This year marks the 40th Anniversary of the Toronto International Film Festival; for me, it is my 14th Festival. The Indignant Wife started going when she was in university and got me hooked when we got together. So, I have only missed two festivals in 16 years. This year, I saw slightly fewer movies than last year, but overall, it was a good festival with no true “stinkers” – movies that plainly suck. Here is my breakdown, starting with my first day…

Our Brand Is Crisis
Actually, it was my second day – I arrived Friday, picked up my tickets, and usually, I see one or two movies that first evening, but this year, I tried to take it slower, hanging out with the friends who let me stay with them while in town. So, my first film wasn’t until Saturday. I had wanted to see “Sicario” even though it is a big studio picture with distribution and a release date, but the Emily Blunt film about the drug war in Mexico looked very interesting. Unfortunately, too many people agreed with me and it was sold out before I could pick online. So I settled for “Our Brand Is Crisis,” another studio picture produced by George Clooney (who showed up at the premiere on Friday but not for the second showing Saturday).
This film is a dramatization of a documentary about “Calamity” Jane Bodine, here played by Sandra Bullock. Bodine is a political consultant, that is “spin meister” who uses any trick in the book to get her candidate elected. She has been in a losing streak, living in a cabin in the middle of nowhere until she in drawn into the presidential campaign in Bolivia where she is working for a former president who had protestors shot when he was in charge (played by Joaquin de Almeida, probably best known as the villain in the Harrison Ford/Jack Ryan film “Clear and Present Danger”). He is not doing well at all against the populist candidate who has his own American strategist played by Billy Bob Thornton. The two strategists know each other very well, and it soon becomes a battle of dirty tricks between the two camps.
The movie has some very funny parts, especially the scenes between Ms. Bullock and Thornton and it does have some points to make about win at all costs politics and idealism. Overall, this is a very professional studio film directed by David Gordon Green (who did attend the showing), who broke on the scene with “George Washington” but whose career had gone between solid films like “Pineapple Express,” “Joe,” and “Manglehorn” alternating with dreck like “The Sitter.” This is a nice time waster, a decent little film well worth watching if you have nothing better to do.

Phantom Boy
Long time readers know that I am a comics fan and by extension, a fan of animated film. This year, the staff of TIFF expanded a section of the called “TIFF Kids” but I think they may need to rethink what is programmed there. I saw two films there and the language and stories weren’t necessarily for kids. A word of advice – just because a film is animated doesn’t automatically mean it’s a film for kids.
Anyway, Phantom Boy is a French film set in New York in the past, probably in the 1940s or 1950s, the time of noir, and big time criminals. A young man gets ill and is put into the hospital, but he finds out that he can leave his body and travel around the city. The city is terrorized by a crime lord with a jagged patchwork face (a little bit like Jigsaw in the “Saw” movies). He has created a computer virus that can bring down the city. A cop with a record of mistakes stumbles across the criminal but gets hurt and ends up in the same hospital. A female reporter friend of the policeman gets involved and the three people try to crack the case.
It was an interesting film, with very detailed cityscapes but with very simple character drawings. The directors Jean-Loop Felicioli and Alain Gagnol admitted in the question and answer session that they were influenced by Marvel Comics, where each hero has a fatal flaw. So, they were drawn to a character with a superpower but very sick at the same time.

Office
If there is one constant in the Toronto Film Festival besides the crowds and stars, it is that if Hong Kong director Johnny To has a new movie, it will play at TIFF. The Indignant Wife saw Election 1 and 2 back in the early 2000s and I’ve seen 4-5 movies that he has directed since. I must admit that To’s new film was very different from the cop movies screened here in years past.
First of all, there were no cops in this film, it’s a story of office politics set in an Asian corporation led by the icon Chow Yun Fat. It has been years since I saw him in a film and he looks older, but good. The story is based on a play written by soap opera legend Sylvia Chang. Ms. Chang wrote the screenplay, but this movie added a couple of different angles – first, the movie was a musical, but not with traditional Asian music but with more upbeat Western-style songs. Also the film was in 3D, another case of unnecessary 3D.
Mr. Fat played the Chairman of the Board, who was sleeping with Ms. Chang, who was CEO, even as the Chairman’s wife was in a coma. The movie is told through the eyes of two new interns, one of which is secretly the Chairman’s daughter. Add to that a potential IPO, stock manipulation, accounting discrepancies, crosses and double crosses all in the mix.
For all of that, the film doesn’t really work. At the beginning, the film took on the play origins with scenes centering around a giant set that ;looked like a futuristic but minimalist office set with a huge rotating clock in the middle which reminded me of a modern day Fritz Lang “Metropolis.” The interns were decent, but there were too many characters all going in different directions. There were a lot of characters sleeping with each other, but it very few of them made much of a mark. I found myself not caring too much about any of them, and wishing Chow Yun Fat had guns in each hand shooting up the place like in the John Woo films of 20 years ago.

