Liars and Saints

*Anthony Hopkins hadn't been nominated since 1997. '97! That's a 22-year gap. But Pacino beats this, with his 27-year gap. *Brad Pitt--subject of a smart new Dargis essay in the "Times"--has had previous nominations for "Moneyball," "Benjamin Button," and "12 Monkeys." (Dargis suggests it may be *harder* to win an Oscar if you're an exceptionally beautiful man. What kind of world is this, if Roberto Benigni and Rami Malek have best-performance Oscars, and Pitt does not?) *Holly Hunter once earned a nomination for the big-screen adaptation of "The Firm." Yes, "The Firm"--! *No night is more important than February 9th......

Did you watch "Succession" this season? Let's talk. *By far my favorite subplot is the Gerri/Roman romance. Great writing should surprise you--and I can't say I would have predicted the strange sadomasochistic thing that these two have going. Is one thirty years older than the other? No matter. (J. Smith-Cameron--wife of Kenneth Longergan--almost didn't get to play Gerri. The role was written for a man. "Succession" is still a show with too few women, but what a great move to turn Gerri into J. Smith-Cameron!) *I often think of "The Godfather," which involved four adult children. "Succession" is a show with four adult children--and, as many have observed, the season two finale involves "a Fredo kiss." The kiss that precedes the betrayal. Judas with Jesus. Kendall does this, then stabs his father in the back. (If we're meant to think of the "The Godfather," then it's fun to compare Shiv to Connie. S

"Red Riding Hood"--the James Marshall re-telling--sticks to the standard story, but it does add some Marshall tricks: * The punchy wording. Granny isn't "up to snuff." A distraught Riding Hood later says: "Gracious me!" * The bizarre characters. Granny--like George the hippo--has a "reading" obsession. When Granny emerges from the wolf's stomach, her main grievance is that she has lost some reading time. Also, Red's mother lives in a sea of cats, and she can't keep her custard ("healing" custard) in the bowl. * The twist at the end. We might take Marshall at his word: Red Riding Hood never talks to strangers after her encounter with the wolf. But Marshall wants to *show* this--so he gives us a courtly alligator, and Red is making a dismissive gesture, as if to say, "Talk to the hand." (This makes me think of Martha, lurking in the shadows, holding a garden hose, on the very last page of the last hippo sto

the thing I came for: the wreck and not the story of the wreck the thing itself and not the myth the drowned face always staring toward the sun the evidence of damage worn by salt and sway into this threadbare beauty the ribs of the disaster curving their assertion among the tentative haunters. Ostensibly Adrienne Rich is talking about exploring a shipwreck, but really she is talking about any courageous act. To look squarely at an uncomfortable truth--to reject a comforting myth that has grown around and on top of the truth. ("The wreck and not the story of the wreck.")  Rich the explorer implicitly identifies with "the drowned face always staring toward the sun"; Rich is a divided self, looking upward while drowning. ("Her wounds came from the same source as her power.")  Something wrecked can also be "assertive"; something threadbare can be "beautiful."  This is part of a poem I love; it makes me slightly more curious and

James Marshall's artistry is evident in "Goldilocks," which generated awards buzz. The bare-bones template is this: A little girl winds up in a bear family's house, she has a good time, and finally she meets the bears. But notice the life that Marshall injects into the tale. His Goldilocks is not a stock character. Instead, she's a piece of work, a terror; Marshall, always tuned in to deception and dishonesty, points out that Goldilocks's sweet appearance is misleading. So--for example--Goldilocks nods when her mother gives a warning, then violates that warning within one or two pages. Another writer might just send the bears on an errand, but Marshall has the three eating excessively-hot porridge. The father complains of the heat; the cub, being an immature bear, melodramatically states that he is dying. (Rational Father suggests a bike ride while the porridge is cooling. This is a nice way for Marshall to begin establishing distinctive characters wit

Like James Marshall, Michael Cunningham is a gay artist. Like Marshall, Cunningham is especially interested in how people talk to each other. Cunningham's most-recent book--"A Wild Swan"--uses fairy tales to examine Cunningham's favorite subject, the complexities of modern marriage, modern dating. (Which other gay artist has a major interest in fairy tales? Stephen Sondheim.) My favorite of Cunningham's re-tellings involves Snow White, and it's a story called "Poisoned": _ You wanted to last night. _And tonight, I don't think I want to. _Why, exactly, is that? _It's weird. Don't you think it's at least a little bit weird? And I'm, well, getting tired of it. _When exactly did you change your mind? _I didn't. Okay, I'm tired of pretending that I'm not tired of doing it. _Is it because of that apple joke, today at the market? Did that bother you? We don't quite know what we're reading,

