If the HGTV cable network ever decides to expand its programming past episodes of House Hunters, this movie might likely be an original production. Hopefully, the network will think through the process a little bit more than the filmmakers involved here. Like a strong foundation for a house, you have to start with a good script.
And that's where "5 Flights Up" should have started. With a script. And an idea. And maybe a different director. Because, as a movie, this claptrap is a complete tear-down.
I saw "5 Flights Up" because it looked like a good evening out. Desperately trying to find a current film that wasn't based on a Marvel comic, I stumbled across this. Heck, you think Diane Keaton and Morgan Freeman as stars. How bad can that be?
Ummmmm.....
Filmed completely in New York, this is a movie that had a great logline and then stalls like the IND subway in the middle of rush hour. Keaton and Freeman play a longtime married couple (yes, folks, and that is treated as color blind as it should be) who have lived in the same Brooklyn apartment for forty years. Their entire married life has been in those five or six rooms, but there's no elevator in the building and, well, they are getting old. Plus their beloved pooch has spinal issues and that alone prompts them to consider selling this unit for one in a building with an elevator. I guess you can figure that out from the super-clever film title. In steps Diane's obnoxious realtor of a niece, played even more obnoxiously by the usually reliable Cynthia Nixon. She promises a big return after an open house for prospective buyers. But, then, the oldsters realize they must flip themselves into another apartment and they go off looking themselves. This all plays out like a HGTV episode of Flip or Flop with emphasis on the latter. To make matters worse, New York City is under a possible terrorist attack. Nothing louses up a weekend of apartment hunting than a bomb planted on the Williamsburg Bridge.
If this all sounds terribly clinical, it is. Despite the valiant efforts of Keaton and Freeman, this movie meanders around for about ninety minutes and eventually goes no place. The only real drama and tension comes from worrying about whether their dog will survive surgery. More inexplicably, this New York-filmed story has no real feel for the city or its inhabitants. That's likely due to director Richard Loncraine, a lifetime Brit who probably has only been in NY long enough to switch planes at JFK. It is fun to see Diane Keaton back walking the streets of Manhattan like she did in "Annie Hall,"...gasp...almost forty years ago! But, in a cinematic device that is now annoyingly cliche, Morgan Freeman does some voiceover narration in a manner that sorely needs a couple of penguins. Just another misfire in a film that's full of hundreds of them.
There is no real compelling story to this soon-to-be-condemned shack. I knew the ending when I was still on line for my lemonade at the concession stand. And, frankly, the only true surprise was seeing that my friend's brother-in-law popped up several times as a journalist reporting on the terrorist subplot.
If you really, really must see "5 Flights Up," I'd suggest you not buy, but rent.
LEN'S RATING: One star.
Dinner last night: Chicken fried steak and vegetables.
She died a few weeks ago and, frankly, my grandmother never liked her. But here's a bizarre clip starring the late Jayne Meadows Allen. Dinner last night: Mushroom ravioli.
