Cup of Coffee: July 23, 2024

Good morning!

Today there are recaps and a couple of minor baseball news items, but the beef of the newsletter is the roughly 3,300 words about the movies “Twister” and “Twisters,” which is longer than some days’ entire newsletters are. So yeah, that’s a thing I did. I’m sorry/you’re welcome, depending on how you roll with this kind of stuff.

And That Happened 

Here are the scores. Here are the highlights:

Yankees 9, Rays 1: The Yankees hit five homers. Juan Soto hit two of ‘em: a solo homer in the seventh and a three-run homer in the eighth. DJ LeMahieu, Austin Wells and Anthony Volpe also homered, putting lie to the notion that the Yankees only have two hitters. At least yesterday. They may very well go back to only having two hitters today, I suppose.

Tigers 8, Guardians 2: Tarik Skubal gave up ten hits yet somehow only allowed one run, so not so much timely hitting by the Cleveland bats. Justyn-Henry Malloy hit a two-run homer for Detroit. Jake Rogers hit a little league two-run home run. Which was actually a triple on which he scored due to a couple of misplays on the same play by Guardians center fielder Ángel Martínez. Cleveland has dropped three straight and has dropped seven of nine. The Tigers have taken four of five from the Guardians.

Mets 6, Marlins 4: Francisco Lindor homered twice, Jeff McNeil also went deep and drove in three, and Jose Iglesias got plunked with the bases loaded to help the Mets earn a split of the four-game series.

Pirates 2, Cardinals 1: Mitch Keller was excellent, allowing one run on six hits over seven and Oneil Cruz and Nick Gonzales each singled in a run. Pittsburgh has won seven of eight. And today is Paul Skenes day!

Reds 4, Atlanta 1: Hunter Greene was fantastic, tossing seven shutout innings and striking out seven. Will Benson homered. Atlanta tried Nacho Alvarez Jr. at second base in place of the injured Ozzie Albies. And he hit second, because it’s been the law in Atlanta for second basemen to hit second since Glen Hubbard roamed the earth. Or at least Jeff Treadway.

Cubs 3, Brewers 1: A bullpen game for the Cubs led to six pitchers allowing one run. Ian Happ homered, Michael Busch singled in a run and Mike Tauchman scored on a wild pitch. Also: Jed Hoyer said “eh, screw 2024” yesterday, so the occasional wins are all Chicago fans will have to look forward to this year.

Royals 10, Diamondbacks 4: Arizona had a 3-1 lead before the Royals scored seven unanswered runs between the third and the sixth. Bobby Witt Jr. homered, tripled, and doubled but couldn’t get that single for the cycle. He was hit by a pitch, though, scored three runs and drove in three so I’d say he still had a nice night even without hitting for the cycle. Sal Perez hit a two-run homer and hit a sac fly for a three-RBI game of his own. Kyle Isbel doubled in a run and singled in another. Cole Ragans got the win while allowing three runs in six innings.

Rangers 4, White Sox 3: A Paul DeJong homer in the top of the ninth gave the Chisox a 3-2 lead but that was the last good thing that happened for ‘em. Texas rallied to score in the bottom of the ninth with a Jonah Heim RBI single tying it and forcing extras. Then in the tenth Wyatt Langford singled home the Manfred Man for the walkoff win. Earlier in the game Marcus Semien and Leody Taveras homered.

Twins 7, Phillies 2: Bailey Ober gave up a two-run homer to Bryce Harper in the first but then he settled down and held the Phillies scoreless for the next six frames. He retired 17 of his last 18 batters, he did, and needed only 83 pitches to do it. Willi Castro had an RBI single in the third and Manny Margot hit the go-ahead two-run single in the fifth. The Twins snap their four-game skid.

Athletics 4, Astros 0: Oakland starter Hogan Harris pitched shutout ball into the seventh, scattering seven hits. He was backed by RBI doubles from Miguel Andújar and JJ Bleday and an RBI single from Max Schuemann. Oakland has won four of five. Good for them.

Rockies 9, Red Sox 8: You don’t see a ton of 12-inning games these days, eh? Boston tied it up in the eighth via a Connor Wong homer, the clubs traded two runs a piece in the 10th and Wilyer Abreu put Boston up by one with an RBI single in the top of the 12th. In the bottom half, however, Colorado plated one on a Jake Cave single/Tyler O’Neill error combo. That error was key in another way too: it allowed Cave to get to second, which later allowed him to get to third where Ezequiel Tovar to singled him in to walk it off for the Rockies. Boston has lost four in a row.