The rule of threes says: Use a triplet. A triplet is the quickest way to establish a pattern, and a pattern in a story is immensely satisfying. "What big eyes! What big nose! What big teeth!" Or: the three little pigs. Or: "One chair was too big....one was too small.....one was just right...." James Marshall's use of threes: George tries to spy on diarist Martha in the kitchen. He is caught. George tries to spy on diarist Martha from the trees. He is caught. George attempts a bald request: Please let me snoop? And--once more--he is caught. Martha slams the door in his face. Take out just one of those three "acts," and you lose at least some of the satisfaction.....

One of my favorite essays is "Wheels Up," by Sloane Crosley. Here, Sloane waits for a cab. Five feet away, a woman in a wheelchair is also waiting. Sloane arrived at the corner first; this is something no one is acknowledging. (New York is--at all times--a powder keg of tension.) A cab arrives; it's especially large, to accommodate people in wheelchairs. Sloane--pleased with her own magnanimous nature--cedes her right to the cab. The wheelchair-bound person kisses her fully-mobile husband; the husband leaps in the cab, while the woman stays on the sidewalk; the cab speeds off. Stunning. Sloane next watches the person in the wheelchair blithely running over a dog's tail; when the dog-owner spots the wheelchair, he murmurs, " Oh, she didn't see. " Outraged, Sloane corrects the record: "She DID SEE. She just didn't care." And the essay ends the only way it can end: "Lady, what's wrong with you?" says a ne

"Succession" continues to remind me of Patrick Melrose. In one of the most recent episodes, Kendall visits his mother. He tells her he has something he wants to unload; like Eleanor Melrose, Kendall's mother briefly seems to *want* to be supportive, but then finds a way to evade the task. The sadism of the former Mrs. Roy also makes me think of Eleanor. The former Mrs. Roy could help her children, but instead she finds a way to upset them more: "You want money for your father? Tell him he can either (1) have X amount or (2) give up his Christmases with you. See what he picks." This awful situation--making the children understand that Daddy actually wants cash more than "togetherness" time--recalls something Eleanor does in the Melrose novels. She gives her estate to a "transpersonal foundation"--perhaps imagining how the move would irk her detested former husband--and she doesn't consider (or *really* consider) the pain that this de

*Renee Zellweger will win the Oscar for playing Judy Garland, and this is another case of a movie star playing a (different) movie star. (Think of Jessica Lange as Frances Farmer, ScarJo as Janet Leigh, Nicole Kidman as Grace Kelly, Robert Downey, Jr. as Chaplin.) What IS rare is when a star-impersonates-older-star performance wins an Oscar. This happened for a supporting role in "Ed Wood"; it happened for "The Aviator." (Something in the same ballpark happened with "Ray," but Ray wasn't a movie star; Ray was a musician. Same for Witherspoon in "Walk the Line." And Spacek as Loretta Lynn.) *No one thinks that Ms. Zellweger really should get an Oscar this time around. The buzz is that the year's best performance came from Alfre Woodard, in "Clemency"; Ms. Woodard wasn't nominated. *Each year, the Times critics list their ideal nominees for the performance awards. It's striking that, in three of four cases, the

*One--and only one--performer won an Oscar for a Hitchcock role. We're talking about Joan Fontaine, in "Suspicion." *Woody Allen performers have had much better luck: Dianne Wiest, Diane Keaton, Michael Caine, Penelope Cruz, Cate Blanchett, Mira Sorvina. *One of the great travesties in Oscars history is that the 1999 Best Picture prize went to "American Beauty," a boring choice. This was a watershed year for movies; it was a year that resulted in "Election," "Being John Malkovich," "Office Space," "The Insider," and "Boys Don't Cry," among many other worthy projects. *People do well in Clint Eastwood films. His Oscar winners include: Hilary Swank, Morgan Freeman, Gene Hackman, Sean Penn, and Tim Robbins. *Before this year, no Noah Baumbach performer had earned even an Oscar NOMINATION. Now Laura Dern has a nomination--and, surely, will win--for "Marriage Story." And keep an eye on A