Legend
When I was choosing films to watch at this year’s festival, this movie leapt out at me the most for the subject matter and the star. If you hadn’t guessed, I am an Anglophile – James Bond, The British Invasion, Monty Python, Doctor Who, are all my favorites, and having grown up in the 1960s, you learned about the Kray brothers, infamous gangsters who were like rock stars in their fame (in fact, they were the inspiration for one of my favorite Python sketches – the “Piranha Brothers”)
Reg and Ronnie Kray built a criminal empire based on violence which involved gambling, night clubs, and extortion. In this case, both brothers were played by Tom Hardy who starred in what was for me the best film this year “Mad Max Fury Road.” Hardy turned in a virtuoso performance creating very distinct characters: Reg, who was the smarter of the two brothers. The story is told from the point of view of Reg’s wife Francis (Emily Browning) which was a different spin on the story as written and directed by Brian Helgeland who won an Academy Award for L.A. Confidential. As a director, he has turned into quite a decent director having done “42,” “Payback,” and “A Knight’s Tale.”
Ronnie Kray is where Hardy was at his best. Ronnie was openly gay and was diagnosed with paranoid schizophrenia. He was, as one would expect, the more violent of the brothers (not by much), and he had his gang of gay gangsters who would do his bidding.
As someone who had a vague knowledge of the story, it brought out the whole story, and it was interesting to see a film where the gangsters don’t die at the end in a hail of gunfire. The brothers ended up dying in prison for two different murders. I have to admit that it was also interesting to see Christopher Eggleston (Doctor Who #9) as a somewhat bumbling police inspector heading the investigation into the Krays.

The Boy &The Beast
One of my kids’ favorite films of the past couple of years was “Big Hero 6,” a superhero story based on an Asian comic. “The Boy & The Beast” was a story that mixed Miyazaki-type mysticism, traditional anime violence and some city scenes that was very much like “Akira”
A young boy’s mother died (his parents were divorced) and rather than live with family, he runs away and is on the street when he is found by Kumatetsu, a beast, and one of the two possible beasts who would lead the beast world Jutenkai. Kumatetsu is selfish and brutal, while Iozen has many students. Humans are not supposed to be in the beast world and beats certainly avoid the human world most of the time.
The boy, Kyuta (named Ren in the beast world which stands for the number 9 which was the kid’s age when he went to live in Jutenkai), grows up and also makes his way back to the human world where he develops a relationship with a young girl who likes to study as much as Kyuta, and also begins a tentative relationship with his father (why no one searched for Kyuta more, isn’t explained other then an offhanded comment by his father that he never stopped looking for him). As one would expect, the boy grows up under the beasts’ tutelage, and Kumatetsu became a better leader and teacher to the other beasts.
The two leaders – Kumatetsu and Iozen eventually had a battle for supremacy and in the end another human, adopted by Iozen, betrays Kumatetsu and starts to destroy the human world which would also destroy the beast world leading to a showdown between the human kids.
As I said, the cityscapes and the final fight definitely was influenced by Akira. It wasn’t ground breaking, but if you like anime, you’ll like this film. I certainly did.

