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08/24/06

Val Zavala>> Tonight on Life and Times --

Big changes are coming to Balboa Peninsula. Are they squeezing all the fun out of an Orange County landmark?

Gay Wassall-Kelly>> Our Balboa only has a small square block and it can't grow.

David Muller>> It's back to the future is where we're headed with this, to be able to reintroduce those into the Fun Zone.

Val Zavala>> And then, an old-fashioned movie musical with a thoroughly modern score. Will our critics get in step?

It's all straight ahead on tonight's Life and Times.

Announcer>> Life and Times is made possible through the generous support of the L.K. Whittier Foundation dedicated to improving the quality of life by supporting innovative endeavors in the fields of medicine, health, science and education.

And by a generous grant from Jim and Anne Rothenberg.

Val Zavala>> A longstanding summer tradition is going away. The Bumper Cars on Balboa Island in Newport Beach are getting bumped and the old-fashioned Fun Zone is giving way to a new attraction. Will it be an improvement? Orange County reporter, Roger Cooper, takes a look at the past and the future of Balboa Island's popular boardwalk.

Roger Cooper>> The little ferry that crosses Newport Harbor takes automobiles over to Balboa Peninsula three cars at a time. It's also a kind of time machine transporting passengers through a beloved part of Newport Beach history, a place that hasn't changed much since 1936, the Balboa Fun Zone. It's one of the last of the classic oceanside amusement areas on the California coast.

[Film Clip]

Roger Cooper>> What's the Fun Zone?

Gay Wassall-Kelly>> Oh, my gosh. What isn't it? It's fun, that's what it is. It's rides and it's junk food. I've been loving it since 1949.

Roger Cooper>> But the days are numbered for the Balboa Fun Zone. Ironically, it's about to fade into history to make way for a different kind of history, a museum. The Newport Harbor Nautical Museum has purchased the Fun Zone. This will soon be the site of a new and expanded museum complex. Only the Ferris Wheel will remain.

David Muller>> It's the ship that was made for the King of Siam back in the late 1800s and early 1900s. It's gold and silver and it's fully rigged with gold and silver.

Roger Cooper>> A few miles away from the Fun Zone is a replica of a river boat moored by a bridge on PCH and inside are displays of model boats and Newport Harbor history, but by the end of this year, the Nautical Museum will pack up and move to the Fun Zone.

You'd think a boat would be the perfect place for a maritime museum. You'd think that, but this boat has seen better days, much better days. Designed for a twenty year lifespan, it's now pushing forty and there's concern whether it can stay afloat.

David Muller>> So the vessel has pushed its limit in terms of maintenance. It costs us thirty percent of our annual budget to keep this boat afloat.

Roger Cooper>> The Nautical Museum's Executive Director, David Muller, also notes their long-term lease with the Irvine Company has expired. They had to move somewhere and the beloved Fun Zone became available.

David Muller>> We fully acknowledge that we acquired a landmark location that has a long, cherished history in this community. Many of our trustees are second and third generation Newporters, so they also have cherished memories. We'll keep recognizing the significance of the location. We intend to become a focal point of the harbor which is essentially what the Fun Zone is now.

Roger Cooper>> There is not so much opposition to the museum as there is nostalgia for what will be lost.

Gay Wassall-Kelly>> Well, we are going to be sad, but then we are going to be glad because look what's coming in: the preservation of our nautical history.

Roger Cooper>> Gay Wassall-Kelly is a long-time Balboa resident and history buff. For her, losing the Fun Zone will be bittersweet.

Gay Wassall-Kelly>> My parents bought a home just two blocks from the Fun Zone in 1955, so I could drag all my girlfriends down here and we'd take those stupid pictures on those little, you know, strips and cram everybody in. I still have them.

[Film Clip]

Roger Cooper>> You got to do things your parents might not have wanted you to?

Gay Wassall-Kelly>> Well, yeah. Well, we met boys. That's what we did (laughter). They were in car clubs and, oh, my gosh, they were from Santa Ana and Costa Mesa and you were only supposed to meet Newport boys. We'd go and have our pictures taken with them and try to hide them from our folks. We might take a motorcycle ride, which was unheard of, you know.

