Liars and Saints

Chloe Fineman Fans: In "Drew Is Going Crazy," Drew speaks about being jobless on a visit to NYC. https://www.instagram.com/p/BW-dFQujg8F/?utm_source=ig_embed&utm_campaign=embed_video_watch_again The trip brings joy, Drew tells us, and she shows us her flashy green Manhattan jacket. But, that said, so many New Yorker friends have corporate jobs, which means you have to fill a day on your own! "I'm literally going crazy," Drew says, and laughs, and that "literally" is telling. To consume the hours, Drew admits, she has been shopping for a "Nahrs lip chappie," in a shade called "Let's Go Crazy," because, again, "I'm a little bit going crazy....." The eyes bug out; there is a troubling moment of exhalation; fade to black. Who knew you could cram so much (denial, oblivious privilege, tension, wonder, subtext) into a brief speech about a cosmetics purchase? I'm still very much in love.

I can recommend "The Devil's Candy," an account of the filming of Brian De Palma's "Bonfire of the Vanities." A certain figure is needed to play Sherman, a mostly venal, detestable guy who is the center of the Tom Wolfe novel. Really, William Hurt is needed. But Hollywood wants someone the world loves (even though the world shouldn't love Sherman). Hollywood goes with Tom Hanks. Sherman is having an affair, and he and his girlfriend strike a man in the Bronx--a hit-and-run! It's expedient never to acknowledge this, so the story seems to be about running from consequences, doing the wrong thing, all the time. Eventually, through a journalist, the truth is revealed, and Sherman gets a lecture from a judge, in the form of Morgan Freeman. This movie has been called one of the worst of all time, the "Ishtar" of its day, a major flop. The problem seemed to be that no one really cared for, or respected, the story, and so a kind of lukewarm n...

It's not clear to me that James Marshall studied Jean de Brunhoff. But here is some speculation. "Babar's Travels"--the second Babar book--has Babar and Celeste on an adventure. They go up in a hot-air balloon, but life intervenes, and they end up stranded. A friendly whale offers to rescue them, but the whale gets distracted by fish, and the elephants are once again abandoned. Finally, a ship arrives, but the captain believes that the elephants are not royalty, and the grand couple is sold into circus life. Meanwhile, back on the mainland, Arthur the tiny elephant decides to play a prank on the rhino Rataxes, by strapping a small firecracker to Rataxes's tail. This doesn't actually amuse Rataxes--and the threat of retaliation becomes a problem. Do you see a James Marshall spirit here? The use of large, large mammals to tell stories about chance and behavior. The hot-air balloon (which also appears in Marshall's story "The Flying Machine")....

Most of the time, I sing Dolly Parton to Joshua. "I Will Always Love You" has three perfect verses. The first is an announcement: If I should stay, I would only be in your way. So I'll go, but I know-- I'll think of you every step of the way. I want Josh to know: These apparently simple lines have internal rhyme. Also, they aren't flashy; they are plainspoken. (So seemingly effortless, and so hard to pull off! Stephen Sondheim says, You don't want to gild the lily. You aren't writing poetry. You just want to let the melody do a great deal of the work.) In the second verse, Dolly's thoughts turn to her "luggage": Bittersweet memories-- That is all I'm taking with me. So goodbye: Please don't cry. We both know I'm not what you need. Again, the restraint! (My other favorite lyrics are similarly "toned-down," and they're from "Fiddler on the Roof." "At ten, I learned a trade...I hear they pi...

Maile Meloy Lovers: Meloy has a perceptive piece about detective fiction in "Town and Country." Like the author of this blog, Meloy particularly loves mysteries set in Britain. Meloy singles out certain writers for praise: J.K. Rowling (the "Strike" mysteries), Kate Atkinson, Waters ("Fingersmith" and "Paying Guests" are crime novels), Pullman's "Sally Lockhart" books (ostensibly for kids). One treat: Meloy reveals that Le Carre's first two books were actually short mysteries, more than they were spy novels. (Brief and centered on a puzzling death? I'll take it.) Meloy also rejects a theory from Auden, who said that we read mysteries as a way of coping with our own guilt. (Hmmm?) Meloy says--more plausibly--that the comfort of rooting out evil is just addictive. It's especially nice in these unsettling Trumpian times. What I can't take is a *bloated* mystery; I think Ruth Rendell's early mysteries (e.g....