The People vs. Fritz Bauer
I not-so-kiddingly said that every year, I have to have one Nazi movie, but interestingly, two films I have seen over the past two festivals have dealt with one aftermath of World War II – coming to terms with the atrocities. Last year, I saw a fine film called “Legacy of Lies” and this year I saw “People vs. Fritz Bauer.” Both films have Bauer as a character, but this film centers much more on the secretly homosexual Jew who left Germany during the war, but who led the prosecution of “regular” Germans who had worked in the concentration camps.
“Legacy” touched on the chase for Adolph Eichmann but told the story of prosecuting Auschwitz guards and others. “People” focuses on the search for Eichmann. Bauer, played spectacularly by Burghart Klaußner, details the search for Eichmann and the political issues he had with Germany and Interpol, who didn’t want to go after Eichmann, the U.S. that didn’t want to prosecute and Israel wanted more proof before they would go after Eichmann who was living in Argentina. Klaußner, who was also outstanding in “The White Ribbon” was outstanding as he fought to find Eichmann, prove to all that it actually was him, and then commit what some people called treason in giving the Israelis the evidence that led to them capturing the chief engineer of the Final Solution, before being betrayed by Israel when they put Eichmann on trial instead of turning him over for trial in Germany, which might have led to more Nazis who had gone back into society especially government with no penalty to be prosecuted. (BTW – don’t be thrown off by the title: there is no trialbetween the government and Bauer as the title would suggest.)
It is funny that in both of these films, while Bauer was obviously real, the other lead character was a made up, blond prosecutor. In “Legacy of Lies,” it was a young man whose in-laws were all against the prosecution and his work ends up breaking up the marriage. In “People,” a young prosecutor acts on his gay impulses despite having a pregnant wife. The secret ends up with blackmail and betrayal. I find it interesting that both films have fictitious or composite characters with similar issues. It makes me think that there is/was a real person at the center of both stories. Both films were very good.

Veteran
Long time readers know that I love Asian action movies. Ever since Bruce Lee jumped on our television screens as Kato in “The Green Hornet,” I have been a big fan. The latest film is a South Korean film called “Veteran.” Seo Do-cheol plays an investigator of a hilarious, rag tag group of cops.
On a big stake-out, the group uses a truck driver to help. The truck driver is having problems with the company he works for since they just laid everyone off and refuses to pay back wages owed the drivers. Meanwhile the detective is invited to a movie party hosted by the son of the head of a large corporation. As always in these movies, the young man is a true sociopath, willing to do anything to get ahead. The detective warns him not to get into trouble, but he is already snorting cocaine and beating women at the party.
Of course, the corporation is the one that fired the truck drivers, and the detective’s friend is protesting the company on the street with his young son. Eventually, they get taken to the young man’s office and needless to say, bad things happen to the truck driver forcing the detective and his team to investigate.
This is a stereotypical police-actioner, but it was done with style and solid craftsmanship led by director Ryoo Seung-wan that made it watchable. The villains, the son and the company lowyer who tries to cover up the problems with loads of money, are truly villainous, making the audience really want the police to win. Again, nothing new, but it was very entertaining.

Finally, the rain ended and bright, sunny Fall weather stayed with me for the rest of the festival. For the first time in many years, I had a five picture day. As it turned out, the morning was comprised of all Canadian music movies…

Born To Be Blue
I have long known the story of the jazz great Chet Baker, but this Canadian/UK film was a very good story anchored by a terrific lead performance by Ethan Hawke and his girlfriend Carmen Ejogo. Director Robert Budreau picks up Baker’s story after he has already been a jazz star and developed a heroin habit.
A film was being made of Baker’s life starring Baker himself and this film takes us through a budding relationship with his co-star, a vicious beating that jeopardized Baker’s career and forced a long period of learning to play the trumpet again. Baker was known as a prickly character and Hawke played that well, and we have grown to expect that. Ms. Ejoko was also excellent as the woman who falls for Baker (although one has to wonder why a woman would get involved with a man who was already a mess when she met him). It was also interesting to have Miles Davis and Dizzy Gillespie portrayed on camera and showing the relationship between these three icons of jazz trumpet.
What I found interesting was in the Q&A when I asked about Baker’s family. Mr. Budreau said that they had no interaction with Baker’s survivors for a couple of reasons. First, his story was very public and there is a lot of public record of Baker’s life on top of several biographies. Second, since Baker did not write his own music and his best known songs were covers of other artists, there was no need to get rights. Again, while Hawke did not perform the recorded trumpet parts (although he did take lessons and he did look convincing), he did his own singing. It was a fine bio-pic.

