year, I generally don't pay attention to the nominations beforehand. I also don't retain most of what I "learn" during the broadcast; I am mostly useless with Oscars trivia. The Oscars are, of course, important to the film industry, but since I don't work in The Industry (in L.A. parlance), it just isn't important to me. I enjoy seeing the fashion(s) on the red carpet. I watch the main event because I've been watching it with the same group of friends (none of whom are in The Industry) for about 20 years, and I have a blast discussing everything with them.

That was to address your inquiry about our thoughts on the nominations in general and to set the stage for the fact that I have very few thoughts about Sinners' record number of nominations because I hardly think about any of the nominations. As for your critiques, I agree that it is highly unusual for a horror film to be an Oscar darling, but I don't see why that should make any particular well-loved horror film less likely to be nominated. I also agree that Sinners was at its best when it was less "horror-y." Since the vampires represent racism, I suppose you could think of the "standard" horror aspects as representing that you shouldn't invite racism in because it will suck the life out of you AND make life "pretty routine, even trope-y."

In all seriousness, I was very impressed by the film's representation of the breadth of American racism and how it was woven into the story. The Black-American experience, white people ignoring the advice of the Native Americans, the Chinese-American experience, the Irish Americans who are immigrants and not considered white by the Klan, and so on. There are also non-racial tropes turned on their head. I've had some discussions with friends about how we've never seen a larger woman (of any race) in a sex scene, certainly not a scene that is treated with such reverence and handled in a serious manner, in any other major movie. Then there's the horror trope of Black people being the first to die, completely flipped on its head in a film where the "point" is to turn Black people into (immortal) vampires. There's a lot to unpack. I'm quite looking forward to the resident historian's analysis, once he sees the movie.

Last, I'll add a couple of practical considerations for why it garnered so many nominations. This was the first year that the Academy required voters to watch every nominated film in order to be allowed to vote. Take that as you will; I wonder if that change made voters more likely to vote for what they feel is deserving, as opposed to going with the flow and choosing whatever they think everyone else is voting for or what their Academy friends are talking about. Another change this year is the addition of the Casting category. That is one of the categories in which Sinners was nominated, an honor which no film that came out in previous years can claim since the category did not exist yet.

(Z) answers: I have not seen it yet, but I will.

That said, I've been tracking the Oscars for many years, and there are some obvious dynamics in play that help explain the film's tally. First of all, note that Oscar nominations correlate with... other Oscar nominations. That is to say that if a film gets nominated for Best Picture, it's got a good chance of being nominated for Best Director. And if it's nominated for both of those, it will probably get a Best Screenplay nod. And if it gets all three of those, it will probably get a couple of acting nominations, and probably some technical nominations as well. I don't know this for sure, but it would not surprise me to learn that it's more common for a film to get 10 nominations than to get four.

And there are other factors that surely worked in Sinners' favor. The members of the Academy like to feel they are awarding artsy/edgy films. But they skew pretty old, on average, and they tend to be pretty well-heeled, on average, so their sense of "artsy/edgy" is not quite as radical as you might find among, say, a collective of 20-something lesbian anarchist urban graffiti artists. It's really more like, "artsy, but let's not go crazy here." Recognizing horror films, as they've begun to do in the years since Get Out was released, is pushing the boundaries without pushing them too hard.

In addition, the Academy voters tend to like to be in sync with the politics of the moment. In the 1940s, they backed a lot of films about World War II and American triumph therein. In the 1970s, they backed a lot of films about underdogs trying to make it in a difficult world. Today, they remain sensitive to the whole Oscars So White thing, and so they gravitate heavily toward films that certain presidents would deride as "woke." Sinners is pretty woke.

It also helps if, in the particular year a film comes out, it's unlike the other films in contention. My preferred illustration of this—though this is about who won, and not who was nominated—is the Best Supporting Actress award won by Marisa Tomei for My Cousin Vinny. That was shocking enough that it gave rise to an urban legend that Jack Palance read the wrong name when he announced the award. However, I actually made a fair bit of money betting she would win. First, her (excellent) performance was clearly good enough to get nominated. That's well more than half the battle right there. Second, she was up against four middle-aged Commonwealth actresses (three Brits, one Australian), all of whom were nominated for "prestige" period dramas (e.g., Vanessa Redgrave for Howards End). It was obvious to me that quartet would split the vote of folks who like films, and actresses, of that sort, making it possible for Tomei to win with a plurality. This year, people who like stories about musicians' inner struggles might split their votes between Blue Moon and Song Sung Blue, just to give one example. By contrast, it's hard to envision what might fill in the blank in the sentence "Hmmmm, I just can't choose between Sinners and ________________________."