Roger Cooper>> Nearly everyone here has memories of the Fun Zone, even Museum President, Pete Pallette.

Pete Pallette>> It's an exciting place, a home for a lot of my misspent youth at the chagrin of my parents back in the Dark Ages.

Roger Cooper>> This place means a lot to Newport Beach.

Pete Pallette>> Roger, it's really iconic to Newport. People come down here from all over the place and enjoy themselves. They've been doing it for seventy years and there's no reason that will change.

Roger Cooper>> Architect, Jay Bauer, thinks the new museum will be a great complement to the Newport Pavilion, the one hundred year old icon that was built to attract Red Line visitors to the then new Newport Beach.

Jay Bauer>> We'd like it to be a memory place for Newport Harbor that reflects the vision and the activities that this museum is all about, and what better location than a harborside location? It could be like a great front porch for Newport Harbor.

Roger Cooper>> But can a museum compete with Bumper Cars, especially for young people? Museum Chairman, Terry Bibbens, says it can by offering ship simulators and interactive exhibits.

Terry Bibbens>> We had a delightful twelve year old send us an email saying she was really concerned that we were taking away her Bumper Cars and were going to have a boring museum that only old people would go to see. We are bringing the message back to her that, no, we're going to have a lot of hands-on activities.

Roger Cooper>> In its new dockside location, the museum also hopes to bring back the tall ships that once plied Newport Harbor.

David Muller>> We have a photograph from 1960 that shows two tall ships side-tied at the Fun Zone with the Pavilion in the background and it's just a classic shot of old Newport. In a sense, we want to bring it back to the future is where we're headed with this, to be able to reintroduce those into the Fun Zone.

Roger Cooper>> The new Nautical Museum will also include a touch of Hollywood history. Not far from the Fun Zone, you could have once spotted Bogey and Bacall, and John Wayne aboard his boat, The Wild Goose.

David Muller>> I mean, some of the really classic Hollywood movie stars used to have their boats here.

Roger Cooper>> This was also the launch point for aviator, Glenn Martin, and his historic first flight to Catalina Island.

[Film Clip]

Roger Cooper>> And the Rendezvous Ballroom originated radio broadcasts beamed out to the nation featuring all the big bands of the day.

Gay Wassall-Kelly>> Oh, my gosh. Well, Stan Kenton and Benny Goodman and just all the jazz as they came through.

Roger Cooper>> But in 1966, the Rendezvous Ballroom burned down. It was never rebuilt. So with the museum plans underway, what do you do with the amusement rides? That's where the internet comes in. The Bumper Cars are already listed for sale, a bargain at a hundred thirty thousand, and the Drummer Boy ride is going for sixty-four thousand. So this is the last summer for the Fun Zone. Gay says what amuses people has changed.

Gay Wassall-Kelly>> You have to understand that our children and our families are a little more sophisticated than they were back in the 1930s, 1940s and 1950s, and our Balboa only has a small square block and it can't grow. So it was time for someone else to come and take over and I think the Nautical Museum was perfect, just absolutely perfect.

Roger Cooper>> If you've never ridden the Bumper Cars, you'd better head down here fast. The Fun Zone is scheduled to close by the end of September. The nonprofit Nautical Museum will be moved into its new home by the end of the year, signaling a new era for Balboa. After seventy years of living up to its name, the Fun Zone will not disappear completely. It will become an exhibit in the museum that will replace it. In Newport Harbor, I'm Roger Cooper for Life and Times.

Announcer>> Kcet.org is the place to look for the very latest on Life and Times. You'll find previews of upcoming stories, plus transcripts and audio of past episodes and links to some of our most interesting features. Just go to kcet.org, scroll down the page and click on "Life and Times".

Val Zavala>> Remember back in 1988 when California voters passed auto insurance reform? It was supposed to base your premium on your driving record and not your zip code. Well, now after eighteen years, insurance companies are finally implementing it, begrudgingly. So why did it take eighteen years and what does it mean for policyholders?

For some answers, I went to two people. Harvey Rosenfield is a consumer advocate with the group that wrote Proposition 103. Steve Weinstein is an attorney for the insurance industry. After eighteen years locked in a legal battle, they know each other very well.