Last Tuesday night at Dodger Stadium, there was a tap on my left shoulder. It was one of their roving camera guys, entrusted to running around the park and looking for things to put up on Diamond Vision. "I want to get a shot of you writing in your scorebook." Okay, this is the same guy that shot me once last year and another time the year before. "It's such a lost art that I want people to know about that." Okay. So Spielberg Junior knew my rules. No facial shot. If you get part of my hand making a notation in the book, that's fine. But that's as far as I go when it comes to being on a High-Def TV screen several stories high. This time around, we got a bit coordinated with my 15 seconds of fame. When the light went on the camera and my penmanship was illuminated for almost 50,000 to see, my friend took a snapshot of it to preserve the historical moment. The camera dude thanked me. "I wish more people scored games like you do." Yeah, me, too. Indeed, I can't imagine going to a baseball game without a scorebook in my hand. It is relaxing. It is calming. For some mythical reason, it is the best medicine in the world. And I've been doing it since I was ten. It was the very first time I walked into Shea Stadium, home of my beloved New York Mets. There was a vendor at the entrance to our field box section. "Scorecard, here, get ya scorecard." I asked my father what that was. After all, it was being sold at the ballpark so it must be important. I needed to do all the things the other fans were doing. My dad plunked down his quarter...yes, a quarter...and I got a little free pencil as a bonus. I was all set. Of course, my father was no help when it came to what the hell I should be doing with the scorecard. He had never done it. But, luckily, there was a nifty page in the back that explained it all. HOW TO SCORE. Got it. I quickly learned which players were which numbers and how to make notations for base hits, pop outs, walks, and strikeouts. Years later, I dug out this scorecard and it was a fifth-grade graduate's mess. Full of mistakes and cross outs. There was no eraser on that little tiny pencil. Still, there must have been some sort of magic to it all because I never really stopped scoring a game. Somehow, it ties me to the event and that moment in time like no other memory. So, throughout my baseball life, I kept score. In high school. Through college. Amidst good times and bad. Decent Met teams and horrible ones. There was one constant. Me and a scorecard. Eventually, I got a little more high-tech. Instead of buying a scorecard for a quarter or two dollars or later ten dollars, I invested in a scorebook that contained room for thirty or so games.
I have no idea how I originally came across Gene Elston's Stati-Score Baseball Scorebook. I know I've always had to buy it mail order, purchasing three or four at a time. Elston is a longtime Houston Astros announcer. He was inducted into the Baseball Hall of Fame for broadcasting back in 2006. He's still with us and must be 93 or 94. The man has no idea how important his concoction has been to me. Starting back in the 80s and going to Met games when it was fashionable and relevant to do so, I exclusively used this scorebook. I'd fill up thirty games, stash the book in the closet, and then start a new one. This was a particularly ingenious invention at the time because it included a place to keep pitch counts. This was at a time when nobody kept pitch counts. These days, it's done for you on the scoreboard. Back in our day, it was done by yours truly and my frequent Shea compatriot, the Bibster. There we would sit in my Loge seats or his. Pencils in hand. Marking down balls and strikes diligently. Each with our own scorebooks. It was baseball nerdism to the Nth degree. We didn't care. With our scorebooks, we were clearly the smartest people in Shea Stadium, not counting, of course, Tim McCarver behind the Mets broadcast microphone. And the scorebook went on the road. For five summers, my college roommate and I would do a weekend in the friendly confines of Chicago's Wrigley Field when the Mets were there. The book was on my lap. One year, we were seated next to a couple of girls who were great to look at but horrible to keep up with when it came to downing Old Style Beer. One of them was really impressed by my...scorebook. "Hey, Stats, what did the last guy do at bat?" I'd always have the answer. The only problem was that she was unconscious in her seat two innings later. During the 1988 playoffs, I was keeping pitch counts when the Mets were battling...gasp...the Dodgers in Game 4. Dwight Gooden had a lead going into the ninth inning but, as I tallied up his balls and strikes, I was sure he had thrown way too many pitches to be effective much longer. The closer was warming up in the bullpen. I circled the pitch count total at the top of the page. And added the following notation. TAKE HIM OUT!!! Manager Davey Johnson didn't. One meatball served to Dodger Mike Scioscia and the Mets were on their way to not playing in the World Series. TAKE HIM OUT!!! Several years ago, when I was doing a charity stint on KABC's Dodger Talk, I got to meet the host and all-around good guy Josh Suchon. He was writing a book on those 1988 Dodgers and, most particularly, from the perspective of being an Oakland Athletics fan. Of course, the A's got pummeled by the Dodgers in the World Series. I mentioned my scorebook and recalled the notation I made. He wanted to see it for possible inclusion in the book. The next time I was in NY, I went into the file cabinet where all these baseball records are kept. The green scorebooks spilled out onto the floor as I dug through them, looking for this one game. Sure enough, the game was uncovered and the notation, not made in invisible ink, was there. Josh ultimately didn't use it in the book. But it allowed me, for the very first time, to revisit my baseball fandom and life. I had never really revisited a book after it was retired. I found it all. Years and years and years of memories. Some spectacular and others mundane. But it was clearly the remnants of a life. Solely and distinctly mine. I now have a box full of these green scorebooks in my LA apartment. Whenever I go east for a Met game, my most current record keeper is packed along with my socks and my toiletries. Two coasts of baseball serviced by one scorebook. I'm due to send away for more blank scorepads. I'm thinking the Houston warehouse where they are housed is getting emptier with each order. The last batch I got were a little brown around the edges. Sadly, there's probably not a bottomless pit when it comes to Gene Elston's Stati-Score Baseball Scorebook. There might not be many people ordering them anymore. Heck, I might be the last one. But, I will keep on doing it. A work colleague who saw my scorebook emblazoned on the big screen asked me to teach him how to score a game. Gladly. Because, after all, it is a lost art. But, it's also...my art. Dinner last night: The pre-game buffet at the Dodger Stadium Club.
