Buffa’s Buffet, Vol. 107: Why Guy Ritchie knows how to employ Henry Cavill the best

Everything on my mind that is fit to write without offending too much.

Certain directors just get certain actors, as in how to use or employ them on film. It’s a shorthand on set, but the collaboration is more marked by an understanding of a skill set and what can or can’t be done.

Tony Scott knew exactly how to use Denzel Washington. Antoine Fuqua does as well. Quentin Tarantino doesn’t need to give Samuel L. Jackson any extra notes, and I would imagine Martin Scorsese has a telepathic speed dial in play with both Robert De Niro and Leonardo DiCaprio.

Guy Ritchie built that with Jason Statham over decades, but he’s starting to compile something with Henry Cavill. The latter is most famous for playing an alien who crash lands to Earth with special powers that will only get him in trouble with humans. The problem is that Cavill is so much more than a stoic superhero with extra large shoulder muscles.

Ritchie’s Man from U.N.C.L.E. showcased a suave, charismatic, and still physically adept Cavill as a British spy being forced to work with a Russian KGB operative to save the world and all that repetitive jazz. Cavill was so good, he made Armie Hammer tolerable. The movie wasn’t beloved by critics, but some may have thought it was too slick for its own good.

Cavill was the takeaway there, along with a beginning to find himself again Hugh Grant and a devilishly alluring Alicia Vikander. But there was a big, awkward Superman with an extra wide suit and a few servings of debonair, slinging dialogue like he was reading a Tarantino play based in London. Ritchie has explored the Q.T. depths since his entertaining Snatch borrowed a few beats from Reservoir Dogs and Pulp Fiction. And it’s fine, because art is a form that gathers influence and takes many shapes.

Decades later, Ritchie has refined his craft and cinema world, all while expanding it. Cavill has been a welcome adoptee. It’s almost as if the filmmaker, like the rest of the free world, is dying to see the actor play James Bond. Since that role is tied up or deemed too young for Cavill to play, Ritchie keeps thinking of new ways to put his effortless portrayal of that aesthetic on display with a new kink to it.

Cavill, an actor who gets passionate and very much into his roles, looks like he’s having the time of his life sticking his tongue out like Jordan as he ices a punch of Nazis for the British alliance during World War II. The beard is twirly and thick, and there’s a boyish brand of ruthlessness to his destruction of the German army that the rest of the world came together to take down.

In a nutshell, Cavill is a free wheeling performer under the vision of Ritchie. A partnership cozy enough that they are scheduled to work together in an untitled project with Jake Gyllenhaal (whom Ritchie directed in last year’s engrossing The Covenant) where the two play extraction specialists. It seems like actors want to work with Ritchie, because his sets sound like fun and the movies are a breeze. Having more fun makes life more tolerable.

On this, Henry and I agree. We’d also agree on not doing it all for free, which is why the free preview portion of this latest batch of commentary is over and the paid subscriber buffet begins.

Cardinals fans on social media don’t like fun or making things tolerable. Chaos is the drug, and any additional move made after January 31 isn’t the right one. They got this reliever, but is he one of the three discussed in the Rosenthal tweet?

Last night, they acquired Keynan Middleton, a reliever coming off his best year whose age of 30 will somehow be used as a detriment. While his walks are a problem at 4.4 per nine innings, Middleton averaged 14 strikeouts per nine.

Fans: Well, why isn’t it 50 per nine innings?!

Since teams were able to acquire players, John Mozeliak and company have been busy. Lance Lynn and Kyle Gibson each carry a healthy amount of risk, at least for a one year flier. But the team signed Sonny Gray, a proven top of the rotation talent, and social media sports fans claim he isn’t an ace.

My question: how many aces did you see on the market? Jordan Montgomery only tapped into ace mode this past summer with Texas. Blake Snell may be an ace one year, but not the next? You’d have to ask a groundhog or the moon which shade of Snell is showing this season. Unless you can spend or deal prospects like the Dodgers (I often wonder if they’re secretly kidnapping and storing all these pitching prospects somewhere), there’s no reaching for guys like Shohei.

St. Louis weighs the pros and cons of acquiring Monty every day he is on the market. Do they go all in and try for a whopping 90 wins and a pass to the postseason, only to lose it in one bad wildcard series potentially? Yes, you can win a division and still play in a stupid wildcard elimination three game series.

My advice: Turn on some good music and start trusting this roster, because I don’t think another big move is happening. But here’s what they’ve loaded up with since the end of October: Lynn, Gibson, Gray, Andrew Kittredge, Middleton, and a few other arms that will ensure this team doesn’t have to walk out into the cold air of a heart pounding first couple months to look for pitching help. They were stranded last year, so it’s an improvement that’s pending for a higher grade on performance.

If they perform, the wins will come. Same as it ever was, and forever will be. A team makes or doesnt make moves, and they hope those decisions lead to more wins. The Cardinals could still shock me, and acquire something more than Gray and company, but they’re most likely done and ready to contend.

