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The Cornell Daily Sun (https://cornellsun.com/2001/02/28/do-it-for-the-love/)

February 28, 2001

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Do It for the Love

By ryan | February 28, 2001

If ever you head north of the border to Canada, make sure that you go on a Saturday night. For Canadians, Saturday nights are sacred for one reason and one reason, and one reason only — it’s National Hockey Night in Canada.

So there I was last Saturday evening, sitting with friend and assistant sports editor Charles Persons at a sports bar in Prescott, Ontario, just trying to figure out where the hell we were.

We’d just crossed the bridge over the St. Lawrence River in Ogdensburg, still fuming at the fact that we had to pay two dollars in tolls just to get into Canada.

But lo and behold, the TV above me was tuned in to the CBC’s National Hockey Night in Canada, with Edmonton taking on Calgary.

Now, sure, the stereo system behind me might have been pounding out Shaggy hits by the minute, but watching hockey I felt about as Canadian as an Indian kid from New Jersey can feel, eh.

So, the guy sitting next to me leans over and asks me, “Do you like hockey?”

I’m thinking that he is really hammered. But of course, I humour him and say, “Sure.”

“Do you like the Ottawa Senators?” he continued.

“Yeah,” I responded, not knowing where he was going with this and not wanting to offend an Ottawa super-fan and end up getting in a bar brawl.

“I played for the Senators,” he quickly replied.

Incredulously stunned I simply glanced at him, shaking my head to show that I didn’t believe him. What were the chances that I would pick a seat next to a former professional hockey player? None, so obviously I didn’t believe him.

He has a ring on his left hand. He slips it off and puts it in my hand. I peek at it and I begin to feel like an ass.

Yes, the ring was from the Senators, and apparently this guy did indeed play for Ottawa. (Later he would fill me in on the fact that Alexi Yashin was a prick).

I still had absolutely no clue who this guy was. All I knew about him was that that he used to be a defenseman for the Senators. I didn’t know if he was any good. I didn’t know if he ever even got into a game. I didn’t even know what his name was.

But still I was impressed. Not because he was a superstar and made an unfathomable salary. What really struck me about him was —

Related

Cornell Cinema: Human Resources

By ryan March 1, 2001

The title of the film Human Resources plays on the term that so blatantly relegates individuals to being mere “resources,” like coal or pieces of property. It begs the audience to look beyond the superficial politics of business and to explore its ethics. The film begins when Frank (Jalil Lespert) returns home from business school in Paris for a summer job at a factory in the French countryside. Frank has a particular connection with the factory since his father and sister are both laborers there. Yet unlike them, Frank is working in the office as a management trainee. Frank is assigned to work on the controversial issue of the 35-hour work week. The new work schedule would give workers more leisure time, but less pay and possibly fewer benefits. Frank is in favor of this plan and as an assignment creates a questionnaire to ask the workers their opinion of this option for change. Under the assumption that the factory is consulting the workers for their own good, Frank is blind to his boss’ plan to use the questionnaire as a way of eluding union negotiations and dismissing twelve workers. Caught between his private and public interests, Frank urges the workers to stage a strike. Human Resources is a remarkable film because its themes are not forced upon the audience, but develop naturally through the plot. While it seems that the film is solely focused on the issue of management versus labor, the true emotional core of the film is the strained relationship between Frank and his father, Jean-Luc. Frank hopes to be everything his father isn’t. Jean-Luc has worked in the factory on the same machine all day, every day for the past thirty years. Yet, when Jean-Luc is asked if he would change to the 35-hour work week to make his job less monotonous, he replies “no” because he has never been bored by his work. By contrast, Frank is a self-assured and presumptuous student who seems like a good candidate for the rat race, but turns out to have an idealistic business perspective. It is the work situation at the factory that quickly unsettles Frank’s feelings about his family and his hometown. In many instances the audience can see how having been educated in cosmopolitan Paris and learning social graces has made Frank different from his old friends and family. In a public outburst at the factory, Frank berates his father for being a manual laborer. His father’s job is a perpetual source of shame for him and he tries to transfer this shame to his father. The factory is a microcosm of the outside world that exacerbates the differences between workers, between workers and bosses, and in this case, between father and son. The writer and director, Laurent Cantent, developed this especially interesting scenario through some unusual processes. Excepting Jalil Lespert, none of the characters in the film are professional actors but actually unemployed workers. The scenes seem all the more truthful because of the honesty of the performances. The original screenplay was just a skeleton before meeting with these “actors.” Cantet then held improvisation sessions and conversations which were videotaped to be later added to the story. These choices made the film feel more like a documentary than a narrative film. If there is a message that the film sends it is a cautionary one to wide-eyed business students. The workers all believe in the factory they work for because they have no other option. However, Frank is quick to believe in his bosses too, simply because they give him the respect and prestige he craves. Yet, Frank did not foresee being double-dealed by the factory and then having to face the repercussions within his family. The film reminds the audience that there is more than just a nice resume at stake with each of Frank’s decisions.Archived article by Diana Lind
3000 Miles Off The Mark