Finally, as (A) points out, it helps Sinners that it is competing in a year where the Academy has just introduced a new award. Also, Delroy Lindo is much-loved in Hollywood, and had not been nominated for anything before. He probably got a few "you've had a great career" votes.

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L.S. in Greensboro, NC, asks: in honor of the late, great Flash, how about a list of your favorite movies/TV shows featuring dachshunds? (Boy, that's a hard word to spell! Even spell-check gave up on my first few attempts!)

(Z) answers: Oddly, while "dachshund" is a German word, that's not what the breed is called in Germany. In their nation of origin, they are called "dackels" or "teckels." Maybe that is why spell-check struggles.

It is very rare that TV shows feature dachshunds (outside of documentary-type shows, like César Millán). I suspect there are two reasons. First, they are so short, it's hard to get them into the frame with humans. Second, they are stubborn, and can be hard to train. For this reason, I can only think of one TV show to have a dachshund—That 70's Show—and even then, the dog only appeared in a few episodes. Shows that want the "hound" thing tend to go with Basset Hounds (e.g., The Dukes of Hazzard, Columbo), since they are a little taller and since nobody expects them to do anything besides lay around lazily.

On the other hand, if a film is animated, and in particular if it doesn't have much in the way of human characters, then the problems with live-action dachshunds go away, and they become quite common/popular, because they are funny and somewhat funny-looking. The five best dachshund-featuring films—in no particular order, and all of them animated—are Frankenweenie, The Secret Life of Pets, Toy Story (and its sequels), All Dogs Go to Heaven and Lady and the Tramp. I would have paid good money to see Stephen King's Cujo done with a dachshund, but I guess they did not think that was credible.

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R.V. in Pittsburgh, PA, asks: Do you know anyone who has worked for movie studios doing things other than being in front of the camera? Has any friend or family member worked for the major film studios doing tours, working in the office, etc.?

By the way, the movie studio tours are a lot of fun, with my favorite being the Warner Bros VIP studio tour.

(Z) answers: To start, you have to understand that Los Angeles is an industry town. So, it's actually very common to encounter people who are in The Industry. So common that it does not really register, in the same way it would not really register if you told someone from Hartford that you're in the insurance business.

Anyhow, I know, or have met, many people who are not in front of the camera, but who ARE creatives. (A) and I sometimes play board games with an Academy Award-winning screenwriter. I've played softball hundreds of times with a 40-year-career TV director, and with a musician who did studio work for both films and bands (he played on numerous Kiss records, for example). Speaking of Kiss, I've been to Gene Simmons' house a couple of times. I am also friends with one of the main composers for the Star Trek universe (Dennis McCarthy), because his wife and I went to grad school together and were in the same study group for our written exams. Also in that study group was Dan Opatoshu, who has done some screenwriting himself, is the son of David Opatoshu (an actor who appeared in the original Star Trek, among other roles), and is the husband of Anne Spielberg (sister of Steven, and herself the writer of the screenplay for Big). I know many people who are in the music production/acquisition side of the business, and I know a few technical folks (mostly special effects artists), and I know a couple of animators.

I also know numerous people in the non-creative side of the business. A number of my classmates in college went on to UCLA Law School, and then ended up doing law or PR for one or more of the studios. I know a few folks who have office jobs, like secretary or accountant, that just so happen to be in the business. As I've mentioned before, I've met Jim Carrey's long-time manager a couple of times, and have been to the manager's (now former) house dozens of times (to watch football with his nephew). I know some people who have, at one time or another, served as assistants to one high-importance industry figure or another. Also, while these people would not be considered to be in the entertainment industry, pretty much every physician in West L.A. has at least a few patients (or more than a few patients) who are in the business. They can't talk about them, of course, because that would be both inappropriate and a violation of HIPAA, but they can't exactly hide it if your appointment happens to be at the same time as that of the notable patient. For example, one time I saw my podiatrist, and after he finished with me, his next appointment was Shaquille O'Neal, who was then playing for the Lakers, and was on the injured list with a foot issue.