The Reflektor Tapes
I am a big fan of Canadian band Arcade Fire. I jumped on the bandwagon with the second album and they have been one of my favorite bands ever since. Reflektor was their two disc, platinum CD which led to one of the biggest tours of last year. “The Reflektor Tapes” is a noble attempt to do a very different kind of music documentary; unfortunately, it doesn’t work on many levels.
Archade Fire are one of the most popular rock bands in the world and are comprised of seven members, the foundation of which are lead singer/primary writer Win Butler, his brother, guitarist Will Butler and Win’s wife Regine Chassagne. The band aspires to artiness, which it often achieves, and Reflektor is an attempt to bring Haitian rhythms into their music. (Ms. Chassagne was raised in Canada, but her parents are both from Haiti.)
I give the band credit for hiring Kalil Joseph, a young black filmmaker of Haitian descent to direct the film, but like many of these projects when a band is on top of the world, arty aspirations delve into high pretentiousness, making one ask why anyone cares about this band at all. Over half of the movie was filmed by the band and friends during the recording with Mr. Kalil responsible for filming live shows.
As one would expect, the live footage is quite good and interesting. However, the film centers almost entirely on the married couple with only a couple of voice overs from one other member of the band (not specified) and the rest of the band only appear in the live concert material and in the periphery of the making of material.
So, the film gave us little insight into the actual making of the album aside from showing some of the Haitian percussionists playing, it gave us a little on the couple and some concert footage of incomplete performances. Compared to “traditional” music documentaries, this was a disjointed and often maddening experience for someone who really was interested in the making of the music and/or the concert footage.
This is only for fans who also have artsy pretentions. I should say however that I did play Arcade Fire music almost exclusively for the rest of the trip.

High-Rise

I do like Tom Hiddleston: he has stolen nearly every scene he’s been in during the “Marvel” movies – the Thor films and “The Avengers.” The comic book movies have made him an international star, but he still stretches out into different types of movies, now able to use his fame to get them financed. “High-Rise” is based on a book by J.G. Ballard who also wrote the book behind the film of the same name director by David Cronenberg.
High Rise is the story of a forensic doctor who moves into the title building for anonymity and peace, but instead finds that the building’s residents have a different world than the rest of the 1970s: drugs, sex and parties are the main preoccupation of the tenants, with the whole building overseen by the architect of the building, played by Jeremy Irons. There is literally no reason to leave the building – there’s a pool, exercise deck, even a grocery store within the building which looks like it came straight from Kubrick’s “A Clockwork Orange.” It seems that only a couple of people even have jobs, one of which is Hiddleston’s character, but eventually he ends up- never leaving the building.
The film, directed by Ben Wheatley, really picks up when things start breaking down – the garbage chute no longer works and garbage starts piling up everywhere. Food spoils in the store and fights break out over what is left. The whole build devolves into a battle between the elites in the higher floors and the rest in the lower floors. Hiddleston’s character is in the middle of the action, but his character is an enigma – while participating in all of the debauchery, he is the middle of everything except he refuses to lobotomize the leader of the lower floor uprising.
As I wrote above, the film was very Kubrickian, which is too the good and the bad. As it made points as social satire, it also reminded me of “Clockwork” which is a better film.
However, I noticed a few seats being saved a few rows in front of me, but not with the usual block of reserved seats. A man in a baseball cap using a cane came in a sat down with a group fo people and I had a feeling it was filmmaker Michael Moore, who also had a new film at the Festival. Sure enough, it was him and he was very nice when I got to speak with him when the film was over.

The Ardennes
One of the best things about TIFF is seeing films from around the world that may not ever get North American distribution (I am still looking for a DVD of a film called “Who Am I: No System Is Safe,” a stylish German film that I saw at last year’s TIFF). This is a Belgian modern noir adapted from a play written by one of the actors, Jeroen Perceval who plays the younger brother Dave.
When the film opens, we are in a swimming pool underwater and the water is disturbed by a man jumping in the water fully clothed. The man rushes into a nearby car and tells the young woman driving to drive. She asks about another man, and Dave yells at her to drive. Jump cut to four years later, the previously unseen man, Kenneth (played by the very good Kevin Janssens) is released from prison and he wants to rekindle his relationship with the girl, Sylvia played by Veerie Baetens. But Sylvia, who is in daily AA-type meetings while working as a waitress at night, is now with Dave and the younger brother hasn’t the courage to tell his older brother about the new arrangement.
The situation goes spiraling out of control as Ken’s jealousy leads him to murder and an attempted cover-up; Dave gets involved trying to help his brother after losing his job because of Ken; when will the two lovers tell the homicidal brother about their relationship? The end turns into a weird situation in the title hills where a body is taken to be disposed of by a friend of Ken’s from prison.
The friend is very strange; he is involved with a huge transvestite; several ostriches are set loose and the game warden is out telling people to be careful because the birds are aggressive and violent. The whole things ends with Dave and Ken in a life or death fight and a very interesting twist which I will not reveal.
This was a violent film that was quite engrossing, showing a side of Belgium that many don’t see before it turns into a Tarantino-style end. I did like this film, but its probably not for everyone.