I can't stop writing and talking about the actor Chloe Fineman; you should know she also does a version of Frances McDormand.  https://www.instagram.com/p/BgMl_G2HUVP/?hl=en Ms. McDormand--dressed like a Greaser, from "The Outsiders"--appears for a film audition. (The movie title isn't given.) "Can I start?" she says to the camera, with crazed, inappropriate intensity. "My name is Frances.....Mc....Dormand." Fully body shakes begin. "I'm so nervous, I'm hyperventilating....If I fall over, pick me up cuz I. Got Something. To Say." (It's nice to imagine Frances sputtering out her monologue while twitching on the ground; this does seem to capture something about the actual Frances McDormand.) At this point, Frances begins racing, in an unintelligible way, through the opening of "Romeo and Juliet": "Two households in Verona....." This devolves into nonsense syllables: "TWO! HOUSE! HOLDS! HOO!...

Dramatic irony: when we readers know something that our protagonist is unaware of. A famous example: Elaine believes she is a fabulous dancer, on "Seinfeld." (We see contradictory evidence.) Or, in "Red Dragon," we're very much aware of the danger the blind lady faces with Francis, though the blind lady is oblivious. James Marshall has an entry in this canon. In "The Photograph," Martha is way off her game; as a model, she is lacking. (Distortions of perspective cause her nostrils to resemble massive caverns.) Martha--blessed with crazy self-confidence--believes that the photo is a masterpiece. And P.S.  .....We see this crazy self-confidence again, in "The Artist." It's endearing to me..... P.P.S. This is a very rare case where a George and Martha story has only one character. Actually, I can't think of another example! P.P.P.S. Dramatic irony, continued: Lazar and Tevye meet in "Fiddler." We know that Lazar is ...

My goodness! A couple is splitting in half. One man goes to parties and pukes on Meryl Streep; turns a facile lie about his childhood into a blockbuster play; begins doing meth during orgies on Fire Island. The other half wants something more conservative, a nice little family; he ends up in a marriage of convenience with an older Trump supporter; he struggles to find his true calling, which is to be a kind of domestic saint, cooking for guests and speaking in gentle tones and being a source of emotional support for troubled youth into his nineties, when he finally dies. As all of this unfolds, there are digressions. An acquaintance of the couple, a gay doctor, melodramatically announces he is moving to Canada, because Trump's America "no longer deserves me." Another character talks--and talks--about having been gang-banged in Europe, and about how the experience was briefly euphoric, but then it created an AIDS scare. There are weird interludes with the ghost...

An additional love letter to Chloe Fineman: Fineman's high-school drama teacher said she had *two* sizable talents, one for tragedy and one for comedy. (In other words, like Kate McKinnon, Chloe Fineman might have a future as a "serious actor." Remember McKinnon is meant to do the "Bad Blood"-slash-Elizabeth-Holmes story at some point.) Fineman was staging productions and being generally extraordinary long before she flew to New York, to begin her time at NYU. I like--and don't understand--Fineman's Britney Spears just as much as I like Fineman's Drew Barrymore. You get the sense that these crazy people are living inside Chloe Fineman's head, and they have to come out. I'm inspired by this work. https://vmagazine.com/article/10-times-snls-chloe-fineman-made-an-impression-on-instagram/

People wondered if Harvey Fierstein could really play Tevye. Fierstein himself wasn't skeptical: "I just played an overweight housewife from Baltimore, in HAIRSPRAY. Tevye is much closer to me." Critics were kind to Fierstein; they weren't kind, in any way, to his co-star, Rosie O'Donnell (stunt casting). There seems to be a consensus that Alfred Molina had been too "small" in the role of Tevye, and Harvey rescued the revival, or half-rescued it. Frank Rich said that "Fiddler" endures not because of light, cute numbers, but because of the monumental "Tradition" and the chills-inducing "Anatevka." Curiously, "Anatevka" was, at first, a comic number; someone had the idea, late in the day, to slow things down and make "Anatevka" mournful and linked to exile. Everyone comes from a family, and nearly everyone builds a family in his own time. The erosion of tradition really is universal. My husband ...