Obsessive-compulsive disorder: Excessive orderliness, perfectionism, attention to details, a need for control. This isn't listed on my shrink bills--I'm always told I have "chronic adjustment disorder with mixed anxiety"--but, to me, OCD seems like it's not quite a stranger. In high school, I would stare at various traffic lights: If the light changed at a time to my liking, this would mean I'd get into the college I wanted. Now, I stare at the annual Christmas tree and dream of rearranging and re-re-arranging and re-re-re-arranging the lights: There is a certain configuration of lights I can see in my head, or almost see, and if I can achieve that configuration, the world will be bearable. If I buy a hard-cover book and create just a tiny dent in the jacket, it's almost like a physical pain. I can't stop staring at the dent. I desperately dream of fixes: If I put, like, a Chiquita banana sticker over the dent, will it stop bothering me so

James Marshall Fans: A few more things I'm obsessed with: *The "Complete" George and Martha volume talks about Marshall's growing awareness of a "less-is-more" aesthetic. In early George and Martha stories, the two characters would sometimes reflect, directly, on what they had experienced; a moral would be made explicit. This changed as Marshall "grew up." Look at the early story "Split Pea Soup." At the end of the story, Martha catches George "vandalizing" the soup, and she has a heart-to-heart with him. But, then: Flash-forward to the end of Marshall's career, with "The Clock." Same kind of story. George gives Martha a gift; unwilling to seem unkind, Martha conceals her distaste for the gift. But--here--there is no moment of revelation. No one announces a moral. Instead, Martha continues with her deception, and George remains happily (maybe semi-willingly?) deceived. And this is how the story ends! A chil

This smash-hit book *does* have flaws. (1) Trevor Noah re-teams with his father, who has been more or less absent for many years. Noah--eager to give his father the benefit of the doubt--presents us with a rose-colored, humorous account of the reunion. But something is missing. Where the hell was the dad for years and years and years? Noah--eager to put a tidy bow on a story--doesn't tell us all we need to know, and he doesn't really confront a sense of anger, a feeling that must be within him, somewhere. (2) Noah has a great story about shoplifting with a friend. There's grainy mall-camera footage, and the footage clearly captures Noah's features. But--because the camera erases evidence of race--no security official is able to see that Noah is Noah. Everyone watches and says, That kid doesn't seem to be Noah's "color," so he can't be Noah. A fine allegory about human stupidity--but something is again missing here. Noah sells his friend dow

George claims he is going to jump from the high board--and everyone will see him--and Martha must withstand this puffed-up windbag moment. (George is a hippo of many words, and some are foolish. See also: "The Fibber," "The Trip.") When George loses his courage, Martha rescues him--and George has the audacity to LIE! ("I just didn't feel like jumping today," he says. "Maybe tomorrow." As if his failure to jump were just because of a passing whim--and not deep terror.) Martha bites her tongue--and silence, once again, says everything. Sometimes, in the presence of nonsense, we must just hold our breath. Marshall liked the gap between speech and thought--there's a world of subtext in a pregnant pause--and, here, he is once again pursuing the "subtext-love" that we have seen elsewhere ("The Clock," "The Box," "The Beach," you name it!) .....

Noah Baumbach, my hero, made several movies I love. "The Squid and the Whale," "Frances Ha," "The Meyerowitz Stories": all delightful. Among Baumbach's many gifts: finding small absurd moments and catching them on camera. He and his partner Greta Gerwig have a thing called a brain dump, where they list their minor sociological observations, then decide how these gems can fit into a narrative. For example, in "Meyerowitz": A slightly unhinged middle-aged man searches for a parking spot in Manhattan. Unforgettable. "Frances Ha": Our protagonist can't fit her full name into the tiny slot a New York City mailbox allows, so the name becomes (memorably) shortened. Charming. "The Squid and the Whale": A pretentious young man begins spewing forth his father's (pretentious) thoughts on Kafka, and of course it's revealed the emperor has no clothes. The critic has never read the book. "Marriage Story"--onc

Like "The French Lesson," "The Box" is a game of cat-and-mouse. Once again, it's briefly unclear who is the "cat." *Martha* seems to be in control. She defies the rules. George's box says, "Do Not Touch," but a little secret peak can't really be a problem. Except that it sends jumping beans spilling everywhere. Fine--but Martha can still retain control. She can "get away with it." She just needs to get the beans back in the box. She does so, frantically. And yet George wins the day. George returns and quietly observes that Martha is sweating. And Martha's defensiveness says it all: "You don't think I looked in that box? I'd never....I'm just not the nosy type!" George--the true "cat" in this game--need not say a thing. Silence speaks volumes. And the curtain falls.....