I am sure this answer could be a lot longer, if I thought about it more. It's just that, again, it doesn't really stand out much when someone says, "Yeah, I'm an office manager over at Sony Pictures," so I have to really jog my memory. And anyone who lives in Los Angeles for multiple decades, as I have, is going to pile up a list like this. It does help to be connected to UCLA, of course, since UCLA is itself deeply connected to the entertainment business.

And as long as we are on the subject, there is a stereotype of entertainment industry types as being arrogant, prima donnas, etc. And yeah, there are a few famous examples of this, where the complaints appear to be on-point. But, on the whole, it's a competitive and people-driven business. It's also a business where people talk. If you are an ass, and you gain a reputation as such, you probably aren't going to work very much. I've met plenty of people who have had wildly successful careers, and I would say they were generally really great and really humble. I've mentioned John Lithgow before; he's a really nice guy. So is Tom Hanks. Henry Winkler. Once, at a time in life when I had $100 in the bank, and my car broke down, Dennis McCarthy rented me a car for 2 weeks, and refused to accept repayment. Anne Spielberg is as nice as can be. So was Bobby Kulick (the fellow who played on some Kiss records). I was 4 when John Wayne died, but my family knew him well (he was next-door neighbors to my grandmother's boss, Virginia Knott), and they all said he was a real charmer (that includes my very-left-wing grandmother, who disagreed vehemently with Wayne's right-wing politics).

I can think of only one entertainment industry type I've ever met who came off as kind of a jerk. He was and is a film and TV producer, and I went to the very first screening of the finished print of one of his blockbuster films (UCLA students are often recruited to be in the audience for things like that, because there are also critics in the room, and the studios want them to be influenced by an enthusiastic audience response). It is possible that this producer was a jerk because he did not like the joke I made coming out of the film: "Did you intend the happy ending to be that mankind survived, or that Paris did not?" However, he has a pretty broad reputation for being a jerk, so maybe it wasn't just me. Of course, you're not supposed to name names when you write or say something like this, so I'll just give a hint. Think: Erryjay Uckheimerbray.

Oh, and the studio tours are pretty fun. In L.A., you can also buy a "star tours" ticket, and a bus/van will take you around to various notable celebrity sites, like the house of Marilyn Monroe and things like that.

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A.A. in Branchport, NY, asks: I would love to hear how TV shows and movies have music assigned. How are orchestras/composers/conductors chosen?

(Z) answers: It depends heavily on the production, and it depends on the type of music that is being used. If a production wants original music, and has money, then the producer or the director will hire a professional composer or composers. It is not uncommon for some directors, in particular, to develop a long-running relationship with a particular composer, and to use them on most or all of their films. The most famous example of this is undoubtedly Steven Spielberg, who has had John Williams on board for all but a small handful of his films. The Tim Burton-Danny Elfman connection is also pretty well known.

If the production wants original music but does not have money, it might try to get an aspiring young composer to work on the cheap. Or it might utilize the music library of the studio that is overseeing the production. Some of those libraries have thousands and thousands of pieces of music the studio already owns the rights to.

If the production wants to use non-original music, usually popular songs, then it will have to hire a music supervisor. The music supervisor comes up with songs that might work for a particular scene or shot, and the director (and maybe other creatives) choose the one(s) they like. Then, if the song(s)/recordings are still under copyright protection, the music supervisor works with legal specialists to try to get clearances. Most musicians are happy to have their music used, because it's good exposure and basically free money, although sometimes they (or the publisher/rights holder) charge an arm and a leg. For this reason, you're not going to see more than one or two Beatles songs or Led Zeppelin songs in a film or TV show, except with very rare exceptions. Some productions hire an in-house music supervisor, but most of them contract with a firm that specializes in music supervision, and that firm then assigns one of its staff to the project.

It is certainly possible for a production, particularly a big-budget production, to have both a composer (or composers) and a music supervisor (or music supervisors). The example of this that comes to mind most readily is Forrest Gump, which features roughly two dozen songs from well-known artists (mostly rock and roll), and also has an original score composed by Alan Silvestri.

If a film is going to use original music penned by a composer, then it will need performers to actually perform that music. In some cases, the composer does much of the performing by themselves, or with their regular backing bands. Trent Reznor uses this approach, as does Elfman. If it's something orchestral, the composer usually has a regular group of instrumentalists they call on, with some redundancy because every person isn't going to be available every time. There are also agencies that can provide, say, a top-flight oboist or pianist. These agencies are particularly likely to get a call if there's a need for an extremely specialized instrument that doesn't show up in soundtracks that much, like the piccolo trumpet.