If you've just discovered Chloe Fineman: Ms. Fineman also does Drew Barrymore. Drew has arrived in Bushwick to view "street art" in preparation for "Flower Beauty," which seems to be a magazine? Drew informs us that she is "going through it," and maybe the reason is "the rain" (it's not raining). "Or maybe it's my love life." Drew pauses. "Anyway, my flowerscope says let go of COULDS and WOULDS.....and just BE." (Unclear what the segue is.) Drew--like "the sunflower"--will get out of her own head and simply exist, for the month of June. I have no idea what I'm watching, as I watch this, but again I'm pleased someone out there is deeply insane and doing important work, for Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/p/Bj2_uCFj8Wf/?hl=en Enjoy......

George the hippo gets a taste for lies, maybe because he is insecure, maybe because he has some deep unexplored unhappiness. (We'll never know; James Marshall is now dead.) "I was an Olympic champion in the high jump," George says, or something like this, and right away Martha knows shenanigans will follow. Unchecked, George goes on. He has sailed the high seas on an inner tube. He was once a world-renowned snake charmer. Martha pulls out her stuffed snake; enough is enough; George, terrified, reveals that he was actually lying. "For shame," says Martha. What I really love is that George can laugh at himself. "You can see I really *am* a skilled jumper," he says, because he has thrown himself at a high, high chandelier, as a way of avoiding the snake. This is a perfect ending, and Marshall, aware that ideas of falsity and exaggeration are on our mind, has Martha say the only thing she can say: "That's TRUE." And th...

Chloe Fineman fans: Writing about Fineman yesterday led me to another masterwork: Fineman's version of Nicole Kidman, from "Big Little Lies": https://www.instagram.com/p/BXdrVSUjeZV/?hl=en Fineman borrows several Kidman tics: the exasperated puff of air, the throaty mirthless laugh, the ambiguous staring off into the distance, the pushing-air-away-with-limp wrists, the Australian spin on the word "laugh." It makes me very happy that someone out there is insane enough to spend time on this kind of minute observation. I'm also pleased with the Instagram name: "Chloeiscrazy." And the tagline--"For your Emmy Consideration"--is perfect. I have to meet this person!

Zero Mostel didn't want to work with Jerome Robbins, a terrible person, on "Fiddler on the Roof." (Robbins had named names to HUAC; Mostel had not.) Actually, though Robbins was a legendary monster, Zero Mostel was an unpleasant person, as well, in his own special way. Mostel became agitated when "Fiddler on the Roof" drew attention for anything other than Mostel's performance. Mostel also had an irritating habit of ad libbing for several minutes whenever possible--broad humor that clashed with the rest of the show. (This lost Mostel the chance to appear in the "Fiddler" movie.) Jerome Robbins could never make up his mind, regularly motivated people through abuse, and did not give breaks. He terrorized Bea Arthur (Yente) until she burst into tears; she has indicated that he was one of the worst human beings she has ever known. Despite all that, "Fiddler" happened. Robbins--the director--really sort of wrote the show. He pushed Bock ...

Martha--hungry for knowledge--sets up a flea-study project. ("Martha was in her laboratory," says Marshall, and it's one of the silliest deadpan openers I can think of.) Martha posts a helpful diagram, a black dot labeled "Flea." For inspiration, she posts the portrait of "Madame Canary, Inventor of Bird Seed," and we can imagine that this woman knew Marie Curie..... Beside Martha's microscope, you'll see library books: "Famous Fleas," and, of course, "All About Fleas." (FAMOUS FLEAS!) Naturally, the experiment goes awry, and George quietly hopes this will be the end of bugs in the house. (Bugs tend to crawl all over careless hippos...) But Martha--undeterred--has an announcement: "I'll be studying honeybees next...." A coda, a twist, a celebration of intellect--all in approximately three or four pages....