And here it is. Blog Entry # 3000. On May 15, 2015. That's an awful lot of cleverness you're getting for free. Or, on the flip side, that's an awful lot of cleverness I've written for no money.
A labor of love. Since March of 2007 and this is as much a part of my life as...well...breathing. There are a lot of ways in which this blog has enriched my life and I hope I have done the same for you by at least 1/1000th.
Instead of dragging you through a lot of self-congratulatory nonsense, I decided to give you a little bit of analysis on this memorable occasion. I thought you might want to know some of the facts and figures with regard to readership of this blog.
Indeed, over its lifespan, we have had close to 70,000 visitors here. That's two sellouts at Citi Field and, heck, we know how often that happens.
More importantly, that translates to page views and there have been over 150,000 of those suckers. So, when people are signing on, they are reading more than one entry per visit. Good!
So where's the audience coming from? I thought you would never ask.
62%: United States. I should hope so since that's the freakin' target audience. But, wait, there's more.
6% of the readers are from Russia.
4% are from France and that's odd because I hate that country.
3% come from Germany and I wonder if they like my Sunday stories about my grandparents.
3% are based in the United Kingdom and that's a bizarrely low number because I actually have friends there.
2% are living in the Ukraine. For that, I have no comment whatsoever.
So how is the audience arriving here? Again, I thought you would never ask.
35% come via Internet Explorer.
28% arrive via Firefox and that number grew significantly over the past year. Take that, IE.
17% get here via Chrome. Isn't this interesting? Okay, 72% are using a Windows operating system to read this blog. Only 9% use a Mac for Len Speaks. What is fascinating to me is that 2% of my audience reads this on an iPhone and another 2% on an iPad.
So, people wind up on this site because they have Googled a name or a date. As a result, some pieces get a lot more page views than anything else. You want to know the top 10 attention getters on this blog? Here goes...
# 1: WHO THE HELL IS JONATHAN GOLDSMITH? - over 1200 Pageviews.
Originally posted on June 17,
2010. I had gone to a Dodger game and this actor threw out the first
ball. At the time, I had no clue who the fuck he was. I got tons of
comments from total strangers telling me how stupid I was. I'm an
idiot? How about close to 1000 people searching the Internet for
information on this guy???
# 2: THE SUNDAY MEMORY DRAWER - MY TOP 25 FAVORITE MOVIES OF ALL TIME - Over 1100 Pageviews.
When I first started this blog, I listed on 25 successive Sundays a countdown of these favorite movies. By popular demand, I reposted the list in one single Sunday. So I am guessing that this entry winds up in a lot of Google searches when a reader looks for any one of the 25 films listed.
# 3: THIS DATE IN HISTORY - NOVEMBER 30 - Over 1000 Pageviews.
Originally posted on November 30, 2011. My weekly look at history every Wednesday. What's so special or interesting about this date? It gets Googled a lot when people search for the date that Lucille Ball and Desi Arnaz got married. Who knew??
#4: HAVE YOURSELF AN AWKWARD LITTLE CHRISTMAS - Almost 900 Pageviews.
Originally posted on December 14, 2012. I frequently use the Awkward Family Photos site for some pictorial comedy. This just goes to prove that there is no limit to what a family will take a picture of under the Christmas tree.