If there is an orchestral score, then the conductor for the recording session is usually the composer, because they know better than anyone else how they want the piece to sound.

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B.J. in Arlington, MA, asks: I believe that I remember some lines from a movie but cannot find the source; I'm wondering if you know. In my memory, the scene is two men talking. I believe one is "older and wiser" than the other—Robin Williams and Matt Damon in Good Will Hunting, for example. (In fact, my memory says that is the movie but I assume if it was I could find the reference with a quick search, and I can't. Also, I don't have time to watch any movies to check.) Here are the lines:

Man 1: When you love a woman, you've got nothing but trouble. Your only choices are to stop loving her or love her a whole lot more.

Man 2: But if you love her a whole lot more, don't you just get more trouble?

Man 1: Yes. It's murder.

(Z) answers: I am not sure how many people might eventually solve this with help from the Internet. Maybe a lot. Maybe only a few. However, I would guess that only one person in 10,000 would know the answer without needing the Internet. As chance would have it, you've found that one.

In most ways, your memory is remarkably accurate here. You do have the relationship dynamic correct, and you were very close on the actual dialogue, especially given how much time has passed. On the other hand, you have the wrong medium, timewise you're off by about 15 years (1983 vs. 1997), and the subject matter of the source of the quote is WAY different from the subject matter of Good Will Hunting.

That exchange is, in fact, from "Goodbye, Farewell and Amen," which is the final episode of the television series M*A*S*H. Here is the actual exchange:

Sgt. Maxwell Q. Klinger: I thought when the war was over it'd be the happiest day of my life. But everything's all messed up. Now I'm in love, and I got nothing but trouble.

Col. Sherman T. Potter: Listen, when you're in love, you're always in trouble. There's only two things you can do about it—either stop loving them, or love them a whole lot more.

Klinger: But if you love them a whole lot more, won't that just get you a lot more trouble?

Potter: Yep—then you love them even more.

Klinger: Boy, that sounds tough.

Potter: It's murder.

There is a notable exchange in Good Will Hunting about the nature of marriage, but it wasn't THIS exchange.

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S.L. in Glendora, CA, asks: Why is Great Britain in the Olympics instead of the United Kingdom? Are the borders different? Are the two names interchangeable?

(Z) answers: They are not interchangeable. The British Olympic team is overseen by the British Olympic Association, and the British Olympic Association includes not only the four constituent nations of the U.K., but also a handful of other British territories, among them Jersey, Guernsey and the Isle of Man.

Also, just to round out the answer, note that athletes from Northern Ireland can compete either as members of Team Great Britain or Team Ireland.

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P.B. in Chicago, IL, asks: I saw that Dumb Donnie served the U.S. men's hockey team McDonald's for their visit. I like McD's as much as anyone, but if I am invited to visit the White House and am served a cold Big Mac and fries, I am leaving on the spot. (BTW, I am happy to have those bunch of misogynist idiots disrespected.)

My question is: What have previous, not demented, presidents served their sports-related guests (like the World Series or Super Bowl winners)?

(Z) answers: You will struggle to find any news account that mentions the food served at one of these events. And do you know why? Because all the presidents not named Trump do the normal thing, and have the White House kitchen prepare some sort of buffet or otherwise catered meal, usually using healthy and/or seasonal ingredients, and of the quality appropriate to the building that serves as the nerve center of the world's wealthiest nation.

The only real variances here, outside of Trump's Fast Food Follies, is that sometimes a team is served some sort of regional dish (like crab cakes for the Baltimore Orioles), and sometimes a full meal is eschewed in favor of finger foods or something more snack-like, if the team is visiting at a non-meal time (say, 3:00 p.m.).

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R.S. in Ticonderoga, NY, asks: I remember when speed skating long-track events took place outdoors—in fact, I've skated several times on the Olympic Speed Skating Oval in Lake Placid, which is open for public skating each winter. When I was in high school I got to see Eric Heiden receive his first and fifth gold medals at the evening medal award ceremonies.

My question has to do with World and Olympic Speed Skating records and whether separate records are kept for outdoor and indoor venues? I'm sure outdoor skaters face variables like wind and snow that indoor skaters do not. Or is this the equivalent of the asterisk in baseball records, that no longer is pertinent?

Finally, short track speed skating is just the Olympic version of the demolition derby.

