Liars and Saints

  I'm watching "The Pitt," and occasionally I grow tired of the melodrama. Yes, we are all at war with ourselves, but sometimes the Dr. Robby struggles seem over-the-top. We get it. A little more subtlety would be helpful. By contrast, "The Simpsons" does a great job of showing Principal Skinner on a particularly bad day. Bart has smuggled his dog into school--but the dog escapes through an air vent. Groundskeeper Willie coats himself in lunchroom grease, and his rescue efforts are successful; however, Willie destroys a piece of school property and falls from the gym rafters. Having witnessed this, Superintendent Chalmers fires Skinner. Things don't get better. In an amazing scene at the laundromat, Skinner tries to entertain himself by reciting the names of each and every detergent. He can't even secure a playdate with Bart. Miscreants appear and steal his underwear--though he vows to buy a new pair, he soon discovers that he is penniless. Nelson's ...

  "Obsession" is a retelling of "The Monkey's Paw." In that famous story, a man wishes for great wealth. But the wealth turns out to be blood money--it's a corporation paying cash to cover up the death of the man's son. At the end of the story, the man wishes to have his son back. Fair. But the tapping on the door--is that a human being or a zombie? With "Obsession," young Baron wants the love of his old friend Nikki. He goes to a spooky voodoo shop and "gets" his wish. But Nikki's love seems problematic. Nikki begins screaming at random intervals. She tells lies about cancer. We reach a "crisis point" when Nikki cooks and eats a portion of Baron's dead cat. This movie has a little bit more on its mind. Baron's friend Ian has secrets--we're not sure we can trust Ian. Additionally, there is a colorful cameo at the voodoo store; the clerk is maybe not the helpful neighbor we imagine him to be. Beneath the layer...

  My daughter is now at a stage where she states her questions aloud while watching a movie. I've learned that I do not have to answer the questions. She is just thinking out loud. Her questions are spot-on. They are the questions that any engaged viewer would want to explore. In his new book "Make Believe," Mac Barnett argues that kids are the ideal readers. Their minds have not atrophied. They do not grow impatient if a story "breaks the rules." They are comfortable with uncertainty--because their growing brains have not learned it's possible to *reject* uncertainty. (By contrast, in my old age, I don't have much patience for a novel if it fails to feature a detective. If I can't immediately sink into the standard detective rhythms, I get crabby and anxious.) Barnett suggests that 95 of every 100 picture books are very bad. But he says this is not alarming, because 90 of every 100 "adult" books are very bad. Barnett argues that many adult...

 Like Anne Lamott, I'm not a great fan of Mother's Day. It's not clear to me why parenting demands a celebration--no one puts a gun to your head and requires you to become a parent. So the expectation of being celebrated--this feels narcissistic. At least until our culture establishes a Single Person's Day, and a Gay Uncle's Day, among several other random days that come to mind. Recently, the Times ran a letter by a single woman who had an inner conflict. A friend was marrying for a second time--this friend was staging a splashy second wedding. The letter writer makes an annual trip to a particular concert with another single friend. There is a kneejerk reaction: A second wedding is "more important" than a single person's ritual. But why should this be the case? I admired the Times's response: Cite a scheduling conflict, go to the concert, and move on with your life. My daughter brought home a Mother's Day card. In one spot, the paraprofession...

  One error of the current revival of "Chess" is a wish to make the characters likeable. Trumper's bad behavior is "explained" through a new subplot about mental illness. There are machinations around Florence--but these machinations do *not* include lies about her dead father. Her father is, in fact, alive; he pops up at the end. (Heaven forbid we leave the theater with a feeling of sadness!) I do not like or understand "Chess"--and I think it should be retired. But--watching clips of Judy Kuhn--I can get a sense of a slightly weightier "Chess," a better "Chess" than the one we have to swallow in 2026. Kuhn is capable of acting--she seems brittle and conflicted. This is more than Lea Michele can offer--with Michele, we get an unconvincing pantomime of distress. We also get some loud "Mariah"-inflected pop numbers. As others have observed, the current "Chess" is half-redeemed by its Anatoly. Nicholas Christopher ...

  Lena Dunham reminds me of Amy Winehouse. You listen to a tape of the pre-adolescent Winehouse, and the voice is already there--the talent is undeniable. And Dunham's major movie--"Tiny Furniture," essentially the work of an undergraduate--is a masterful comedy. It's the kind of thing that earns you random emails from Nora Ephron. (Ephron lobbied for Lena Dunham's company.) Amy Winehouse didn't want fame; she wanted to be a jazz singer in tiny nightclubs. Lena Dunahm didn't want fame; she wanted to express herself. The early years of "Girls" are a horror story. Dunham teams up with a "friend," a substantially older woman, Jenni Konner. Instead of mentoring Dunham, Konner views her child-colleague as a kind of meal ticket. In the first season, Dunham begins to show signs of disordered eating. Konner does not offer help. She approaches Dunham and says, "The producers are worried that your weight seems too normal. The show doesn'...