I'm obsessed with Chloe Fineman's recent performance on Saturday Night Live. Watch here: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=vx6J1KnS0h8 Lunacy is signaled right away. Chloe describes the Oscars as her "favorite holiday," and doesn't pause to suggest there might be a difference between, say, Oscar night and Christmas. Chloe announces, soberly, that the Oscars are a fine chance to consider women and their "steering-wheel acting." That's when the heroine is finally alone in her car, and she can just let it all out. She's not crying....she's not laughing....SHE'S ACTING! There's actually only one example Chloe can cite, from "Knives Out," but it's part of the madness of the script that no one notices this. Renee Zellweger has her meltdown, but it's not via steering wheel; she's in the back of the cab. Saoirse Ronan comes from a pre-car era, but she can have her meltdown in a buggy. (No matter that I'...

A war between expedience and truth. Mr. Legasov is a scientist. Chernobyl happens; Legasov has to investigate. Something uncomfortable becomes clear: Though Soviet authorities *say* they want an investigation, they don't want an actual investigation. They don't want any facts that would implicate higher-ups. They just want to blame some technicians, some (certainly-foolish) yokels who were operating the switches. The problem is that Chernobyl had a faulty design, and there was an awareness of this faultiness for many years. Legasov--knowing he will likely die from radiation--does the brave thing. He says that he himself--and other scientists--must take responsibility for Chernobyl, because cost-cutting led to disaster. In Legasov's climactic speech, you may recall "Spotlight"--where people did a brave thing, despite the fact that bravery can make a reporter unpopular. (People don't like seeing a system challenged, even when the system is clearly a me...

Jean de Brunhoff wrote just a few Babar tales before he died--at forty--of tuberculosis. The tales began as little night-time monologues--stories Jean would tell his children. (Amy Bloom published her own children's book after having invented a small, talking sweet potato, in various soliloquies, for her grandkids.) God is in the details--and you see Jean de Brunhoff getting carried away, delightfully, from the first page onward. Babar's mother soothes Babar in just the way we would imagine for an anthropomorphic elephant; she rocks Babar with her trunk while softly singing. Babar has a good time with his friends; he digs in the sand; he has found a way to clutch a shell, a digging tool, inside his trunk. For an adventure story, you must kill off the parents. And Jean de Brunhoff does this briskly, confidently--right around page three. Mom is gunned down by a hunter. And so we have a fish-out-of-water tale: Babar runs away to the city, Babar tries on spats (wha...

Like "The Diary," "The Trick" has a three-act structure. George wants Martha's attention. Act One: He tries to win it by nailing Martha's slippers to the floor. Act Two: He tries to win it by baking Martha a cake. Act Three: He tries to win it by opening the cake-box for Martha. Coda: Martha claps back. She gives George attention, but it's not the kind he wants. She has slipped live frogs into the cake-box, and she has secretly devoured the cake. "By the way," she says, "your baked goods were delicious." A chillier sentence has never been born.....

My grandfather cut more turf in a day Than any other man on Toner’s bog. Once I carried him milk in a bottle Corked sloppily with paper. He straightened up To drink it, then fell to right away Nicking and slicing neatly, heaving sods Over his shoulder, going down and down For the good turf. Digging. The cold smell of potato mould, the squelch and slap Of soggy peat, the curt cuts of an edge Through living roots awaken in my head. But I’ve no spade to follow men like them. Between my finger and my thumb The squat pen rests. I’ll dig with it. Before St. Patrick's Day, I like to remember the many great Irish writers who have changed history. "Digging," seeing into dark corners previously unexplored: Alice McDermott, James Joyce, William Trevor. The poem above comes from Seamus Heaney. Heaney's grandfather was a farmer; he "cut turf." (God is in the details, and it doesn't matter that we d...

Being a dad means sleeping through many high-prestige movies. I'm particularly proud of the heavy-hitters I've recently napped through: *"Touch of Evil" (ranked among the best films ever, with a memorable performance from actor/director Orson Welles) *"Chinatown" (its villain, Noah Cross, is regularly classed with Hannibal Lecter among the iconic baddies) *"The Photograph" (buzzy LaKeith Stanfield vehicle) *"Chernobyl" .....And the list grows and grows!