(Z) answers: In general, the various bodies that govern speed skating do not make a point of distinguishing between indoor and outdoor records. However, they DO distinguish between records achieved at altitude versus records achieved at or near sea level, because it's easier to go faster when the air is thinner. And, in general, the outdoor rinks tend to be high up, whereas the indoor rinks tend to be low. So, the records kinda do distinguish between indoor and outdoor, in a backdoor way.

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M.M. in San Diego, CA, asks: I saw a headline that claimed the Winter Olympics mascots were popular this year, and I began to wonder when costumed mascots became a thing. I know Disneyland has always had considerable success with people costumed as their cartoon characters, and there must have been folks dressing up elaborately for parades, especially in New Orleans. Did costumed mascots evolve from medieval European traditions?

(Z) answers: Probably most costuming ultimately traces its roots back to medieval European art forms, like commedia dell'arte. That said, it would be tough to draw a crystal-clear through-line.

The use of costumed mascots really began in the mid-twentieth century. In the early twentieth century, as sports became of much greater public interest, and crowds got much bigger, a lot of colleges and pro teams added some sort of field "entertainment" to give people something to look at. In particular, vaudeville-type performers, and live animals (particularly for universities with an animal mascot), were common.

The problem with animal performers is that they are unpredictable, they tend to crap everywhere, and they have to be cared for 365 days a year, even if they are only needed for 10 or 11 football games a year. The problem with human performers is that they are hard to see properly from a distance, and even harder to see on TV, particularly the TVs sold in the 1950s and 1960s.

So, in the early 1960s, a number of baseball teams, and college football teams, began to use costumed mascots. Among the former, the first was Mr. Met, who was introduced around the time that franchise began play, and is obviously much more visible than a regular, non-costumed human. Among the latter, the first was probably Brutus Buckeye, who began to appear at Ohio State football games in the mid-1960s. The concept spread slowly at first, but really took off in the 1970s, thanks in particular to the popularity of the San Diego Chicken and the Phillie Phanatic.

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K.H. in Maryville, TN, asks: The Giants gained a lot of Tennessee fans when they hired our much-loved Tony Vitello away from Volunteers baseball.

Do you have any thoughts/observations on how he may fare? Is it really that big of a deal to go from college head coach to MLB manager without previous professional experience, as we keep being told? We certainly want him to succeed!

Also, would you give a tip of the cap to the great Pirate Bill Mazeroski (Maz!) who passed away last week? Here is a photo of the (preserved) wall at Forbes Field where he hit the walk-off home run to win the 1960 World Series:



I'm told he's the best second-baseman to ever play the game...

(Z) answers: In football, it's tough for a head coach to make the transition from college to pro, because the skills needed are so different. A college coach needs to be good at recruiting and at buttering up the donors. A pro coach doesn't need to do those things, but does need to be able to oversee a much larger staff, and a much more complex playbook.

In baseball, the recruiting/donor distinction is still there, but it's nowhere near as pronounced. Meanwhile, the tactical differences between college baseball and pro baseball are very small; it's not like a college hit-and-run play or a college bunt play is somehow much simpler than a pro hit-and-run or a pro bunt. Further, these days, a lot of the tactical decisions are made by the number crunchers in the front office, and the field manager just executes as he is instructed.

What this means is that, most of the time, the most important job a pro baseball field manager has is to manage the clubhouse, and to make sure that everyone's on the same page and working toward the same goals. If you are capable of being the leader of young men, you are probably capable of being the leader of slightly older men, particularly if you keep in mind that the slightly older men have considerably more leverage over their manager than the young men do.

In short, there is every chance that Vitello will do just fine.

As to Maz, great defender, Pirates legend, author of one of the most memorable plays of all time—hail fellow, well met, and rest in peace. However, while I do not wish to speak ill of the dead, and while I am not among the people who says "Maz shouldn't be in the Hall of Fame," there is no world in which he was the best second baseman of all time, I am afraid. That line begins with, in some order, Joe Morgan, Eddie Collins, Nap Lajoie and Rogers Hornsby.

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J.M. in Arvada, CO, asks: Was the 2-point conversion the Seahawks were awarded against the Rams on replay, under controversial circumstances, the most consequential play of the NFL season? The 2-point conversion tied the game late in the 4th quarter, and the Seahawks won the game in overtime. They went on to clinch the number 1 seed and home-field advantage in the playoffs, and then to win the Super Bowl.