The Blues may not be done contending this season. Due to an outburst of great play from embattled defenseman Colton Parayko and the elevated work of Robert Thomas, the Blues are putting things together. Jordan Binnington is still carrying the team, and that’s the bigger, underlying reason for the record.

But the big leaps have to be taken with a grain of “how in the world do you lose to that team” salt, as in how does the team suffer that loss to Columbus before the ten day break after a five game win streak?

If they hadn’t wasted so much time being bad or average for months, losses like that don’t sting. But every point will be required to shove a path through February and March that ends up with playoff hockey downtown. One would think that they could play their worst, and win 1-0. The fact that they couldn’t score a damn goal on home ice is embarrassing. I’m still in Jim Mora mode when it comes to this team and a playoff run.

And, don’t sell me on holding onto the big Canadian due to his bounce back season. Don’t be as soft as he is in front of the net, people. Parayko is premium trade bait. Trade high and clear the space to add a proven blue line who doesn’t have “if” anywhere near his talent or future.

Brandon Lee would have been 59 this week. The son of Bruce who was carving out a nice start to a potentially long career before an onset accident on The Crow cost him his life. The fragment that tore right through Lee also short circuited a promising young action star.

It’s a little different than the losses of Heath Ledger and Philip Seymour Hoffman, wonderful talents who abused drugs and lost their lives. Hoffman was a heroin addict who relapsed, while Ledger got really stupid with prescription medication. Lee was in prime condition and operating on a top level when a terrible accident occurred. It’s a different form of tragedy, one that safety guidelines could have helped… maybe.

Every year I collect here shouldn’t be taken for granted. The rise and grind of the day job doesn’t deter from me feeling satisfied that I have a gig and I’m fucking alive. Taking it for granted is as easy as getting wet in a shower. Today, I turn 42 years of age.

I gotta admit something. It’s weird to not only be 40 but paving the road in my 40s towards the big plateau. Thinking about it, I’m about halfway done or somewhere around there. Fitness and health at their best, we’re all on borrowed time after a certain age. Seeing actors that never saw 30 like Lee and Ledger, as well as a guy like Hoffman (who died ten years ago Friday) never reaching 50, makes me feel thankful for still being around to mess with tomorrow and plan for the day after.

Final Ruminations: a batch of smaller opinions or ideas in a rapid fire, no order blitz.

~Taylor Swift being presented as a Trojan horse in an election is something only the followers of an asshat as big as Donald Trump can believe. It’s so, so stupid. Think wiser, even if we share terrain with these wireless thinkers. She’s climbed inside so many mansplaining skulls that they should consider a group rate for her rent check.

~Nothing can stop the Kansas City Chiefs. Sorry, 49ers fans. You only got there because Detroit shit the bed. Patrick Mahomes and company got by Baltimore, and they’ll overcome some minimal aggression to take down their third championship next weekend. Get on a side, and pick it firmly. No one likes an indecisive soul.

~Being a part time film critic has its virtues. While the hunger to see as much as one can to be able to competently vote is the goal, there’s a smaller desire to see EVERYTHING. Take Matthew Vaughn’s Argylle for example. I started feeling like crap the day of the screening, and bypassed the showing in the evening. While I do love Mr. Cavill’s work and *some* of Vaughn’s work, the trailer played like a hyper aunt with eighteen phobias on display. You don’t have to see everything, unless you want to.

~Richie Aprile is an all-time heel. The Sopranos alum may have stood a few inches taller than Joe Pesci, but he weighed about the same and talked game like he was Jack Reacher. As I take another spin through an excellent series-and it is a pure mint condition TV show still-I find David Proval’s wise guy to be so infuriatingly bad. He is the thorn in everyone’s side, the piece of small corn in trapped in their teeth. Proval plays it so well that you cheer when he eats a few pieces of lead from Janice.

I could go on, but my wife and son are beckoning for a day with their mad man. Today marks the beginning of trip around the sun #42. I am a proud blizzard of ‘82 baby, rocking the fact that the Cards won a World Series during his birth year and the year his son was born. And in the nature of life’s genuine sense of humor, that same kid who used to barely stand above my waist grabbing at my hand is now taller than my wife… almost.

Oh, and mark this as the final edition of Buffa’s Buffet. That is due to the fact that if you missed the email header or didn’t stare at the homepage for long, the banner now reads “Buffa’s Buffet” instead of “Ramble On, Buffa.” The former is way more fitting and to the point, a sign of versatility in commentary. With that, I can’t have a weekly Buffa’s Buffet posting at… Buffa’s Buffet, so the weekly batches of unfiltered, all over the place banter will now be simply called THE RANT.

I’ve done a few of those and it’s fitting to my natural way of writing. Simplicity is a virtue, friends. Take luck.