Rosenfield's group fought to have insurance rates based less on zip codes and more on a driver's record, experience and how much they drive, but Weinstein argued that a driver's zip code is the best predictor of risk for insurance companies. Now California Insurance Commissioner, John Garamendi, has issued his decision and insurance companies will have to drop zip codes as a major factor in setting rates. But why did it take so long?

Harvey Rosenfield>> The real reason for the insurance companies opposition is they just didn't like Proposition 103. They don't like the idea that the voters are telling insurance companies what to do, so the insurance companies said we're going to drag this out like they did every other provision of Proposition 103, fight it as long as we can because we don't like anybody telling us what we're supposed to do.

As far as insurance companies are concerned, democracy belongs to them. They own it in Sacramento and they don't want the voters. Who are the voters to tell us, the insurance companies, how to base our premiums? So I think it was anger and spite.

Val Zavala>> But they spent hundreds of millions in fighting this. Didn't they also have some money at stake in this battle?

Harvey Rosenfield>> Not at all. In this particular battle, none at all because the way that Proposition 103 works, they're entitled to earn a fair profit. It doesn't make any difference how much they charge from one person to another in terms of how much the insurance companies' profits are. They're allowed to make a fair profit.

The insurance companies do not stand to lose one penny on this. The only question here was who's going to pay more? Bad drivers or good drivers? Drivers who commute long distances or those who just drive to church on Sunday? For the insurance companies, it was completely neutral, revenue neutral.

Val Zavala>> That's incredible, and they still spent all this money fighting it?

Harvey Rosenfield>> That's what I'm saying, because they don't like the idea of the voters telling them what to do.

Val Zavala>> Weinstein, who represents the Personal Insurance Federation of California, had a different perspective.

Steve Weinstein>> The issue for consumers is that people should pay for the risk that they present to an insurance company. It's basically the industry's view that there shouldn't be subsidization, that one group of people, no matter where they live, shouldn't subsidize another group of people, that everybody should be treated the same in the sense that you present a particular risk and you ought to pay for that risk.

Val Zavala>> So you're saying that zip codes can still be a factor, but if I understand it, it's a much, much smaller, smaller factor in the total cost of their premium. Is that correct?

Steve Weinstein>> Yes, it continues to be a factor or less of a factor. How much smaller we really don't know, but it's certainly less of a factor. What we're seeing is, the way it becomes less of a factor is if you can think of inflating an inner tube. We're pumping up other factors. For example, where someone -- their mileage. They drive a long way to the downtown area. That now is going to be given a lot more weight and someone who drives a lot is going to pay a lot more money.

Or someone who's less experienced, teenage drivers, parents with kids who are just learning how to drive. They're going to be stuck footing the bill to subsidize some other group. It's our view that you shouldn't do this subsidization that whatever risk you present based upon where you live, your driver's safety record, mileage. It should be exactly what's good for you in terms of what you actually reflect to the insurance company. That's what you ought to pay.

Val Zavala>> So is this going to put an end to red-lining? In other words, the zip code based areas that insurance companies charge more in often minority areas? Will this put an end to that?

Harvey Rosenfield>> It will help, it will help. One of the things that we discovered as part of this three-year investigation that Commissioner Garamendi undertook was that the insurance companies' current system of setting premiums is completely arbitrary and unfair. Even if two people live in the same zip code and they have the same driving record and everything else about them is the same, different companies will charge them wildly fluctuating rates for the same person.

Steve Weinstein>> Another thing we discovered is that, under the current system -- I actually think this is why the current system was developed by the insurance companies -- by basing premiums on peoples' zip code, on geography, I think the insurance companies were really able to create a system of legal discrimination. To call that, which I think the consumer groups say, well, that's blatant red-lining, we would disagree. It isn't. It's an effort to try and look at what risks are being presented and then pricing that risk.

An insurance company is more than happy to receive premiums from anybody. It doesn't matter whether that person's living in the central city or that person is living up in Eureka. They're happy to have a policyholder. They just want to make sure that they've priced that policyholder right so that person's paying the right premium for the risk of losses they're presenting to the insurance company.

Val Zavala>> And yet even the same zip code can be interpreted differently as less risky or riskier by different insurance companies.