(Z) answers: Among plays that involved the referees making a (controversial) decision, it's either that one or it's the Josh-Allen-to-Brandin-Cooks pass that was fumbled, in overtime of the Bills' divisional game against the Denver Broncos. It was called a catch on the field, but could have gone either way. The Bills never got the ball back, and that ended a season that otherwise could have seen them in, and even winning, the Super Bowl.

The other possibility is a play on which a key player was injured, thus depriving a team of a key piece. You could point to the Patrick Mahomes ACL tear here, though I don't think the Chiefs were going anywhere even if he had stayed healthy. Probably more impactful was the Micah Parsons ACL tear, which happened in the same week of the season (Week 15). If Parsons stays healthy, the Packers' seed would have been higher, and they probably would have played (and beaten) the Chicago Bears at home (since, after all, the Packers very nearly beat Chicago on the road, and without Parsons). And once a team has made it to the second round of the playoffs, anything's possible.

All of this said, I'd probably still go with the 2-point conversion.

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D.S. in Layton, UT, asks: Knowing that some weeks, for the headline contest, you have fifty answers within an hour or so, and other weeks you do not even get fifty answers at all has me wondering... What is the most correct answers you have ever gotten and the fewest?

(Z) answers: A few times, we've gotten something like 500-600 correct responses. Usually, this is for popular culture themes, particularly popular culture themes rooted in the 1960s/1970s/1980s. The most recent theme to generate a giant response like this was "Notable lines from Pink Floyd's The Wall."

A few times, we've gotten only 20-25 correct responses. Usually, this is for a theme that is pattern-based, rather than knowledge-based. For example, there were relatively few correct responses when the commonality was that the last word of the headline was the first word of the item.

You did not exactly ask, but it is exceedingly rare to have more than 10-15% of the guesses be wrong. If the response rate is low, it's because not too many people had a guess, and not because some enormous percentage got it wrong. That said, we are pretty lenient in accepting answers where a reader got the gist, even if they didn't hit the bullseye.

Also, we actually get to see the e-mails, and when they come in, and we still have virtually no ability to predict when the 60th correct response will arrive. Sometimes it's quick and sometimes it's not. We say this, because readers often write "I'm sure I'm too late here," and the majority of the time, they are wrong.

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T.L. in Minneapolis, MN, asks: With all the coverage on Stephen Colbert and CBS, I enjoyed comparing how news sites wrote the CBS possessive: S-apostrophe (CBS') or S-apostrophe-s (CBS's). I noticed you prefer S-apostrophe (CBS') which made me wonder: What's your favorite style guide and why?

(Z) answers: On the whole, we try to adhere to AP Style.

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M.H. in Salt Lake City, UT, asks: Ok. I know, as old age and senescence creeps up on me, the likelihood of memory failure increases. But I swear you once asked readers many months (years?) ago to submit what they deemed the worst political mistake by a politician in American history. I offered what I was convinced was the winning answer (McCain selecting Palin), and patiently awaited my Electoral-Vote.com tote bag in the mail, but nothing—bupkis. Did I miss something?

(Z) answers: We did ask this, as part of a bracket feature a couple of years ago. We are absolutely, 100%, guaranteed to pick up right where we left off, during this year's NCAA Tournament.

Reader Question of the Week:

Here is the question we put before readers 2 weeks ago:

F.S. in Cologne, Germany, asks: You have written that certain U.S. presidents are popular in different countries. On the other side, which U.S. presidents are particularly unpopular or hated outside of the United States? And in which countries are they unpopular?

And here some of the answers we got in response:

S.P. in Pittsburgh, PA: In Greece, at least during the 1990s, Ronald Reagan was particularly hated. His "cowboy" persona was viewed as a false facade hiding a vulture capitalist who ran roughshod over weaker allies, and his comment that he wouldn't mind a small thermonuclear war in Europe was not appreciated by the people of Europe (shocking, I know). The Greek PM of the time, Andreas Papandreou, was a Socialist and enjoyed being a thorn in the side of American interests as a NATO partner. So Papandreou forces likely encouraged and exacerbated the anti-Reagan feeling.

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B.J.L. in Ann Arbor, MI: I imagine the founding of the Peace Corps (1960) and the efforts linked with USAID and the Marshall plan went a long way to making more recent crappy presidents get more benefit of the doubt in international relations. Jimmy Carter was noted as an oddball and tolerated, but less respected as he went along. Donald Trump is generally hated on the continents of Europe and South America. He's probably viewed as a tragic racist in Africa and simply transactional in parts of Arabia and Asia. If it's possible to hate him, most folks in the diplomatic world do.