I secretly dislike this story. Here's the gist. Ferdinand the Bull is not like other bulls. He does not butt and tussle and play. He sits quietly among the flowers, and that's all. One day, a bee stings him. This happens just as some local matadors are doing their search for the friskiest bull. Agitated by the bee-sting, Ferdinand behaves uncharacteristically. He is all "amped up." And so the matadors believe that they just have to have him. They stick him in "the ring." Of course, by the time he is in the ring, his sting has died down, and he is calm again. And the matadors get angry and irritated. And that's all. That's the entirety of the story. People love this tale--and Lena Dunham, for example, has Ferdinand tattooed on her back. But I find Ferdinand supremely boring. I want him to *do* something. It doesn't have to be something I like; certainly, Jane Austen's Lady Susan isn't admirable, but, in her craftiness,...

I really liked Sam Wasson's "The Big Goodbye," a history of "Chinatown," start to finish. The story: Robert Towne, drawn to Chandler and other old-fashioned mystery writers, realizes there is material in the "water wars" from L.A.'s recent past. He has a friend--a possible genius and mystery addict--who basically hands him the "Chinatown" story (and consents not to win any credit). Polanski gets involved. Polanski rewrites the ending to make things darker, and he makes sure that a really disturbing sensibility (ants crawling on corpses) flows through the entirety of the film. No one knows if the movie will work--and it works. It works in a big way, winning Towne an Oscar, netting several additional nominations. A how-to-write manual guy later elevates "Chinatown" as the ur-script, the ideal script in all of Hollywood history, and the script still has that reputation in 2020. The key players make a mess of their lives. Pola...

My husband and I watched "Miss Americana" the night it came out--of course we did--and my concerns were maybe different from typical national concerns: *On a private jet, Taylor Swift sits with her mother and comments on her mother's new dog. "That dog is the size of a horse," Taylor says. "The kids left the house, and Mom said, It's time to buy a horse-dog!" Anyone who lives with a writer will recognize what is happening here. Taylor--because she must, because it's genetically-encoded, for her--feels an urge to turn her mom into a madcap character, someone from a "Peanuts" strip. And Mom replies in the way that only Mom is capable of: "This was my cancer dog," she says, quietly. "I decided to do what I want, when I found out about this cancer. I wanted the dog." (A bizarre, brief, haunting peak into the world of Alison Swift. And one wonders about Alison's marriage. Her time with that old white dude w...

*For a long while, the Godfather had a special distinction. This was a role that had netted two Oscars. Marlon Brando: Godfather in old age. De Niro: Godfather in early adulthood. But--now--the role of the Joker is also a role to have won two Oscars (one for Heath Ledger, one for Joaquin Phoenix). *It's rare for a sequel to win Best Picture. This happened for Godfather II. It happened for one of the "Lord of the Rings" installments. (People think "Godfather I" also won Best Picture, but it didn't. It lost to "Cabaret.") *Something special happened this year. "Toy Story IV" won Best Animated Picture. Recall, years ago, "Toy Story III" had won Best Animated Picture. So--now--two films within a series have won Best Animated. A first. ....A while ago, listing Billy Wilder performance Oscars, I made an omission. Walter Matthau has a Wilder performance Oscar. It's a movie I hadn't heard of......

It's always fun to recall great writers and poke around and see what they're doing next. On my horizon....and maybe on yours.... *"My Life as a Villainess" -- Crime-writer-and-sensation Laura Lippman is releasing her first book of essays (due in May). Enjoy! *"Friends and Strangers" -- J. Courtney Sullivan. JCS writes smart, plot-rich tales about people struggling through awkward encounters, people communicating badly and then trying to clean up the mess. I very much like the title of this upcoming book. (June.) *"What Happens at Night" -- One of my favorite writers, Peter Cameron, returns with a creepy tale about creepy fish-out-of-water--a topic he tends to handle well, as in the novel "Andorra." (August.) Mark your planner. Can't wait!

Some people say parenting--and teaching--would best be defined as: "Listing the things you love, and handing these things down to a little person." In that case, Joshua, may I recommend "The Scary Movie," by James Marshall? You can tell from the title page that Marshall is particularly jazzed: The title has an exclamation point, and the movie in question features a hippo covered in a low-rent white "ghostie" bedsheet. Further delights await us. Three acts: Act One: George insists that nervous Martha attend a scary movie. Act Two: Formerly-nervous Martha has a great time, while George grows progressively paler. Act Three: George insists on holding Martha's hand, during the walk home, because "I don't want you to be afraid walking in the dark." Martha--fully aware of what is happening--simply, graciously, says, "Thank you." Joshua, there isn't a great deal I know, but I do know that a three-act story, a sense of ec...