"Little Women" has a Marmee problem. The character is tedious and gratingly pious; she is a non-entity. She is an absence on the screen--an absence, with dialogue. Gerwig tried to solve this problem by adding in the interesting speech where Marmee admits she is angry every day of her life--but I see no evidence of anger-suppression in Laura Dern's performance. Not even in a little puff of mild anger wheezing in a distant corner. Dern's Marmee seems cheery as a pig in shit. Cheery inside and out. So that's baffling. (Someone needs to coach Laura Dern through her interviews. In a recent Times piece, where she tried to explain her "approach" to Marmee, she sounded like someone Kristen Wiig would satirize on SNL. Dern's comments on "Big Little Lies" were similarly celestial and goopy and strangely non-sensical.) "Little Women"'s Marmee problem isn't just limited to Marmee. Beth and Meg--especially Meg--are insufferably

Martha is a little bit incontinent. She can't hold her tongue; she has so much criticism to direct at George's art. "Add more blue. Those palm trees look funny!" George, by contrast, is buttoned up. You see this in his art: Everything is cautious and strictly realistic. George runs away from Martha's blathering--and Martha proceeds to spill paint all over George's canvas. The image that results is wild, chaotic, exuberant; it's just like chatty, agitated Martha. George could learn from Martha's wildness; Martha could (perhaps) learn from George's discipline. And that's life! P.S. I think the mysterious title--"The Artist"--refers to Martha. (A less-mysterious title would be "The Artists," or "The Two Artists.") It seems like Martha is the one expressing her feelings through her work. Martha is the one having a grand time. I suspect Martha's zeal inspires Marshall--but it's interesting that he do

Ruth Marcus has an issue when narrating her Brett Kavanaugh book: She doesn't really have access to Brett Kavanaugh. And--even if she had that access--Brett Kavanaugh is maybe a cipher. Not the sharpest tool in the shed. Someone with major ambition. Someone skilled at buddying up with powerful older men. Someone whose political beliefs seem to change shape and meld with the beliefs of the powerful person he is attached to, at any given time. For this reason, Christine Blasey Ford becomes the star of Marcus's book. Ford actually is extraordinary, and has achieved something extraordinary. The governing metaphor of the Ford chapters has to do with surfing. Ford--a surfer--hates the thought of paddling in, refusing to go after the wave. As she hesitated to testify, she worried about being seen as the type of person who caves, who paddles in. (To which I say: Wow. I'm nervous about a mildly awkward conversation about my professional plans for next year. Ford chose a

George takes Martha on an awful outing, and every time Martha complains, George fails to empathize. He keeps falling back on a (covertly) bullying phrase: "Use your imagination!" Finally, Martha snaps. She gives George a taste of his own medicine. She tells him she has spotted a shark, and he flips his shit. When George realizes there isn't any shark nearby, he confronts Martha, and Martha brings down the (inevitable) hammer: "Really, George, you must learn to use your imagination." This is situational irony: The "teacher" (George) fails the "test" (being fanciful). It's also a fun spin on the standard "journey" story. People say there are only two plots: (1) I go on a journey, or (2) A stranger comes to town. Here, G and M seem to be taking a "trip," but really the trip is emotional. George must come to understand the pain he is inflicting on Martha. That's the journey. Once again, the title has more than

People are often punished for bravery. That's especially clear on Martin Luther King, Jr. Day; MLK was murdered for having challenged an evil system. When rituals are entrenched, there is a wish to keep quiet. "Sure, this isn't ideal, but rocking the boat is so obnoxious. Just accept things as they are." You see that in the movie "Spotlight," and in other pieces about the Catholic Church. (In the midst of allegations, one Church official actually said, "It's better that seven victims suffer quietly than seven million believers lose their faith.") Today, on MLK Day, I'm remembering a hero who spoke up recently, and who was punished in ugly and predictable ways. That person is Christine Blasey Ford. A detail people don't dwell on--a detail that seems especially chilling to me--is what "Mark and Brett" did immediately *before* the attack. They turned the music up. They wanted to drown out any screams. They