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G.R. in Carol Stream, IL: Growing up in Brazil, I can say that most presidents of the United States were disliked there, because the U.S. was seen as a meddling superpower. One notable exception was Jimmy Carter, for his involvement with Amnesty International, and for sending Rosalynn to annoy our military overlords. Ronald Reagan was seen as a phony bad actor, probably just a front for whoever actually governed the country. Lyndon B. Johnson was despised for his role in sponsoring the 1964 putsch that took down our democracy.

The next, and so far last, U.S. president to be liked in Brazil was Barack Obama. And that was after I had moved out of the country. Obama was liked, in great part, "for not being George W. Bush," as one SNL skit said when commenting about his Nobel Prize. People were convinced that Bush was going to start the third world war and destroy the planet. With Obama, the world breathed a sigh of relief. Obama was seen as a normal, relatable guy. I have on my shelf a book by a Brazilian author which has the long and provocative title: If Not For Brazil, Barack Obama Would Never Had Been Born. And that, my friends, is the truth.

The less said about the current Dear Leader, the better. But there's very little love for him down there.

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J.K. in Portland, OR: I've got three:

1. The incumbent, with a rapidly-growing list, for the obvious reasons.
2. Harry S. Truman, for Hiroshima and (especially) Nagasaki.
3. James K. Polk in Mexico.

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R.P. in Gloucester City, NJ: Donald J. Trump is probably the most unpopular U.S. president throughout the world and throughout history, except for isolated spots like Israel or Hungary.

Lyndon B. Johnson offended almost everybody everywhere, especially because of the Vietnam War and the Dominican Republic.

Ronald Reagan probably remains popular in Europe (especially East Germany) due to the end of the Cold War (I won't say he ended it), but I doubt they like him much in Iran, Libya, or Central American countries. Or Russia.

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J.B. in Bozeman, MT: As an elder millennial, I only have adult-ish recollections of later Clinton, Bush II, Obama, and The Convicted Felon (TCF). Also, although I try to keep up with at least the broad strokes of foreign affairs, American news media is probably biased in how much they report on the opinions or indifference of our presidents overseas.

I suspect though TCF will probably blow all his predecessors and successors out of the water given his recent sloppy attempts at imperialism as well as general tackiness, xenophobia, and sophomoric understanding of... everything.

But I also bet the Republican Party of the past 60-ish years in general is unpopular abroad. Richard Nixon's escalation and expansion in Vietnam probably didn't make us any friends. Ronald Reagan may have helped (somewhat) to breakup the U.S.S.R., but Iran-Contra made the U.S. look like a second-rate mafia operation. And who can forget Junior Bush's squandering of good will around the world after September 11 with chicanery used to justify the invasion of Iraq? I also gather the GOP is also much more conservative than other conservative parties abroad. They also deny science much more often and have been ruthless in the search of power.

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F.J.V.S. in Acapulco, Mexico: You may already know that the Mexican Armed Forces captured a drug kingpin in a Western state of Mexico, who died while being transferred to the capital. Posts on social networks and opinion pieces in newspapers (mostly from the opposition) credit his death to no one else than El Donaldo, mostly because this is a black eye to President Claudia Sheinbaum Pardo (actually, they all hope that the situation worsens, so they can blame the president).

Nonetheless, some people I have spoken with (and I also include myself) think that it may be that without the pressure of Trompas (large mouths), nothing of that could have been achieved. That does not mean that the American president is popular in Mexico (he is not), but I would think he might be if he continues pressuring the government into capturing more drugs kingpins, as the main concerns for Mexicans is security (a little bit old but nothing has changed).

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M.O. in Helsingør, Denmark: Donald Trump is pretty unpopular here in Denmark. In a Gallup poll from December he was 82 points under water and I would guess it's even worse now.

George the Younger was pretty unpopular too, because of the whole Iraq mess, but nothing like Trump.

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M.M. in San Diego, CA: Okay, I'll take the pot shot: Isn't Donald Trump universally hated all around the world?

Here is the question for next week:

J.W. in West Chester, PA, asks: What do you think is the best episode of any of the Star Trek series?

Submit your answers to comments@electoral-vote.com, preferably with subject line "Spock's Brain"!

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