Angels 3, Mariners 1: Bryce Miller did his part, shutting out the Angels for seven innings, but (a) he only got one run of support; and (b) after he left Taylor Ward hit a sac fly to tie things up in the eighth and then some Angels batters walked, Jo Adell hit a single, and some bad Seattle defense let two of ‘em score. M’s hitters also struck out 14 times. May as well have handed the game over on a silver platter. Oh, and afterward they said that J.P. Crawford has a broken finger and is gonna go on the IL. What a night.

Dodgers 3, Giants 2: Tyler Fitzgerald homered for the fourth straight game for the Giants but Teoscar Hernández did it all for L.A.. Hernández went 3-for-4 and drove in all three of the Dodgers runs, with a homer in the fourth, and RBI singles in the sixth and eighth, the latter of which broke a 2-2 tie.

The Daily Briefing

Atlanta signs Whit Merrifield

A day after losing Ozzie Albies to a fractured arm the Atlanta Baseball Club has signed super utilityman Whit Merrifield to a big league contract.

Merrifield, 35, signed a one-year, $8 million deal with the Phillies this past offseason. Philly is on the hook for that; Atlanta will pay him only the prorated portion of the minimum salary for as long as he’s on the club.

The Phillies released Merrifield last week after he hit .199/.277/.295 (46 OPS+) with three home runs and 11 RBI in 174 plate appearances. He was pretty useful for Toronto last year, however, so there’s a chance he could hit better than that I suppose. It would seem that the club is viewing him only as insurance anyway, what with them having called up rookie Nacho Alvarez Jr. yesterday. Figure Alvarez will get every chance to stick in the lineup first and, if he’s overmatched, Merrifield will be around to help out.

Dodgers DFA James Paxton

The Los Angels Dodgers designated starter James Paxton for assignment yesterday.

On the one hand: Paxton has a 4.43 ERA in 89.1 innings, leads the league in walks, and his peripherals suggest that he’s actually worse than those numbers suggest. On the other hand: he’s been healthy and has taken every turn through the rotation this year and that’s not something the Dodgers have had a hell of a lot of. I’d guess that the Dodgers are just over him yet realize that, due to his health and general durability this year, someone may want to acquire him, so maybe L.A. can get some talent back in a trade.

Because it’s a DFA they have ten days to work something out with someone or else they’ll release him.

Some things are better now

I saw this the other day:

I think that the wholesale destruction of the newspaper industry has been disastrous for society in countless ways and I vainly wish there was some way to reverse it, but the disappearance of a once-weekly feature that is about 5% as useful of Baseball-Reference.com, which updates every single day, is not the best evidence to support it. If the kids today had to follow baseball the way I did when I was 12 they’d feel like they were on one of those all-day field trips to those 19th century-style villages historical societies struggle to maintain.

“Pull out your slate for today’s arithmetic lesson, children.”

[collective groan]

“And now get your Wednesday copy of USA Today to see the baseball statistics.”

“But teacher, this only has the American League?”

“The National League is in Thursday’s edition, William. We have to wait for tomorrow for that.”

[louder collective groan]

Other Stuff

Here it is. Delayed a day because of politics, but no worse for wear: more words about the Twister Cinematic Universe than anyone needs.

“Twister” and “Twisters”

Despite the fact that it came out when I was in my early 20s, made a gazillion dollars, and has been a mainstay of basic cable for pushing 30 years now, I had never seen the 1996 movie “Twister.” I didn’t consciously avoid it. I remember when it came out that my then-wife wasn’t too interested and I wasn’t interested enough to make a point to see it, but there are a lot of movies like that which one ends up stumbling upon at one point or another. It was pure dumb luck that i never did, I suppose, because it seems like everyone else I know has seen it 25 times. That changed for me on Thursday night, however, when Allison — who had seen it many times — wanted to watch it again.

I’m not sure I’ve seen a more ridiculous movie in my life. And I don’t mean that negatively for the most part. It was goofy and cheesy and kinda nice-guy-dumb in 100 ways that movies rarely are these days because everything is so much more calculated now than it was then. It’s a big Hollywood blockbuster from a time after studios began to build their whole model around tentpole but before they began to go crazy with exploiting already-owned IP and repacking the same basic movie 50 times, so there’s a certain one-off quaintness to it, even if it was clearly intended to be a cash cow. And yes, they obviously did revive it with the sequel “Twisters” which just opened, but I’ll talk about that later.

