GOLDEN OLDIE 10: The Hunt for Red October

 

 You tend to forget just how good Sean Connery was.  As the first James Bond he set a mark that has never been approached, in my opinion.  He acted in many other movies, some quite popular, and no one, not even our supercilious film critics, ever could detect even a miniscule flaw.  As Harrison Ford’s dad in one of the Indiana Jones movies he all but stole the show.  So, I’m a fan, and I like his role as the defecting Soviet submarine captain in The Hunt for Red October best.  He is simply magnificent.

You know the story, because you saw the film 31 years ago.  I hope you saw it in a theatre with a good sound system, because the Russian men’s chorus providing background music at crucial intervals is wonderful.  There are excellent performances by quite a few well-known actors (Alec Baldwin, Scott Glenn, James Earl Jones, Sam Neill, and others) but the movie totally belongs to Connery.  See it when you have several hours to kill, and don’t expect to “finish it in the morning”.  It is far too exciting to let you sleep!  A-

 

GO9: Moneyball

Well, so I lied.  I warned you that my next four Golden Oldies would be sport-related, but I also said that three of them would star Kevin Costner.  Well, that part is wrong.  The movie here is Moneyball, and it stars somebody even better looking (and perhaps even richer) than Costner – Brad Pitt.  It was released ten years ago and, wonder of wonders, the critics liked it.  It relates the semi-factual story of Billy Bean, general manager of the Oakland A’s baseball and his inspired efforts to take his chronically impoverished baseball team to the top of the heap.  He did so by adopting a novel approach to assembling players, involving statistics (baseball fans will recognize this as sabermetrics), rather than the hunches of a bunch of good-old-boy scouts.  Billy hasn’t quite succeeded (“in winning the last game of the season”), but he has made progress.  I root for him.

It’s funny how baseball sagas so greatly dominate the category of sporting movies, considering how slow and boring real baseball tends to be.  How many good football movies can you name (The Replacements, for one)?  Golf?  Tennis?  Maybe, because baseball is so slow and tends to be dominated by arcane strategy, it lends itself to human-interest-type drama. But anyway, you might find that Moneyball is a reasonable good, and totally harmless, way to waste a little time.  C+

 

GO8: Chariots of Fire

 

This is my favorite sports movie of all time, by a huge margin.  If you haven’t seen it, you are in for a great treat! 

Chariots of Fire is the almost-factual history of the Brit involvement in the 1924 Olympics.  (With embellishments: The director is quoted  as saying “never let facts get in the way of a good story”).  The principals are two sprinters,  Harold Abrahams and Eric Liddell, respectively a viscerally driven Jew and an incredibly pious Christian missionary.  Both guys are legitimate: Liddell won the Olympic 400 and placed third in the 200, and Abrahams won the 100.  Not so authentic is the contribution of _Lord Andrew Lindsay" who, in the movie, is instrumental in getting Liddell a shot at the 400.  Actually, the character of Lindsay is based somewhat loosely on the career of David Cecil, 6^th Marquess of Exeter, who in fact did compete in the 1924 Olympics as a hurdler, but failed to place.   (Happy to relate, in subsequent Olympics Cecil did win several medals.)  Finally, the scene wherein Abrahams successfully challenges for the Caius College run is non-factual; Cecil accomplished it several years later and his run has never since been duplicated!

 The two Americans who appear in bit parts are real:  Charlie Paddock and Jackson Schultz were leading sprinters of the day, with Paddock holding the world record of 10.4 for 100m. 

Finally, even if you aren’t a track and field fanatic, as I tend to be, you will enjoy this movie for the love stuff, the scenery, and the Cambridge ambiance.  Be sure to look it up.  It is free on Amazon Prime for the time being.  A    

MUSINGS ON FLAT SLAB SUBDUCTION

 

More antique musings: 

What is this thing we call subduction?  Well, at its simplest, subduction arises because what we call the lithosphere becomes “negatively buoyant”. That is a fancy way of saying that it becomes more dense than the stuff it has been ‘floating” on, hence sinks under its own weight.  Such action actually will pull a plate along; in other words, it is a positive driving force.  Subduction zones bordering the northern and western Pacific basin are examples of this kind of behavior. 