# 5: NOW I KNOW WHO THE HELL JONATHAN GOLDSMITH IS - Almost 800 Pageviews.
Originally posted on September
23, 2010. This was my follow-up to the violent reaction I received from
readers who were actually insulted that I questioned anybody's interest
in somebody who is nothing more a spokesperson for imported beer. I am
still getting nasty comments to this very day. What is the fascination
with this character????
# 6: THE SUNDAY MEMORY DRAWER - HANGING OUT WITH MURPHY BROWN - Almost 700 Pageviews.
Originally posted on February 27,
2011. This was the second in a three-part Sunday Memory Drawer trilogy
that concentrated on my first days in California fifteen years ago. I
had spent that time on the Murphy Brown set and I am guessing that the
draw of this piece was fans simply Googling Murphy Brown. This is
fascinating to me, since I don't sense a lot of nostalgia for this
show. It certainly feels dated when they rerun it. Warner Brothers
never released any DVD seasons beyond the first one. I'm glad there's
some life out there for the only sitcom I ever physically appeared in.
# 7: THE SUNDAY MEMORY DRAWER - TV SHOWS I WATCHED WHEN I WAS A KID - Almost 650 Pageviews.
Originally posted on September
25, 2011. In this post, I discussed my favorite TV shows from back
when. Included are Hazel, Disney's Wonderful World of Color, Peyton
Place, The Lucy Show, Andy Griffith, Beverly Hillbillies, Green Acres,
Petticoat Junction, and Bonanza. So, which of these shows is driving a
lot of on-line traffic? Or is a little bit of interest in all of them?
# 8: JE T'ATENDRAI - Almost 650 Pageviews.
Originally posted on March 18, 2014. Mon Dieu! This one is still rising to the top. It gets about 25 views a week and it was only posted a little over a year ago. I had gone to see a revival of "The Umbrellas of Cherbourg" and reviewed it here. Well, there must be a cult following to this movie because it gets Googled a lot. Either that or Catherine Deneuve is on Len Speaks all the time.
# 9: BAD YEARBOOK PHOTOS - Almost 600 Pageviews.
Originally posted on August 26, 2010. Like I said. It's always fun to laugh at people. Such a positive feature that, just like in Hollywood, it merited a sequel.
# 10: MORE BAD YEARBOOK PHOTOS - Almost 600 Pageviews.
Originally posted on January 14,
2011. An interesting sidelight to this. I received a comment from a girl who says that one of the photos was hers and I used it without her permission. She had sued the original poster and won. She pledged to litigate against me as well. I naturally changed the photo. After all... I have another 3,000 blog entries I want to do. # 3,001 is tomorrow!
You folks have been with me for 2,999 blog posts (Spoiler alert: #3,000 is tomorrow) and you've heard me rave about TV shows that I have loved over time. But, when you get right down to it, there's a lot of so-called popular TV that I have never sampled. Or didn't want to. Or tried to watch and hated. Indeed, some of your favorite TV shows might be listed below. Sorry. If you love it to death, God bless you. Mad Men: It's a big deal right now because the series is ending. From what I gather, this thing jumped the shark a long time ago. And it never really got an audience outside of media centers New York and Los Angeles. Given the retro 60s setting, you would think this was a show that would appeal to me. On three separate occasions, I tried to watch the first four episodes. All three times, I fell asleep at exactly the same time during the fourth episode. Classically overwritten and not as clever as the producers would lead to you think. Game of Thrones: For the longest time, I thought this was a video game. Frankly, anything set in remotely medieval times bores the crap out of me. It's the same reason why I have never seen a single frame of any of the Lord of the Rings movies. Boardwalk Empire: I watched the very first episode and found it numbing. Having already lived through the entire Sopranos series not one, not twice, but three times. I didn't need to see this rehashed as a costume piece. I did later on see a scene when it was being shot at the Yonkers train station. The assistant director tried to prevent me from entering the station because they were filming. No AD can hold me. I boarded my train as scheduled. Breaking Bad: I hate shows with unlikeable heroes. This struck me as one of them. The Walking Dead: This struck me as another one. Late Show with David Letterman: Confession: when this first came on, I was a regular fan. But, if you watch it night after night, you realize how repetitious it gets. How many times can you watch a German Shepherd jump rope? I've tuned into a few of his final episodes and you can really see that Mr. Letterman, dirtbag that he is, doesn't really give a shit about investing any time into this show any more. People tell me he stopped caring about ten years ago. I still miss you, Johnny. The Good Wife: I wish I had started when this show began several seasons ago. Now I hear it's really good, but I'm so far behind. Girls: Fat naked chicks with a lot of ink are hardly an inducement for me. Plus I hear this Lena Dunham is a real scumbag.