James Marshall especially liked to talk about gift-giving. Martha makes drama when her gift for George--a book--goes missing. George makes drama when he gets Martha a loud, obnoxious cuckoo clock. (It seems to me that much of the awkwardness and difficulty in an interpersonal relationship can be encapsulated in the problem of gift-giving. How strange to feign enthusiasm when you don't feel it! I saw this at another couple's dinner table last night; one person opened a present and said, Ah, wow, a coffee-table book about opera! ) In "The Clock," Martha can't bring herself to admit she doesn't like George's gift for her (the loud, obnoxious cuckoo clock). So she says THANKS--and, later, she hides the clock in her hamper. When George finds it, crazily decides that it just "fell" in the hamper, and then praises its many "charming" qualities....Martha realizes something. Suddenly, she knows she can "loan" the clock to Georg

My bright and shining star, Whitney Houston, made the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame this week. It was the first time the authorities had nominated her. She rocketed past Chaka Khan--who has seen several nominations flicker...and sputter....and die.... Not that everything is a contest. I really like one of Houston's last major songs--"I Look to You." The author is the now-disgraced R. Kelly; since the song is about a soul at war with itself, one wonders if R. Kelly was really describing his *own* disastrous life. (My money is on YES!) A speaker prays to God via three main images. One: Whitney, like a child, is in bed, thinking, "As I lay me down....Heaven, hear me now....I'm lost without a cause...." Two: the image of bad weather. "Winter storms have come.....and darkened my sun...." Three (very chilling): the image of someone drowning. "About to lose my breath....There's no more fighting left...." At moments, Whitney imag

Some notes on January: *Certain people really seem to like "Underwater." It was shelved for January, perhaps because one of the co-stars ran into trouble with the law. But that doesn't make it a bad movie. I'm intrigued by the pairing of cinema demi-god Vincent Cassel with Kristen Stewart. *Stephen King shares my interest in Hollywood's January. King Tweeted: "Sometimes, in the depths of winter, after the bloated movie-floats of December have moved on, interesting pictures creep into the multiplexes...." (Amen! And "bloated" is the right adjective. I'm looking at you, "Irishman"--!) *We can now all consider "Disturbing the Peace"--zero percent on Rotten Tomatoes--and, really, how bad can it be? It's Guy Pearce. Guy Pearce--of L.A. CONFIDENTIAL and THE KING'S SPEECH! Battling outlaws! Sounds--possibly?--like a good time.....

It seems to me "Succession" should acknowledge a debt to the Patrick Melrose novels, by Edward St. Aubyn. Maybe this has happened. Patrick Melrose: A boy born to fabulous wealth is brutalized by his father. His mother does nothing to intervene. Eventually, the mother gets away. The boy grows up to be a drug addict. The mother--when she drifts back into the picture--paints herself as a co-victim, as if there is no difference, in status, between spouse-of-monster and child-of-monster. "Succession," with reference to Kendall: All of the above is also true. I'm halfway through the series, at least the episodes that exist right now. My heart is with Kendall, although (spoiler alert) the Chappaquidick event that I just saw makes sympathy challenging. When I watch Jeremy Strong's performance, I think of a recent piece in the Times about Hoffa. There are two notable Hoffa impersonations: Jack Nicholson and Al Pacino. Nicholson made many cosmetic changes, but

I have no idea if James Marshall read Arnold Lobel's work; I have a feeling he did. In 1979, Lobel published "Alone," in which Frog worries Toad by going off to sit on his own. Toad thinks Frog has some dark secret. In fact--in a gentle Lobel-ish twist--Frog reveals that he is really quite happy, and wanted just to sit and reflect on his happiness and on his great friendship. So sweet, so sweet, yadda yadda. But I wonder if James Marshall was consciously rewriting "Alone," in 1986, when he published "The Misunderstanding."  Here, George the hippo reveals he wants to be alone. Martha is hurt. She goes off and mopes. Eventually, she picks up her saxophone and entertains herself, and she becomes so engrossed that she doesn't hear the phone when George calls to reconcile. George concludes that Martha is royally pissed. We might expect a reunion, but that's not how the story ends. It ends abruptly--subversively!--with this misunderstandi

My favorite Twitter account is Amy Bloom's. Ms. Bloom is very salty and droll in person; she was my teacher, in college. She uses Twitter as an art form. Her tone is restrained. She generally waits until she has something funny to say. A bitchy conservative columnist posted, recently, a covertly sexist observation about Elizabeth Warren: "My youngest says she is like the kind of grandma who doesn't bake you cookies. He is saying she is cold, but I like his phrasing better." Amy Bloom replied in the only way possible, surprising but inevitable: "My youngest says Trump is the kind of grandpa who punches you, leaves a bruise, and doesn't know your name." Also, Bloom is especially lively when Tweeting about her arch-nemesis, the "Vichy Republican" Susan Collins. Recently, Collins announced her intention to run for reelection. "Collins believes she is the centrist candidate, able to compromise, that Maine so badly needs....: Bloom,