So, then, why does an oceanic plate become negatively buoyant?  Cooling, that’s why.  When such a plate-edge is created at a spreading center it is thin and hot.  As such its overall density is lower than that of the stuff it over-rides, hence is buoyant – it “floats”.  However, as it ages it cools and becomes negatively buoyant – that is, it wants to sink.  Voila!  Subduction!

So why, then, are there situations in which the subducting slab is essentially plastered along the base of the over-riding plate – known as flat-slab subduction (FSS).  This condition generally arises in circumstances in which the over-riding plate is advancing rapidly toward the spreading center, thus narrowing the subducting oceanic plate and assuring that it will be forced down, regardless of its buoyancy.  In effect the over-riding plate forceably shoves the subducting plate below.  This situation naturally constitutes a negative driving force for both plates involved.  The Nazca plate grinding its way beneath the central Andes often is cited as an example.

Another way that FSS can come into play is the arrival at the trench of a thickened, relatively cool chunk of stuff – what we have come to regard as a terrane.  This can cause at least a temporary reduction in subduction angle – and may result in an “outboard leap” of the subduction zone itself.

So, who cares?  Well, FSS has been proposed by many – especially by Bill Dickinson and acolytes – as the reason we have the Rocky Mountains.  I have always been skeptical of this, mainly because I was puzzled by the reason for the subduction angle to shallow so abruptly at just the right time.  Now, maybe, I can convince myself that the arrival of the Stikinia at the trench was the culprit.  But I am still skeptical.

GOLDEN OLDIES 7: For love of the game.

 

Warning:  For lack of anything useful to do in the geology line, and in view of the fact that it is too gloomy outside to do much of anything there, I plan to while away a few hours doing Golden Oldie reviews – and the next four of them will be sports related and, moreover, all but one star the same guy.  So, if you are bored by sports and/or are put off by Kevin Costner, go read something, play cards, or enjoy a good nap – because, here goes. . .

Of the three Costner baseball movies I think I like For Love of the Game best.  It has a nice love story, some wholesome family stuff – and some seriously captivating baseball.  Moreover, these disparate elements are artfully interwoven (think: flashbacks) to tell a tale that, although totally predictable, sucks you in all the same.  Costner is spot on as an aging ace pitcher, John C. Reilly is excellent as his catcher, and Kelly Preston is appealing as the inevitable love interest.  The movie was directed by Sam Raimi and released in 1999 – to a chorus of boos and rotten eggs from the critics.   However, as I frequently say – what do they know?  Critics go to theaters to see films with vital social content presented as art, whereas I go to the movie to see pictures that are fun to watch.  Big difference, if you think about it.

Also, I don’t get why so many people dislike Costner.  Sure, he’s rich and famous and, as an actor not in the same league as, say, Tom Hanks or Russell Crow, let alone Marlon Brando,  As an actor he is, shall we say, adequate .  But as a presence he has few equals.  If you were bullied in high school (I was not), Costner is the kind of guy you would have wanted as a best friend.

So ignore Roger Ebert and see this movie, again.  B+

 

GOLDEN OLDIE 6: Amadeus

 

Well, my first priceless piece of advice is to view this movie using the best sound system available – because the real star of the show, of course, is the music of Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart. 

Amadeus was directed by Milos Forman and released in 1984.  It “stars” Tom Hulce (whom I found quite annoying), F. Murray Abraham (wonderful; got an Oscar} and Elizabeth Berridge (cute, and quite competent) - and some damned fine sets and, of course, music.  As history the film isn’t much; for instance, Saliere (played by Abraham) apparently was no mediocrity but rather a highly respected composer whose operas are sometimes performed even today.  Sure, as a contemporary, Saliere was a rival of Mozart and, unless he was a saint, must have been jealous of him (who wouldn’t have been?), but there seems to be no evidence that he did the great man in.  Nevertheless, the rivalry and associated skullduggery makes for a gripping story line.