The Voice: I used to watch American Idol and stopped. Why do I want to see another version of the same show?
American Idol: Yeah, I used to watch it and stopped. Well, it's going to finally end after 15 seasons. It's been on so long that I think the Singing Nun was the very first Idol. The Bachelor: Seriously?
The Bachelorette: Double seriously??? Anything Kardashian, Housewives, or Featuring Somebody I Don't Recognize from People Magazine: Well, that takes care of 75% of what's on television.
Dancing With The Stars: It should be called Dancing With The Former Stars Who Are One Step Above Appearing at Car Wash Openings.
Dateline NBC: Call me wacky, but, for some odd reason, endless stories about some White trash mobile home owner hacking up his wife and leaving her body parts in dumpsters all over the state of Alabama don't necessarily appeal to me. Any televised speech by the President of the United States, Whoever He or She May Be: Because... Dinner last night: Leftover chicken and broccoli.
He's got his detractors, but I'm a Bobby Valentine fan. Happy birthday, Skipper.
1373: JULIAN OF NORWICH HAS VISIONS WHICH ARE LATER TRANSCRIBED IN HER REVELATIONS OF DIVINE LOVE.
Is that like an older version of Fifty Shades of Gray?
1568: THE FORCES OF MARY, QUEEN OF SCOTS, ARE DEFEATED BY A CONFEDERACY OF SCOTTISH PROTESTANTS UNDER JAMES STEWART, EARL OF MORAY.
As opposed to James Stewart, Awesome Actor.
1619: DUTCH STATESMAN JOHAN VAN OLDENBARNEVELT IS EXECUTED IN THE HAGUE AFTER BEING CONVICTED OF TREASON.
With a name like that, he deserves it.
1787: CAPTAIN ARTHUR PHILLIP LEAVES PORTSMOUTH, ENGLAND, WITH ELEVEN SHIPS FULL OF CONVICTS TO ESTABLISH A PENAL COLONY IN AUSTRALIA.
If you have to be in jail, there's no better place than Australia.
1846: THE UNITED STATES DECLARES WAR ON MEXICO.
This never ended, right?
1848: THE FIRST PERFORMANCE OF FINLAND'S NATIONAL ANTHEM.
Don't know it. Hum a few bars, please.
1861: DURING THE AMERICAN CIVIL WAR, QUEEN VICTORIA OF THE UNITED KINGDOM ISSUES A PROCLAMATION OF NEUTRALITY WHICH RECOGNIZES THE BREAKAWAY STATES AS HAVING BELLIGERENT RIGHTS.
A good fight to stay out of.
1861: PAKISTAN'S FIRST RAILROAD OPENS.
For those four of you who actually want to travel around Pakistan.
1880: IN NEW JERSEY, THOMAS EDISON PERFORMS THE FIRST TEST OF THE ELECTRIC RAILWAY.
Take that, Pakistan.
1914: BOXER JOE LOUIS IS BORN.
Pow! Crunch! Pow! Ouch!
1917: THREE CHILDREN REPORTS THE FIRST APPARITION OF OUR LADY OF FATIMA IN PORTUGAL.
Do you see what I see?
1922: ACTRESS BEATRICE ARTHUR IS BORN.
God will get you for that.
1933: BASEBALL CATCHER JOHN ROSEBORO IS BORN.