I skimmed these; I found the cutesy element a bit trying. Also, I wanted to learn about "Peanuts"; I didn't really care about critics' autobiographies. (For example, Ann Patchett doesn't tell us a great deal about Snoopy, but she does tell us a great deal about Ann Patchett. This didn't grab me.) The Times highlighted one essay on Lucy-as-psychoanalyst--and this really is a great essay. I learned: Toward the very end of the strip, someone mistakes Lucy's business for a lemonade stand. Lucy asks: "Was the lemonade ever any good?" (This seems to be a spin on the ubiquitous question: "Does therapy every actually *do* anything?") There's also a joke about Lucy's "advice." Charlie goes on and on about his seemingly rootless, formless anxiety. We expect some kind of thoughtful interpretation from Lucy. Instead, the "doctor" hits the nail on the head: "My thoughts? SNAP OUT OF IT! Five cents, please.......

The seeds of a personality: Josh seems more and more amused, and more *consistently* amused. Also: Alarmed. Bemused. Cunning. Intrigued. Meditative. These are all fine things to be. I am trying to explain to Josh: the surrogacy process, and various family complications, and why we have Valentine's Day. Basically whenever I start to form a sentence, Josh shrieks with laughter; the content doesn't matter. The sight of two lips becoming mobile: This is enough to send Josh over the edge. And why not? Hysterical laughter does seem like a good response to most attempts at human communication. It's helpful to have a sense of humor.... P.S. Issa Rae's "The Photograph" actually earned great reviews. Something to consider for your weekend. P.P.S. Wasson's "The Big Goodbye" continues to be a really excellent history of "Chinatown." I'm obsessed with Faye Dunaway--of course--and with her tendency to arrive ninety minutes late, to have t...

Disgusted by George's bathroom humor, Martha might choose to become indignant, or storm out, or simply pout in a corner. But Martha instead takes matters into her own hands. She serves George his own medicine--with a story much ickier than anything George himself could dream up. And--indeed--George learns to "have some consideration." Marshall doesn't need to *tell* us that Martha is shrewd, imaginative, quick on her feet, a bit less than dainty. It's all there in her actions. (The brand of pluckiness we see here is similar to Martha's sharp wit, Martha's refusal to be besieged, in "The Fibber," "The Trip," and "The Big Scare" ......) P.S. George--a good sport--doesn't whine about the lesson. "You're the champ," he concedes, after Martha has thoroughly repulsed him. A gracious and "winning" observation.

Really, Shakira left her greatest number out of the Super Bowl performance. When the kids' film "Zootopia" was released, we met a new character, a cheerful animal pop singer named "Gazelle." (The name was an obvious, cheeky reference to "Adele." OMG! I love "Zootopia.") Gazelle--voiced by the inimitable Shakira--has one big number, and it's "Try Everything." I messed up tonight! I lost another fight!  I still mess up, but I'll just start again. The writer was Sia, and she seemed to be alluding to her own haunting earlier hit, "Breathe Me." ("Help, I have done it again. I have been here many times before. Hurt myself again today.....") "Try Everything"--a celebration of bravery and mistake-making (think of Lily Tomlin in MAGIC SCHOOLBUS, "Make mistakes!!!!")--succeeds for several reasons: *It's still a little bit subversive to acknowledge that mistakes can be a good th...

In the absence of authority, everyone suffers. Miss Nelson's children bounce off the walls; they even talk during story hour. Miss Nelson--recognizing the discomfort in this situation--reinvents herself as Viola Swamp, who gets s**t done. Rules, rules, rules. No more confusion, no more misbehavior. This isn't Shakespeare, but it's at least a work with clearly-defined problems and a creative solution. It's also a little lesson about social playacting, about the usefulness of a disguise. So many stories have that playacting bit--Hansel and Gretel, Red Riding Hood, Three Little Pigs, to name a few. Extra points for the James Marshall picture of an unmoored child standing on his head (which takes us back to Martha, in "The Job," mishandling her surfboard).....