So, like I said:  Find a “device” with excellent sound, then enjoy this blast from the past for the magnificent acting of Abraham, the striking scenes of old Vienna – and, of course, the music of Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart.  A-

golden oldie 5: A River Runs Through It

 

I announce the grade (A) right up front, and will brook no back talk!  As a movie this may not be so hot, although at the very least it is pretty damned good, but as a story it, as they used to say, takes the cake.  The movie, directed by Robert Redford, is based on a book of the same name, written by Norman Maclean, a University of Chicago literature professor.  Maclean published the book in 1976, when he was 74 years old.  As far as I can ascertain, it was his first book – he published two others subsequently, neither nearly so good but certainly worth reading just the same..

In my admittedly unsophisticated opinion, A River Runs Through it is one of the finest pieces of writing ever to grace the English language.  I must have read it a half-dozen times, and each time as I finish I experience a strong gush of salt water rolling down my cheeks.  At one point I wrote a letter too Maclean, taking him to task for waiting until he was such an old fart before sharing his life and thoughts with the rest of us.  Naturally, I tore it up.

But this is about the movie.  You probably know most of the plot.  It is based rather loosely on Maclean’s real life as a kid and avid fly fisherman in western Montana.  All of the principals are excellent, especially the pair playing Norman’s father and mother.  Brad Pitt does a fine job as Norman’s reckless, doomed younger brother.  The fly-fishing sequences are beautiful; awe-inspiring to a none-to-skillful fly caster like myself.  The film certainly is sad, but ultimately uplifting in a strange, inexplicable sort of way.  If you can watch it and not cry at the end, your heart is indeed constructed of well-compacted quartz-rich terrestrially derived stone!

You’ve probably seen A River Runs Through It at least once already.  See it again.  Have some tissue handy.

MUSINGS ON TECTONIC ROTATIONS

 I wasted an annoyingly large amount of time searching for a suitable diagram illustrating geological block rotations (in the horizontal plane, natch.)  Finally I gave up and resorted to this picture of an honest paleomagician plying his trade - no doubt uncovering more evidence of Cordilleran clockwise rotation.  This almost could be me - except for the color of the notebook and the abundance of hair peeking out from under the cap.

Must I always repeat myself?  These are the musings of a guy who has been out of the game for ~30 years, so if you want to take them seriously, fine.  But be warned.

The topic is tectonic rotations; specifically, rotations with respect to the North American craton.  Having just moved to a nice but smallish retirement apartment, I seem to have lost my access to raw data, so everything I say here will be highly generalized and unsupported by citable fact.  Nevertheless, as one of the people who first attempted to apply paleomagnetism to regional tectonic analysis, I think I am entitled to sound off.  So here goes:

Considering late Cretaceous – early Tertiary rock units currently lodged upon the western margin of North America, rotations (as defined above) are ubiquitous and overwhelmingly clockwise.  Documented rotations range in magnitude from just a few degrees to nearly 90 degrees.  In a vague – very vague – sort of way, rotation magnitudes increase with age and with proximity to the present continental margin.  Some rotated blocks (from paleomagnetic evidence) are associated with large northward displacements, whereas others are not.  So, the question:  How come?

Well, I can think of three - maybe four* – “driving mechanisms”.  The first involves northward displacement (relative to interior, stable, North America, always remember).  As first conceived, the Baja BC story involved northward displacement along the continental margin.  At present that continental margin very roughly approximates a small circle** about the pole of relative rotation between North America and the Pacific plate.  Any crustal block travelling along that path would pick up a small degree of clockwise relative rotation; the further the latitudinal displacement, the greater the rotation.  This mechanism probably is a minor contributing factor. 

A more important element in the rotation story concerns large scale, coherent block rotation.  For instance, many years ago Jim Magill and Allan Cox noted that extension in the Basin and Range province is not consistent throughout but rather increases toward the south.  This would have the effect of imparting a clockwise rotation to the entire terrain located west of the B & R.  Note that the rotation so constructed would be the same everywhere for rocks older than the B & R activity.

Finally, we come to my baby, clockwise rotation of small blocks caught up in a wide dextral shear zone – caused by right-oblique interaction between NA and neighboring oceanic plates to the west.  This has been identified as the “ball bearing” model, made famous (once upon a time) by some clever remarks attributed to Allan Cox.  If this idea is dominant there would be little consistency between neighboring rotation values, although of course there might exist a vague correlation between rotation amounts and either age of the rotated block, its northward displacement, or how close it lies to the continental margin.