Schneider vs. Bax
The final film of the day was a German black comedy. Schneider (Tom Dewispelaere) is leading a double life, respectable man on the outside, hit man is his job. It’s his birthday and his wife is planning a birthday party for him with their two daughters. He receives a call from the shadowy Mertens who hires him to kill a writer named Ramon Bax (the writer and director of the film Alex van Warmerdam). Schneider wants to do the deed another day, but Mertens tells him that it has to be today.
Bax lives in a small house on the side of a lake or river. Bax is trying to get his young lover to leave before his daughter arrives, leading to some funny situations as every character in this film is off kilter in some way. The lover says that she is coming back with a friend to “take care” of the older writer, just before the depressed daughter comes in.
Meanwhile Schneider runs into his own problems (he disguises himself for each hit, but once he’s seen by a game warden, he has to go back and get another disguise. When he returns to his “garage” a woman breaks in and attempts to hide from the abusive man who comes in after her, her pimp. He has to deal with these two people all while his wife keeps calling to ask about the party and wonder whether he will arrive in time.
As it turns out, Mertens has hired Bax to kill Schneider, leading to the title. Eventually, all of the major characters come together in weird way and the two hit men try to kill each other.
It does have some funny bits as it gets more and more ridiculous.

After the marathon Monday, I finished my 2015 Festival with three films featuring probably the biggest stars of my fest.

Spotlight
Like England is renowned for making drawing room dramas (and sometimes comedies), Americans make good newspaper procedurals where journalists are hunting bad things done by bad people, which is being covered up by the mob or the government or both. Since “All The President’s Men,” this has been a staple of “serious” American filmmaking.
Tom McCarthy who directed the fine little films “Win Win” and most notably “The Station Agent” made a big budget serious picture here with a ton flight, big name cast. Mark Ruffalo, and Rachel McAdams are on the Spotlight team at the Boston Globe, led by Walter “Robby” Robinson played by Michael Keaton. The time is 2001 and with the paper’s staff in turmoil with the paper being sold and a new editor in chief being brought in (played by the ever reliable Liev Schreiber), the Spotlight team get involved in a recurring pattern of Catholic priests accused of molesting small children being shuffled around to different parishes where they continue to abuse children.
The film follows the story and how the reporters were blocked on every side by the police, other lawyers because of how important the Catholic Church is in Boston (which is predominantly Catholic). A fine secondary cast including Stanley Tucci, Billy Crudup and John Slattery are on various sides of the issue with the ultimate story, that then Cardinal Bernard Law knew of the abuse and allowed it to continue.
The story ended up garnering a Pulitzer Prize for the Globe, and the film has “Oscar-grab” written all over it. That said, it was a compelling, riveting piece of filmmaking.

The Assassin
This film has gotten buzz ever since it appeared at Cannes this past spring, and as a Asian action movie fan, it was high on my list of films to see. It tells the story of a young woman Yinniang (Qi Shu) who has been taken from her family and trained by an order of assassins. As her final test before leaving the order, she is given the order to kill her cousin, whom she also loves in a different way. The rest of the film are snippets of her returning, fighting, struggling with whether she should commit the murder or break with the order.
The film is gorgiously shot, which may have influenced the Cannes audience. It may have been the time of day (early evening) or the pace of my trip, but I was tired and the glacial pacing of this movie along with the lack of cohesive storyline which made me nod off in spots. I wanted to like this movie, but there wasn’t enough action, not enough story to retain my interest.
That’s what I get for listening to early reviews from people who don’t like or appreciate martial arts movies raving about a martial arts movie. However, I think I do need to see it again when I’m not tired.