Notes on horror, with regard to the Oscars: *Kathy Bates's "Misery" victory is not totally unparalleled. In addition to Jodi Foster and Anthony Hopkins ("Lambs"), we have, for example, Natalie Portman ("Black Swan") and Ruth Gordon ("Rosemary's Baby"). *One newspaper argues that "Silence of the Lambs" isn't even really horror; it's a psychological thriller. But what would define horror? Do there need to be supernatural elements? In that case, it's not clear why "Misery" would count as horror. (I guess it's maybe--slightly--supernatural at the very end, when James Caan is at lunch, and the face of the waitress briefly melds with--dead--Kathy Bates's face?) *Other scary films with Oscar-level pedigree: "The Sixth Sense," "Jaws," "Get Out," "The Exorcist." Toni Collette received her first--and, so far, only--Oscar nod for "The Sixth Sense."

A cliche about parenthood: It teaches you to surrender the plan. My rigidity is above-average. It borders on OCD. Eight quarters for a coffee, every morning. Have the train ticket clutched in one fist at least six minutes before the conductor passes by. Read at least twenty pages before your on-train nap. Buzz in to work at 7:47, and not sooner, because that minute that extends from 7:46 to 47 is your time. My baby sometimes has Linda-Blair-in- Exorcist moments without warning. The river of spit-up will just emerge from the calm, quiet infant. Multiple orifices--nostrils, mouth. Then, he who was Buddha-esque becomes hysterical. Shrieking sobs, red face. Or I'll find myself gently folding back rolls of baby fat to insert healing ointment in a neck-crevice; the milk dribbled from the lips has gathered in the crevice and caused a red streak. Just not an activity I ever imagined for a Monday afternoon. Walking Salvy was--for a while--a big affair, with a stroller and a

What you may not know/remember about Kathy Bates: *Before her film career took off, Bates made waves in the theater--for example, as the protagonist in the play "'night, Mother." *Bates is a mentor to other actors, such as Camryn Manheim and Melissa McCarthy. *Bates netted her other, earlier Oscar nods for "Primary Colors," "About Schmidt," and "Misery." *The horror-film win--the Oscar for "Misery"--is a rare case where an actor won for a horror performance. (Another example is the two leads from "Silence of the Lambs.") *The titan particularly likes poetry and children's books, such as "A Child's Garden of Verse" and "Eloise at the Plaza." (You can read about Bates's literary tastes here: https://www.vulture.com/2018/10/kathy-bates-favorite-books.html) I love Laura Dern, but I love, love, love Kathy Bates--and Oscar upsets have been known to happen....I'm just saying......

I never see movies anymore, but I did see "Frozen II," and it's clear that (1) the Academy was right *not* to give a Best Animated Picture nod to this movie and (2) the Academy was right to highlight "Into the Unknown." The fact that a movie is financially successful can mean very little. It can have little to do with the quality of the movie in question. Also, a movie can be politically progressive, in exciting ways, and still sort of bad. "Frozen II" is lumpy and bewildering; the Olaf shtick becomes tiresome; too much exposition happens in a too-clumsy way. All that said, three cheers for "Into the Unknown." Idina Menzel does not have a great track record when performing live--so I worry about that. Could Billy Porter do the song at the Oscars? Or Brendan Urie? "Into the Unknown" has many nice flourishes. I'm fond of the verbs: "Are you out there? Do you know me? Can you feel me? Can you show me?" I also

The NY Times suggested today that Kathy Bates's new Oscar nomination might be unjust; that spot might have belonged to Jennifer Lopez. I haven't seen "Hustlers"--so I have no comment on Lopez--but I'd just like to say that Bates was excellent in "Richard Jewell." We're all at war with ourselves--this is the human condition--and this is what we pay to observe in a great performance. As a woman struggling to hold it together, in "Richard Jewell," Bates was riveting. So much was happening behind her eyes. The pain was so real, you occasionally felt as if you were seeing a documentary, and not a fictionalized version of Jewell's ordeal. I won't soon forget Bates struggling to retain her undergarments (literally) in the overbearing presence of the FBI, or Bates feeling upset when she learns her living room is bugged, or Bates working hard to stay composed during a press conference. This was masterful acting. Did Lopez deserve a nom