Steve Weinstein>> You know, the problem you have there is that, within different zip codes, what they try to do -- and insurance companies are doing a better job of it now -- is even within a specific zip code, you may have one area within that zip code where there's high congestion, a lot of cars, a greater likelihood of an accident. Whereas in that same zip code, there may be an area that is less likely to have an accident. So they're trying to even break that out more to the extent that there are certain areas that may pay more insurance.

People who happen to live in a particularly highly congested area are paying a premium that's more than somebody who's living out on a farm where there's no other cars for fifty miles. Yeah, we see that and we see that impact because there's not as many accidents. That individual who's driving a car in a rural area, the likelihood that they're going to be in an accident and pay a higher premium is more remote than somebody who's in a highly congested area.

Harvey Rosenfield>> Not really true. I mean, think about it. First of all, if you're only driving your car on Sundays to the grocery store and the rest of the other six days in the week it's sitting in your driveway, it doesn't make any difference where your driveway is located. Your car is not going to have much of a chance of being in an accident. Whereas if you're in a rural area, for example, and it's well-known there that people are driving at high speeds, an accident in a rural area is a severe accident.

Here in southern California or Los Angeles, most of the time, you couldn't get into a severe accident if you tried because you're only going five miles an hour in traffic. So it's a much more complicated process here in California determining where the risk lies and that's why the voters changed the law to make it based on factors within the person's own control like their driving record and the number of miles you drive every year and your years of driving experience.

Val Zavala>> Well, Harvey Rosenfield, congratulations on a battle long fought.

Harvey Rosenfield>> Thank you.

Steve Weinstein>> I have been involved in the implementation of Proposition 103 since its passage in 1989 and I have a lot more gray hair in my beard since when I first started dealing with these issues. Because we have an elected commissioner and elected commissioners often have political agendas, I think there always will be change in insurance.

Val Zavala>> Well, Steve Weinstein, good luck to you and thank you very much for your time.

Steve Weinstein>> Thank you.

Val Zavala>> And we'd like to make a correction from earlier this week. Last Tuesday, we told you that a group of astronomers had voted on a new definition of planets, one that would increase the number of planets from nine to twelve. Well, in fact, that was a committee vote, but the larger International Astronomical Union voted on a different definition of planets, one that now reduces our solar system from nine to eight. So long, Pluto.

Announcer>> To send a comment or a question to our program, you can reach us by mail at this address:

Life and Times
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You can also call our viewer comment line (323) 953-5555) or contact us the fast way by e-mail at kcet.org.

Ted Chen>> Welcome to FilmWeek on Life and Times. I'm Ted Chen sitting in for Larry Mantle. Our first film is "Invincible". It stars Mark Wahlberg as a Philadelphia substitute teacher and part-time bartender who bucks the odds to play pro football.

[Film Clip]

Ted Chen>> Joining me this week are critics Jean Oppenheimer of New Times and Scott Foundas of L.A. Weekly. Jean, what did you think of "Invincible"?

Jean Oppenheimer>> This was a really nice surprise for me and I must say that I probably shouldn't have been surprised because the producers of this film are the same ones who did "Miracle" and "The Rookie", both also for Disney, and it had the same strength that those films did. It's an inspiring story, number one, but it just really grabs you in terms of the characters.

Mark Wahlberg is so good in these types of films, playing a working class kid who's trying to not exactly break out, but has a dream that, you know, you see fulfilled in the course of the film. The camera work was exceptionally impressive with lots of camera moves, crane shots, tracking shots, but it was all very organic to the action. It was never just thrown in in order to have some fancy shot. It always, in a sense, followed the action.

I was particularly impressed really with how well writer, Brad Gann, and director, Ericson Core, who also served as the cinematographer, captured the feeling of this working class town and this community that is just struggling to hang on and how everybody invests in this one guy who may break out, and then it also creates a certain resentment among some people in what if he breaks out.

Ted Chen>> Scott, do you agree?

Scott Foundas>> I liked it a lot and it's really two underdog stories in one in a way because the Mark Wahlberg character, Vince Papale, was thirty years old when he went to this open tryout for the Philadelphia Eagles and ended up making the team, much to his own surprise.