By ryan March 1, 2001

Our society has always loved fairy tales; stories that focus on a hero with an enemy who is almost too evil. This hero, however, eventually gets the girl and triumphs despite all odds. Fairy tales have forever been translated to the silver screen — Disney has thrived on such ‘sappy’ tales that manage, despite all their cheesiness, to touch us in the oddest places. In a fairy tale, the world is somehow better and more gratifying. These days, the modern action film has become our fairy tale, albeit one with a lot more violence. Enter the tired and cliched, 3000 Miles to Graceland, directed by Demian Lichtenstein. Our hero, named only in the movie as Micheal (Kurt Russell), is trying to get himself out of a robbery gone wrong with the loot, 3.2 million dollars in cold hard cash. The heist, led by Murphy (Kevin Costner), takes place in Las Vegas during International Elvis Week. This gives the movie the excuse to dress five guys in Elvis suits while carrying many semi-automatic weapons. I’m not sure if the audience is supposed to find this at all humorous, but I do know that Kevin Costner has definitely seen better days . Murphy and Micheal turn out to have a very uneasy relationship, made all the more uneasy by the fact that Murphy kills his gang in order to keep all the money. He fails to really do away with Micheal, though, who survives and drives away with the cash. In the meantime, Micheal has met and “dallied” with Cybil Waingrow, played by Courteney Cox. For reasons unbenownst to the audience, Cybil decides to tag along with Micheal, whom she knows to be a violent murderer and a criminal, and in her motherly wisdom brings her young son Jesse along for the ride. While Micheal, Cybil and Jesse make their way from Nevada to Washington, where Micheal plans to get away to Canada, Murphy is never far behind. Along with numerous so-called plot twists (is it really a twist if it’s expected?), there is also a sub-plot involving Murphy’s claim to be the illegitimate son of Elvis Presley, which apparently explains his fanatical attachment to the King, along with his psyschopathic tendencies. I don’t really blame Costner for his portrayal of Murphy. The movie seems intent on portraying him as a cartoon but then at the end tries to give him emotional depth. Anyway, there are some good moments in this movie. At one point a Nevada police trooper, who after pulling Murphy over, draws his gun, twirls it around his finger, and stares Murphy down. This is pretty funny, especially considering the fact that being from Nevada, I love seeing it portrayed as the ‘Wild West.’ It would have been pretty cool growing up in the Wild West — you know, the whole lawlessness and guns thing — but nowadays the closest thing to the Wild West in Nevada is the Wild West Casino, located in dowtown Reno. (Cox seems intent also on giving her character a Texas-like twang … does she understand that Nevada is a lot closer to Hollywood than the South?) Sometimes the movie’s over-the-topness works for it, though. Kurt Russell plays the bad guy with a soft heart pretty well. Other times, such as when Cybil tells Kurt that she knew, “right from the first moment I saw you that I wanted to spend the rest of my life with you,” (choke, gag) the movie’s cheesiness falls completely flat. See, a fairy tale can only work if the tone in which it is directed is as child-like as its acting and script. Violence in a surreal setting can also work — take Pulp Fiction for example. But Lechtenstein has neither Tarantino’s talent nor artistry, and as for the acting, can I just once and for all ask the cast of “Friends” to please stop making movies already? If you like pointless violence, enjoy making fun of bad movies, or just have a thing for Elvis, you should watch 3000 Miles to Graceland. Also watch it if you need a break from thinking for a while. I have nothing against action films. They can sometimes be entertaining and funny. Too bad for this movie — it’s neither. Archived article by Paula Neudorf