One of my all-time favorite stories is Maile Meloy's "Red from Green": The summer before she turned fifteen, Sam Turner took her last float trip down the river with her father. It was July, and hot, and the water was low. Hardly anyone was on the river but them. They had two inflatable rafts with oaring frames--Sam and her father in one, her uncle Harry and a client from Harry's law firm in the other. In the fall, she would be a sophomore, which sounded very old to her. She had been offered a scholarship to a boarding school back East, but she hadn't accepted it yet. Applying had been her father's idea, but now he looked dismayed every time the subject came up..... Meloy loves the idea of the child protagonist--the sensation you get when you, the reader, understand there's danger in the air, and the protagonist doesn't have the same apprehension (because the protagonist is just a wide-eyed, trusting child). This is a big feature of the novel &q

As everyone knows, January is where movies go to die. If you're a Hollywood movie with a January release date, then someone powerful really has very, very little faith in you. That said, the contrarian in me always welcomes January, as a break from all the leaden Oscar-courting films of the fall. No longer do I need to say, disingenuously and halfheartedly: " I almost didn't mind the four-hour length because Joe Pesci was so intriguing! " Or: "Sure, it's two old men talking for the entirety of the movie, but Anthony Hopkins is so subtle!"  A big, wacky failure can be more entertaining than a careful, buttoned-up "King's Speech"-esque outing. And so I'm particularly drawn to: *"Underwater." This is Kristen Stewart battling aliens, like Sigourney Weaver in "Aliens," but everything happens underwater! *"Like a Boss." This alluring film smashed the Bechdel test--the director is Miguel Arteta, wh

They fuck you up, your mum and dad.        They may not mean to, but they do.    They fill you with the faults they had     And add some extra, just for you. But they were fucked up in their turn     By fools in old-style hats and coats,    Who half the time were soppy-stern     And half at one another’s throats. Man hands on misery to man.     It deepens like a coastal shelf. Get out as early as you can,     And don’t have any kids yourself. This poem is a parody of a homily; it tells a story, then finds a moral in that story. The story is that your parents do you damage, filling you with their own neuroses. With time, you can find compassion for your parents: After all, they are simply victims of their own parents, who were vicious and a mess. (And the viciousness and messiness were open secrets.) The final stanza makes a leap to reflection/commentary: It's the rule of nature that damaged people will damage people, who will damage new peo

How strange it is to watch "The Two Popes." The Catholic Church--responsible for so much evil in the world--is now the subject of a buddy comedy. Herr Ratzinger, who ignored the suffering of many child-victims, until politics made such behavior impractical, and whose own brother seems to have "overseen" many egregious cases of abuse, is now a twinkling cantankerous old fussbudget, embodied by Anthony Hopkins. (I'm halfway through the film, and I'm wondering if any attention is paid to the moment Ratzinger went after a heroic nun--a nun who seemed too concerned with fixing the plight of women in America--even as priests were raping and beating children on multiple continents.) Also, the movie seems not too interested in "the sainted" John Paul II, who actually seems (in the cold light of 2020) far more problematic than Ratzinger himself. Check out the New Yorker article on JP's own knowledge of Church evils; this was a piece publ

As James Marshall's powers grew, his stories became more complex. Later George and Martha stories sometimes have sequels. "The Scare" continues--in a shocking, unannounced way--in "The Amusement Park." "The Photograph" has a memorable sequel with "The Special Gift." One of Marshall's late stories is a triumph of situational irony. That's "The Book." Here, George is pissed because Martha won't let him read. She keeps fidgeting. George reads a brisk passage in his book, i.e. "be considerate to your friends, for sometimes you're thoughtless without even knowing it"; drunk with rage and righteousness, George seeks out Martha to read this aloud, as in a sermon; having found Martha, George is startled to hear Martha apologize and explain that her fidgeting grew out of loneliness; chastened by this apology, George examines his own rashness and bites his tongue. Situational irony. The one preparing to sermoni

For a long time, I tried to write about "No Visible Bruises," which had really shaken me -- and I struggled. The subject matter--the deaths of several women at the hands of their partners--is obviously really hard to talk about. Also, it's not earth-shaking to say--about an already-praised book--that "this is a really great book." Having noted that, I think I can point out a few things: *Rachel Louise Snyder is really skilled with small, chilling moments. A man murders his wife. He leaves behind several hours of family footage. The survivors claim they can't find anything odd in this footage. Snyder watches. At one point, the wife is in her underwear, and she asks not to be filmed. "Please stop," she says. "Please stop." The husband keeps filming. Eventually, the wife stops making her request. Why did this bother me? Snyder asks. Wasn't this just some bit of tomfoolery? Then Snyder has an epiphany:  She asked him to stop,