In other words, the Beck’s Ball Bearings model predicts near total chaos.  That’s what I seem to remember.  Wish I still had my tables!

So, that probably muddies the waters enough for now.  Thank goodness there are young bucks like Ray Wells to  to sort it all this stuff out!***

* Some rotations may be attributed to the path followed by an exotic terrane before it docked.  Probably older rocks, no prediction possible at present.

** This is your chance to put your Wikipedia skills to use.

***But what’s this I hear?  Ray Wells, retired?  Oh Lord almighty!

 

GOLDEN OLDIE 4: American Graffiti

 

Well, this particular Golden Oldie  turned out to be a bit of a disappointment for me.  It was directed and probably totally hatched by George Lucas, who later attained fame and huge fortune by means of the Star Wars series.  It appears that Lucas grew up Modesto, California in the 60s.  Modesto is a modest sized city in what is known to Californians as the Central Valley.  At the time portrayed in this movie, Modesto must have been fully invested in extreme teen-age car–culture:  Mel’s Drive-in, car hops on roller skates, “dragging the main”, serious and dangerous races between souped-up hot rods, and many other examples of irrational adolescent behavior.  If you like this movie it probably will be for the flashy cars (now they would be worth a fortune!), early classical rock music, references to Wolf Man Jack, and for glimpses of the beginnings of such latter day film stars such as Richard Dreyfuss, Ron Howard, Harrison Ford - and even a tiny sighting of Suzanne Somers.  Several others of the cast went on to have movie careers, whereas other important cast members seem to have flamed out entirely. 

The plot?  Really, there isn’t one as far as I can tell. Just kids having fun, experiencing joy and heartache, and getting into a lot of trouble.

 So, if you like this movie, it probably will be for the cars, the kids, and the music.  It came out in 1973, nearly fifty years ago.  I think I liked it then; maybe in the ensuing 50 years I became an old grouch.  But maybe it’s simple jealousy.  After all, I grew up in Beaumont, California.  We didn’t have a drive-in, there was no “main” to drag, and I drove a battered 1936 Hudson that was zero to sixty in about ten minutes!  C+

 

GOLDEN OLDIE 3: The Big Year

So maybe I just don’t have particularly refined tastes, but it happens that this silly thing is one of my absolutely favorite movies; I’ve seen it at least four times already.  (Others of my favorites include such serious human dramas as Gross Pointe Blank and Major League; this should give you an idea of where I log in on the culture scale.  But then I did like Casablanca.  But then, who didn’t?).

 Okay,  Big Year is a hilarious story based loosely – very loosely - on fact.  It relates the doings of three totally obsessed birders, competing ruthlessly to see which of them can identify (see and/or hear) the most North American bird species in a single calendar year.   (This is a real activity; people do it).  The movie stars three of the funniest guys on the current film scene: Jack Black, Owen Wilson, and Steve Martin, with a couple of great vignettes by Anjelica Huston.  And it has a narrator – John Cleese – whose “explanations” alone make you laugh.  The Big Year came out in 2011; if you missed it then, hunt it down and view it now.  It’s a good antidote to the current news,  A-  

HUMANITY BITES THE DUST

                               Note in particular, pestilence

Pestilence, I believe, is one of the Four Horsemen if the Apocalypse.  Then, again, most religious depictions of the end of the world (actually, the end of we human vermin that inhabit it) invoke fire, sword, brimstone, etc.; combat, in other words.  On the other hand, history and paleontology provide many examples of one species suffering exterminated by another.  For instance, we Homo sapiens exterminated the passenger pigeon and nearly did in the buffalo in just a couple of centuries.  There are hundrads of similar examples, if you care to look for them.

So, with tongue only partly in cheek, I sometimes wonder:  did Providence send the corona virus to erase humanity and allow some other species – crows, for instance – to inherit the earth?  Due in large part to stupidity and endemic human cussedness, at this point in time we are barely holding our own against the corona virus, our enemy of the moment.  Covid seems to toss up mutations with dreadful abandon; what if it tosses up a variant that spreads easily, is deadly, and is proof against our vaccines.  Is this impossible?  I don’t think so.

Maybe, then, we ought to get our collective asses in gear and exterminate this bugger, before it does the same to us.  We know how to do it, but will we?  I’m honestly skeptical.