I was going to try to write a cogent essay about the silliness that is “Twister” but, like an unstable F1, it just couldn’t hold together. So here are some of my random observations:

• I’m actually shocked I didn’t go see “Twister” at the time because I had a thing for Helen Hunt in the 90s. “Twister” reminded me of a lot of what I liked about her, but it’s also the case that a dumb movie like “Twister” didn’t need someone as good as her in this role;
• It also didn’t need legit great actors like Bill Paxton, Philip Seymour Hoffman, and everyone else in it, but the fact that it had them — and that NONE of them seemed to take things too seriously — is no doubt a huge part of the appeal of “Twister.”
• Hoffman, in particular, was insane. It was like he was in a different movie. Or like he was using this movie to try out stuff for other movies. I wish he had lived for a lot of reasons but one of the top reasons is that I’d like to have seen him on some prestige/Actor’s Studio-type show in his 60s or 70s explaining his method for becoming Dustin Davis.

• Before we talk about the movie more, I need to talk about Jami Gertz. First thing: I ate breakfast next to her once. I was in Los Angeles, I was by myself, and I stopped in some little cafe on Melrose one weekday morning. There was no one in there at all. Gertz came in right after I did and sat down at a table near mine. She was reading a script. She must’ve been a regular in there because the server and her started talking like they’ve known each other forever. The server asked her what she was reading and Gertz said it was just the latest one for “my show.” Then she said something to the effect of “cannot believe I’m doing mom stuff now.” I didn’t realize it at the time, but she was talking about her sitcom “Still Standing.” I’m usually not the sort who talks to celebrities so I didn’t say anything to Gertz, but that might’ve been different if I had seen “Twister,” because that movie raises so many more questions than, say, “Quicksilver” or “Less Than Zero.”
• Also: I’m not sure if I ever knew this, but Gertz is a billionaire. She’s been married to a private equity dude named Tony Ressler for 35 years. They are part-owners of the Milwaukee Brewers and controlling owners of the Atlanta Hawks. When I read that over the weekend I thought to myself that if I had married a billionaire when I was 24 I’d probably just retire, so kudos to her for not just doing “Twister” but committing the Oklahoma accent and all that. Demerits, though, for “Still Standing.” I tend to think that the death spiral of America began in the wake of 9/11, but I think that rash of sitcoms from around that time in which a smart beautiful woman was paired with a big, dumb schlubby husband and zaniness ensured contributed to it;
• OK, back to the movie;
• There are a lot of articles and stuff setting forth the whole lore and history of how “Twister” came to be and how it was made and stuff, but I’m choosing to believe that they’re all lying about that and that it all came down to a genius elevator pitch: “So, it’s ‘Jaws’ but it’s also a romcom, and it has lots of car chases!” Really, I would 100% believe that someone just said and then some coked-out studio exec said “GREENLIGHT THAT BABY! AND HIRE THE GUY WHO DIRECTED ‘SPEED’ TO MAKE IT!”
• After I watched the movie I read some trivia about it. My favorite item was this: "It was Steven Spielberg's idea to kill off the father in the opening scene. Originally he would have survived but it was decided his death would establish how dangerous tornadoes can be." I love the fact that not only does Spielberg make damn sure to put dead/neglectful/absentee fathers in almost all of his own movies but he makes sure to do it even in ones for which he only has a producer credit too;
• For as quintessentially 90s as “Twister” is, it has a LOT of 1980s movie DNA. And in this I’m not just talking about Jami Gertz’s hairdo. Early on Paxton explains Cary Elwes’ evil storm chaser character to Gertz by saying “He went out and got himself SOME CORPORATE SPONSORS. He’s in it for the MONEY not the SCIENCE.” That could’ve been any 80s movie teenager talking about the bad preppy guy before the big swim meet/ski race/karate tournament. Which, now that I think about it, makes me wish they had cast Elwes character with Billy Zabka;
• Also: evil storm chasers? What? The idea of an “evil” storm chaser is positively hilarious;
• The best part of the evil storm chasers was that they totally forgot about them midway through the movie. Like, they disappear for an hour or maybe more. Then, when they come back, they just throw some big metal thing at them and kill them. Which seems harsh, but remember, in the 1990s nothing was worse than selling out — being about the money, not the [whatever]! — so it likely seemed justified to contemporary audiences. Really, though, it would’ve been more subtle if they had simply put words up on the screen saying “we really didn’t know what to do with these characters after the first act, but Elwes’ deal would’ve made it really expensive for us if we cut his scenes, so after we realized there was already plenty going on with this movie we figured it’d be easier just to kill them. Just go with it, OK?”
• For various reasons, including my dad being a weatherman, I actually know a fair amount about tornados. Because of this, early on in the movie I began thinking of what was and was not realistic. I gave this analysis up about 11 seconds into the first tornado, though, because I realized no one cared and it was hopeless. Which, to be fair, probably made for a way better movie. With sci-fi or disaster flicks or whatever, you have two choices: adhere to a scientific accuracy or fuckin’ forget it and just go crazy. You CANNOT get caught in the no-man’s land in between. The folks behind “Twister” made their choice — to go fuckin’ crazy — and I respect that;
• That said, when the storm chasers briefly stop chasing storms because “oh no, we gotta go save the town” or whatever, all I could think was “how is this their job?” Why, in the “Twister” universe, are weirdo storm chasers the first responders? They did the same thing thing in “Twisters” to some extent, but at least they showed a few more actual firefighters and police officers and stuff in the new one. You could sideline first responders in the 90s, but don’t you DARE do it in post-9/11 America or you become a Fox News segment;
• For as crazy, exciting, and ridiculous all the storms and car chases are, the most over-the-top scene in the movie is when they go to Aunt Meg’s house, unannounced, and make a giant steak, eggs, mashed potatoes, and gravy breakfast:

• No one called ahead, but Meg, an older woman who lives alone, had like 11 thawed ribeyes, at least two dozen eggs, and a sack of potatoes at the ready. I’ve mentally retconned a scene which took place just before the movie got going in which Helen Hunt does indeed call Aunt Meg and says that she and her tornado-chasing buddies would be stopping by for breakfast the next morning so have a lot of food on hand, but still, she had two extra thawed steaks for the unexpected Paxton and Gertz. I’d say that Aunt Meg was the most prepared woman around, but she sure as shit got caught with her pants down when the tornado flattened her house;
• While I noted above that I decided to just go with all of the non-scientifically accurate stuff in this movie, I really do hope people who find themselves near tornados understand that they’re far more likely to be injured by smaller projectiles — rocks, sticks, wood beams or planks from destroyed buildings, nails, broken glass — than, say, flying oil tanker trucks. It’s truly rare for a tornado to throw a full-ass oil tanker at you. But if that does happen, be sure to duck and cover.

I could probably go on for 100 more bullet points here, but I’ll spare you. Mostly because I need to now explain that, one night after watching “Twister,” Allison and I went to see the sequel, “Twisters” and I have a few observations about that one too. I don’t think one can actually spoil a movie like “Twisters,” but if you’re super sensitive to that kind of thing you may wanna skip this part.

