Squid and Whale - Motown to Park Slope

The Dodger(s) neither confirm or deny connections with Michigan or Brooklyn.

There's nothing in the record to connect the Dodger(s) identity with an interest in writing about the premier Michigan actor, Jeff Daniels, appearing in a movie about growing up in Brooklyn.

[The Dodger(s) note that Laura Linney's father was first named Romulus [some say the founders of Rome were brothers, Romulus and Metro Airport], and that New Zealander Anna Paquin attended Columbia, which would place her in New York city, if not Brooklyn. Jeff Daniels apparently grew up in Chelsea (which is just west of Ann Arbor, and well within its gravitational field). Laura Linney went to Brown.]

That said, the Dodger(s) is prompted to blog on the movie, having seen it. The Dodger(s) wonders if critics see a movie twice, just to make sure they get all the details, or whether critics just let it rip.

The problem with "true to life" is that life doesn't usually contain the intensity to justify paying attention to the art. Where the characters are realistic - and appear as real people - then something has to happen in the story to transcend looking at surveillance tapes. This movie is so true, and the actors are so not made up to look as extraordinary as they must be in real life, and there's no tragedy or melodrama, no blood or guts, that the Dodger(s) left the theatre with just an image of Brooklyn.

The most poignant of cultural issues is that Park Slope is portrayed as upscale, and Flatbush is downscale in the movie, set in 1980's. The Jeff Bridges character moves from the brownstone in Park Slope out to Stratford Road, out by Newkirk Avenue [based on subway shots.] Back in the day, 1962, that was the border of Midwood and Erasmus, way upscale compared to where Park Slope kds would have gone. Would they go to John Jay [a rename for Manual Training]?

What school are these kids going to from Park Slope? There's some dialogue suggesting a public school. But the interactions suggest a private school.

Finally, the Jeff Bridges character suffers an apparent heart attack in late afternnon in Park Slope. Probably for production reasons, they didn't get the shot done until after dark, when the ambulance takes him away. That's a continuity problem. There are some hospital shots, but then an exterior shot of the Klingenstien Pavilion, which is at Mount Sinai, east side, 100th street. Then, the older kid ducks out on the JB character, and shows at the Museum of Natural History, which is west side in the '90's.

Basically, a movie to see, but not to tear your heart out.