Sondheim's "Hat Box" makes me a little sentimental; specifically, it makes me think of Matisse in old age, finding ways to make cut-outs after his physical powers had started to fly away. (Maybe Sondheim would hate this comparison.) My favorite part of "Hat Box" is a discussion of the first line of "Sweeney Todd": "Attend the tale of Sweeney Todd." You hear it, and maybe you don't think much about it. But here's what Sondheim thought. He thought: (1) The alliteration is (covertly) memorable. "Tend, tale, Todd." He thought: (2) It's great to have a slightly archaic use of "attend" in this musical. "Attend," in Victorian times, could mean "PAY ATTENTION TO." Content should dictate form. Of course your Victorian hosts would say: "Attend the tale of Sweeney Todd." I think he noted, also, (3) "the tale of...." is a pleasingly old-fashioned way of packaging a messa

One great triumph of toxic masculinity is the airing of the football game. Regularly, in houses across America, a football game is screened during a family gathering. The men sit on a couch and watch the game, and the women quietly walk back and forth from the kitchen, offering small snacks and fresh drinks. (I'm complicit in this behavior. I don't watch the football game, but also, certainly, I don't carry the drinks.) No one ever says, "Hey, who wants to switch the channel to TOSCA, on PBS?" Or: "Would anyone like to check out Katrina Lenk doing Sondheim songs? They're re-running this on Thirteen...." Sometimes--amazingly--a man will berate a woman for not knowing something about football. The woman will ask, innocently, what "tight end" refers to, and her partner or spouse, in front of a crowd, will say, "Woman, do you really not know the answer to that????" Almost certainly, the woman does *not* say: "

Buddy died, and Beverly buried him, and then she set off toward Lake Clara. She went the back way, through the orange groves. When she cut out onto Palmetto Lane, she saw her cousin Joe Travis Joy standing out in front of his mother's house.... This is how Kate DiCamillo begins her newest children's book--"Beverly, Right Here"--called the best book of her (DiCamillo's) career. There's much to admire in these lines; you sense the writer is doing her work with a small smirk on her face. Who is Buddy; what is the emotional impact of the burial? The way DiCamillo skips right past the emotions--right to the orange groves--sets up a small mystery right away. And what caused the death? Was this a sudden event? There's also the sense of a journey--a literal journey. We're "setting off," "going the back way," "cutting through the orange groves." The novelist Ann Patchett reads DiCamillo for inspiration--and I think wha

*Is there really a rift between William and Harry? Rumors are greatly exaggerated. *Did Anne really shaft Donald Trump? Beware the falsities of wagging tongues. *Did Elizabeth II complain when Trump's helicopter fucked up her (Lisbet's) backyard? Yes. Yes, she did complain. *Does Prince Philip still ride horses? Yep. *Who saved the monarchy mid-century? It wasn't really George VI. It was truly his wife, operating behind the scenes. You know her as Helena Bonham Carter, from "The King's Speech." *Is Elizabeth II ridiculous? Maybe. Here's the thing. When Diana died, the people of England really wanted Elizabeth II to fly the royal flag at half mast. People feel angry when they're in pain, and targets become useful. E II could have just put the flag down. But she didn't. She twiddled her thumbs. She took the flag away and put up a national flag in its place. That's the flag that was eventually lowered. A weirdly bitchy comprom

Situational irony is when *the exact opposite of the expected* occurs. The cobbler's child has no shoes. The baker's child has no bread. These are examples of situational irony. One of the greatest cases in film history comes from Soderbergh's "Contagion": Beth is proud of her job, a spot in a major international corporation, a job that affords her great benefits. But, in the final scene of the movie, a flashback, we learn that the hand the feeds Beth is also the hand that kills her. Corporate dealings created a major contagion--the subject of the movie--through deforestation. The international corporation--the great breast you can suck at--is a corporation that commits murder. The power broker's child has no power. Irony! Black humor: When a scenario is so absurdly distressing, it becomes funny. Beth, ending a bleak phone call about the possible end of the world, says: "Merry Christmas." Matt Damon's character--worried that a nice b