• When we were in London last month Allison and a friend of hers went to a charity event at a movie theater in which they showed all of the episodes of the miniseries “Normal People.” The event was hosted by its stars, Paul Mescal and Daisy Edgar-Jones. Andrew Scott, Mescal’s costar in “All of us Strangers” was there too for some reason, though that was a surprise. Anyway, Allison loved “Normal People” and loves Mescal so the chance to meet and talk to him was the real impetus there. I didn’t go, but if it had happened after I saw “Twisters” I totally would’ve because I’d monopolize the whole event asking Edgar-Jones, who plays, roughly, the Bill Paxton part in “Twisters,” questions about tornados;
• Actually, it’s probably best that it didn’t go down like that because the question I’d most want to ask — “it seems like you gave up on trying to do an Oklahoma accent midway through the film. Can you talk more about that?” — might’ve come off as rude;
• I generally like Glen Powell — who plays, roughly, the Helen Hunt part — but I think it was wrong for Congress to pass the Glen Powell Must Be In Every Single Movie From Now On Act back in 2022. Just seems like overreach;
• The people behind “Twisters” were smart about one thing: they basically followed all the same beats as the original movie. Yes, the characters are totally different — and apart from one little thing at the beginning that doesn’t really matter there are no common elements in the movies whatsoever and no acknowledgment of the people or events of the first movie at all — but the overall pattern is the same. Expert tornado whisperer is reluctantly drawn back into chasing. There’s a wild, by-the-seat-of-their-pants chase team. There’s some sorta crazy experiment the chasers wanna try out on real tornados IF THEY CAN JUST GET CLOSE ENOUGH. Some evil storm chasers complicate the process. A Big Bad Tornado shows up at the end. Like, you could screen them side-by-side and match the broad strokes. Which, hey, if it ain’t broke, don’t fix it;
• Actually, there are two common elements, and one is even less essential than the thing at the beginning. There’s a scene in “Twister” where, for a few seconds, a young boy is seen wearing a red t-shirt that says “baseball” on it. I noticed it on Thursday night because it was hilariously generic. No teams, even fake ones. Just the word “baseball” on it. You’ll understand, then, that I was overjoyed when I noticed Edgar wearing the same damn shirt for a short while in the new movie. Of all the things to pay an homage to from the first movie it’s the “baseball” shirt. It was like an Easter egg placed there just for me;
• OK, one more common thing: there’s a character in the movie who, like Jami Gertz in the first one, exists primarily for purposes of exposition. They don’t know anything about tornados so they provide the excuse for the knowledgable characters to explain things out loud that they’d never have reason to say to each other since they all know it. Over the past couple of years I’ve become sort of obsessed with the formal mechanisms of exposition in movies. I notice it all the time now, and once you start noticing it you can’t not notice it. Most of it’s pretty bad. Like, a common means of exposition is for characters who are friends to say things like “remember the time you ____” and the other friend finishes the story, with complete detail, in a way that two people who did something together don’t ever do or have to do. Twister’s method — bringing in an ignorant character the experts can explain things to as an audience surrogate — is pretty common in sci-fi/action films but they do a pretty good job with it in both “Twister” movies. Kudos;
• Oh wait, one more: Dodge trucks. I’d love to know how much Chrysler paid for the product placement but whatever it was it was a good deal. Both the old movie and the new one serves as a cool as hell two-hour commercial for Dodge Rams looking absolutely badass and indestructible. If there isn’t a 3500 Twister Edition available at your local Dodge dealer soon, they’ve really missed a great opportunity;
• It was probably smart not to reference the old movie much but I do with they had brought Helen Hunt back as a third act surprise, with her character being like Quint in “Jaws.” Instead of the U.S.S. Indianapolis speech she could talk about the big bad F5 which killed Bill Paxton a few years back. Of course that would remind us that Bill Paxton is dead and that one still bums me out, so I get why they didn’t go in that direction. Of course they could’ve found some cut footage from the original and turned him and Hoffman into force ghosts or something;
• Bill Paxton’s son does have a small part in “Twisters,” though, so that was nice;
• Though there are common beats, “Twisters” lacks the inherent ridiculousness of the first one in some ways. It’s not totally absent — the introduction of Glen Powell and his team is pretty over-the-top and rather hilarious — but none of the actors are full-on gonzo like Philip Seymour-Hoffman was in the original. And there are like one too many scenes of quiet, sorta sad contemplation in between the big tornados. The first “Twister” has a bare minimum of that stuff and just gets on with it. The pacing in the older movie is better as a result.
• I’ll also say that, while the special effects in “Twisters” are obviously way better than in the original, the realism of it sort of takes you out of the insane headspace you need to be in to enjoy Twister Cinematic Universe. Like, sure, the tornados are scarier, but (a) they don’t seem to turn with purpose and malice, like they personally have it in for the storm chasers, as they did in the first one; and (b) there are no flying cows. Yeah, I’ll say it. I missed the flying cows;
• The National Weather Service logo is seen here, as is an extremely unrealistic NWS office, which is in midtown Manhattan for some reason (note: there is not a NWS field office in midtown Manhattan because that would make no sense). So the NWS had to have had at least some involvement with this movie. Yet in this movie, like in the original, there is a scene where a town is destroyed because “they had no warning.” I’m kinda surprised that the agency whose most important job is to warn people of severe weather was cool with that. I dunno, maybe they considered “Twisters” being a bit more scientifically accurate than the first one was worth it;
• Indeed, there were multiple scenes in “Twisters” where the peril is a direct result of masses of people at outdoor events in the middle of what is frequently referred to as the worst tornado outbreak on record. Like, even if you don’t see one, you can see the storm systems and you know that it’s tornado crazy time. Yet these people are cramming into outdoor rodeos and shockingly well-attended little league games as scary-ass storms loom nearby. I get that you have to raise the stakes and provide some folks that the storm can kill who aren’t the stars of the movie, but I do not think that people who actually live in tornado alley are really that reckless. They wouldn’t freak out because they’ve been through this stuff before, but I feel like they’d call off the rodeo and the ballgame a little before the funnel cloud was literally 500 yards away, which is what happens here.

At this point I’m starting to nitpick points of realism and, as I said above, that’s probably a mistake in a movie like this. Do know that I didn’t do that in real time while watching it. I just sorta went with it like I did the first movie and found it to be generally enjoyable even if it’s really dumb. But, again, it’s dumb in a mostly good way. Dumb like a big dumb dog you just wanna play with and pet and stuff. You could do way worse with a mindless popcorn movie.

But I think I’m good now. I really don’t need to see another tornado movie again. Unless it’s “Take Shelter” anyway. That movie rules.

I closed with this song because there is a brief scene in “Twisters” where some storm chasers, killing time around a campfire or whatever, are playing acoustic guitars and singing it. The whole “Shoot Out The Lights” album is a damn jam, obviously, so I didn’t really need the excuse, but I’m glad I had the excuse.

Have a great day everyone.

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