At the same time, the coach of the team who instigated this open tryout was Dick Vermeil who had just come to Philadelphia from UCLA and was sort of regarded by the locals with, you know, all the welcome of a surfer in a biker bar. It's very much about him having to win over the notoriously prickly Eagles fans. Kinnear is very good at sort of playing this combo of California cool, but coachly authority. The film has terrific feel for the period.

I think a lot of people think critics beat up on movies like this because they're predictable and we've seen a thousand other inspirational sports movies, but the thing is, if the movie really is inspiring and the clich�s work, you go with it. This movie, like "Miracle" and "The Rookie", has a real sense of sports as a kind of pop religion, so it kind of just goes beyond the one man's underdog story to have this kind of communal effect.

Ted Chen>> Our next film is set in a 1930s southern speak-easy. "Idlewild" stars the rap artists from the group, Outcast, as musical performers struggling to keep their dreams alive.

[Film Clip]

Ted Chen>> Jean, how did you like "Idlewild"?

Jean Oppenheimer>> Well, "Idlewild" is a really ambitious film in terms of what it's trying to do and what it wants to be, and I think it's only partially successful. But the stuff that's good is really good and the best thing in it really is this sensational dance number that combines swing and hip-hop and acrobatics, of all things. Nothing else in this film, including the other musical numbers, really ever match that.

The film is a hybrid. It's slightly reminiscent of Baz Luhrmann's "Moulin Rouge", but it mixes so many different story-telling and sort of visual style. As with "Moulin Rouge", it uses a lot of tricks in terms of the photography that didn't work for me at all. For instance, the opening credits went over this wonderful black and white archival footage and then, all of a sudden, the footage speeds up or slows down.

One of the characters has a whisky flask. The flask has a rooster imprinted on it. The rooster starts talking to the character and singing with him. I don't particularly like that sort of jumping to animation. It's a kind of graphic cartooning of elements which just doesn't work for me.

With the exception of a couple of songs, actually, I didn't think the music was very memorable. It didn't, to me, contribute to the emotion of the story. I really would have liked to have heard some Blues and instead it was just a lot of hip-hop. But I liked a lot of things about it, particularly how one character finds himself by sort of breaking away from the safe, secure life and the other one finds that he has a better life by returning to his family.

Ted Chen>> And our next film is "Half Nelson". It stars Ryan Gosling as an inspiring junior high school teacher with another side to his life.

[Film Clip]

Ted Chen>> Scott, what did you think of "Half Nelson"?

Scott Foundas>> This is a real discovery. This movie was shown at Sundance this year. It's the first feature directed by Ryan Fleck who co-wrote the film with his filmmaking partner, Anna Boden. They had done it as a short first and they expanded it.

It's the story of a young man who's a public school teacher at a junior high in Brooklyn in a low socio-economic neighborhood. His life is a disaster zone. He was one time an aspiring writer and now he's deep into cocaine addiction and it's sort of an effort for him just to get through the day.

He bonds with one of his students, the young girl played by a new actress, Shareeka Epps. It's her first film. Together, they don't exactly save each other because I don't want to make this sound like one of these inspirationalist tracks that you sometimes get in the so-called, you know, inspirational school teacher genre. It's much more about two people who are both in difficult situations.

Her brother is in prison and the local drug dealer is trying to get her on board as his young prot�g�. Together, they sort of find a way of soldiering through difficult times. This is a star-making performance by Ryan Gosling who's been around for a while and who's gotten noticed for movies like "The Believer" and "The Notebook", but this performance is a total high-wire act and he's brilliant in it.

Ted Chen>> And that's it for another FilmWeek on Life and Times. I'm Ted Chen with critics Jean Oppenheimer from New Times and Scott Foundas from L.A. Weekly. Larry Mantle will be back for another edition of FilmWeek on Life and Times.

Val Zavala>> And KPCC public radio broadcasts a full hour of FilmWeek Friday mornings at eleven. And that's our program. I'm Val Zavala. For everyone at Life and Times, thanks for watching. We'll see you next time.

Announcer>> Life and Times was made possible through the generous support of the L.K. Whittier Foundation dedicated to improving the quality of life by supporting innovative endeavors in the fields of medicine, health, science and education.

And by a generous grant from Jim and Anne Rothenberg.

Sponsored in part by:


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