Hit in the head with a bat wielded by Juan Marichal in 1965. Just sayin'.
1939: THE FIRST COMMERCIAL FM RADIO STATION IN THE US IS LAUNCHED IN BLOOMFIELD, CONNECTICUT. THE STATION LATER BECOMES WDRC-FM.
1939? It's a little early for them to be playing Jethro Tull.
1940: WINSTON CHURCHILL MAKES HIS "BLOOD, TOIL, TEARS, AND SWEAT" SPEECH TO THE HOUSE OF COMMONS.
Earth, Wind, and Fire were not available.
1940: QUEEN WILHELMINA OF THE NETHERLANDS FLEES HER COUNTRY TO GREAT BRITAIN AFTER THE GERMAN INVASION.
I wonder how somebody from the Netherlands would say "let's get the hell out of here."
1941: SINGER RITCHIE VALENS IS BORN.
Died at the age of 18 in a plane crash. Waste.
1948: THE KFAR ETZION MASSACRE IS COMMITTED BY ARAB IRREGULARS, THE DAY BEFORE ISRAEL DECLARES ITS INDEPENDENCE.
PS, they're all still fighting.
1950: BASEBALL LEGEND BOBBY VALENTINE IS BORN.
How he got those Mets into the 2000 World Series is still a mystery to me.
1950: MUSICIAN STEVIE WONDER IS BORN.
When he really was Little Stevie Wonder.
1954: THE ORIGINAL BROADWAY PRODUCTION OF "THE PAJAMA GAME" OPENS.
Steam heat!
1958: DURING A TRIP TO VENEZUELA, VICE PRESIDENT RICHARD NIXON'S CAR IS ATTACKED BY ANTI-AMERICAN DEMONSTRATORS.
Don't hit my dog Checkers.
1958: THE TRADEMARK VELCRO IS REGISTERED.
This will stick around for a while.
1958: A GROUP OF FRENCH MILITARY OFFICERS LEAD A COUP IN ALGIERS DEMANDING THAT A GOVERNMENT OF NATIONAL UNITY BE FORMED WITH CHARLES DE GAULLE AT ITS HEAD IN ORDER TO DEFEND FRENCH CONTROL OF ALGERIA.
By the way, De Gaulle had really big ears.
1960: BERKELEY STUDENTS CONGREGATE FOR THE FIRST DAY OF PROTEST AGAINST A VISIT BY THE HOUSE COMMITTEE ON UN-AMERICAN ACTIVITIES.
There's always some kind of nonsense on this campus.
1961: ACTOR GARY COOPER DIES.
Dead. Yup.
1969: RACE RIOTS TAKE PLACE IN MALAYSIA.
Just in case you thought this only happened in this country.
1972: WILLIE MAYS PLAYS HIS FIRST GAME FOR THE METS AFTER BEING TRADED FROM THE GIANTS.
He hit a homer in the rain if my childhood memory is correct.
1972: ACTOR DAN BLOCKER DIES.
Hoss!
1977: MOBSTER MICKEY SPILLANE DIES.
No mystery.
1980: AN F3 TORNADO HITS MICHIGAN AND PRESIDENT JIMMY CARTER DECLARES IT A FEDERAL DISASTER AREA.
If anybody knows disaster areas, it would be Carter.
1981: MEHMET ALI AGCA ATTEMPTS TO ASSASSINATE POPE JOHN PAUL II IN ROME'S ST. PETER'S SQUARE.
After emergency surgery, he lasted a whole bunch longer.
1989: LARGE GROUPS OF STUDENTS OCCUPY TIANANMEN SQUARE AND BEGIN A HUNGER STRIKE.
An hour later, they were still hungry all over again.
1994: JOHNNY CARSON MAKES HIS LAST TV APPEARANCE ON THE DAVID LETTERMAN SHOW.
Still miss the hell out of him.
2013: PSYCHOLOGIST DR. JOYCE BROTHERS DIES.
You think I got problems???
Dinner last night: Bacon wrapped hot dog at the Dodger game.