Anomalisa
It has been several years since viewers have had the opportunity to watch a Charlie Kaufman film (“Synecdoche, New York,” “Adaptation,” “Eternal Sunshine of the Spotless Mind,” “Being John Malkovich”) but the wait is over. Kaufman brings his unusual vision to essentially an animated film.
“Anomolisa” was a three person play written by Kaufman and performed by David Thewlis, Jennifer Jason Leigh and Tom Noonan performed in 2005. Duke Johnson and Kaufman have brought the play to life, but instead of people, the parts are played by felt puppets and animation. That said, it was an interesting film about an older British man (voiced by Thewlis who was also in “Legend”) now living in L.A., who has written a book and is a motivational speaker and giving a presentation on customer service to a convention in Cincinnati. We meet him on the plane into Cincinnati with the usual strange characters that inhabit Kaufman’s writing. A former lover lives there now and he calls her to meet him, which leads to discussion, guilt and anger.
Eventually, he meets two women who are attending the conference and are fans of his book, and gets involved with one, Lisa (played by Ms. Jason Leigh). All of the other characters are voiced by Mr. Noonan (probably best known as the serial killer in the first Hannibal Lector film, Michael Mann’s Manhunter).
Quirky, unusual, with the usual clever writing, this was a fun little movie that fits very well in Kaufman’s oeuvre.

That ended the festival for me. As I said, I don’t think I saw a “bad” movie this year, certainly not up to some of the truly horrible films that I have attended in the past. I also didn’t see any films that blew me away either. Solid films were my experience for the 40th TIFF.

I realize that ranking movies is sacrilege, but I’ve done it before and will do it again (and, as I stated for Day 1, there are no “bad” films this year, just ones that worked better than others in my opinion). Here is my list:

15. The Assassin
14. Office
13. The Reflektor Tapes
12. Schneider vs. Bax
11. High-Rise
10. Phantom Boy
9. Our Brand Is Crisis
8. Anomalisa
7. The Ardennes
6. The Boy & The Beast
5. Born To Be Blue
4. Veteran
3. People vs. Fritz Bauer
2. Spotlight
1. Legend

Here’s to next year – number 15!!!!!

Jaromir Jagr is one of the best players ever to play professional hockey. He has been playing for over 20 years in the NHL and KHL and is still a very good forward for the Florida Panthers. The 43 year-old Jagr has a serious chance to pass Gordie Howe for third all time in career points. However, he has never been appreciated more than now.
This past week, a photo surfaced of Jagr asleep in bed with an 18-year-old girl. Someone found the photo on social media and tried to extort Jagr the equivalent of $2,000 US or the blackmailer would shop the picture to the media.
The comment made most about President Obama over the past few months is that he has “no more f%^&s to give” so he’s doing what he wants to do. I don’t think that anyone gives less of a f^&* than Jaromir Jagr.

Last week, the Blackhawks training camp opened at Notre Dame in South Bend, Indiana and Patrick Kane, under investigation for rape in upstate New York not only attended, but he also faced the press.
He said what one would expect: he is innocent and expects to be vindicated in the process, but he can provide no specifics. (Although Kane said that he expected to be “absolved of doing anything wrong,” which of course would mean that he would be found guilty, but what do you want – he’s a hockey player?) Team management said much the same, which one would expect.
But David Haugh of the Chicago Tribune and others have just blasted the team over even having the press conference where Kane couldn’t answer any questions. Since the case is still under investigation, what did he think Kane was going to say: “I did it?” The Blackhawks were between a rock and a hard place from a PR standpoint: if they keep Kane away from the press, everyone starts asking “what are they hiding?” By putting Kane before the press, at least they can get their official story out.
I’m all for blasting a team’s management when they deserve it (see the next story on resigning Michael Rosival), but in this case, they put the story out front, answered the questions that they can, and gave the press access to the troubled star. What more did you want them to do?

The Blackhawks resigned defenseman Michael Rosival to a one-year contract over the weekend, and I have to ask: why? Rosival has still not able to skate since he broke his ankle in last year’s playoffs, and despite the minutes he was able to post allowing the top defensemen to rest, Rosival showed his age before he got hurt.
He made questionable decisions with the puck, and when he turned the puck over, he didn’t have to speed to get back in time to stop a quality chance. Again, this was BEFORE he suffered a broken ankle, which certainly shouldn’t help a 37-year-old defenseman who was a liability much of last season. Now, if they’re bringing him in as a “coach,” that’s fine, but his days as a reliable player are over.