A trend in elementary-school classrooms: Go around and name your favorite XXXXXX. Your favorite sport. Your favorite color. Your favorite bird. I find this mystifying because (a) I have to feign interest in all of the inevitably bland answers and (b) the question isn't actually a chance for a deeper conversation. The answers just hang in the air, and they die; there's silence. Yesterday, with third grade: "State your favorite ice cream flavor." This moves along as predicted, awkwardly; at times, the pause is so long that I want to shout, I want to say (uncharitably), " You can think of one, just one, ice cream flavor. Tell a lie. Make something up. This isn't a physics problem. " The class clown understands some of the subtext here, and he hijacks the conversation: "My favorite is stracciatella," he says. (Eyes get wide.) "And butterscotch. Cioccolata." (The kid isn't even Italian.) "Mint chip...Cinnamon....Black rasp...

I'm a bit obsessed with "The Job," because (as usual with Marshall) this story is so far from schematic. George gets a lifeguard position. Martha lectures him on how he needs to be very strict. Then MARTHA HERSELF turns out to be a troublemaker. (Human nature, situational irony: The teacher fails her own test. We somehow think we ourselves are exempt from the rules we claim to find important.) George tries to reprimand Martha--and Martha has a tantrum and clobbers George with a bull-horn. What I love is this: George doesn't point out the absurdity of the situation. He just refers us back to the start of the story. "Martha was right. This IS a hard job!" Is George such a fool that he doesn't recognize what is ridiculous here? Or is George being knowing and wry? You decide. The message is that people are running around clueless--strangers to one another, strangers to themselves. Disaster ensues. As always, I find this really subversive for a work...

In case you missed it: A major book on Hollywood came out last week. It's "The Big Goodbye," and it's the story of how Roman Polanski, Robert Towne, and Jack Nicholson made "Chinatown." This movie features the thing that most people agree is the single greatest Original Screenplay in all of history. Roman Polanski lost his mother to the Holocaust, and he made it through childhood via genre pictures. Westerns, thrillers--lowbrow fare could thrill young Roman. When he arrived in Hollywood, he had certain interests. He liked a claustrophobic picture: Put a few people in a small room and see how their true natures emerge. (Surely, that's why he chose to do "Carnage" many years later.) Polanski wasn't wild about the supernatural; he wanted events that could be explained with reason. He was fastidious about detail; if fashionable skirts grew incrementally shorter over a certain period, in New York, then you would see that trend refle...

A family of one-percent loonies is a family of parasites: contributing little or nothing, drugged, mocking the hired help. ("My driver smells like cabbage.....") Another family--impoverished--sees an opportunity. "We will make ourselves indispensable to the rich family." One by one, the members of this poor family "move in" ....A tutor, an art therapist, a driver, a chef/maid. In their climb, the members of the poor family *also* become parasites. They trample on defenseless people. A qualified maid is brutally dismissed; a preexisting driver is set up for failure, in a shocking way. The war of all against all escalates....and escalates....Eventually, there is murder. This is a nice Ruth Rendell-ish piece with a twist. Hollywood conditions us to expect that the poor will be--always, inherently--virtuous; if you would only hand power to the oppressed, then all would immediately, automatically "end well." ....."Parasite" bravely s...

One treat from the half-time show was a renewed interest in "Hips Don't Lie." This daffy song represents Shakira at the height of her powers. A young gentleman admires Shakira's moves, and he exclaims: She makes a man want to speak Spanish.... And he is then moved to attempt actual Spanish: Como se llama....Bonita...Mi casa....Su casa.... This dazzling display arouses Shakira: Oh, baby, when you talk like THAT.... You make a woman go mad! And who could disagree? Probably the gentleman doesn't *need* to learn Spanish; Shakira has a MENSA-level IQ, and she is obviously bilingual, at the least. (Something tells me she knows *more* than two languages.) All this flirtation leads to a culminating metaphor--one of the great metaphors of the past few decades: "I'm on tonight....My hips don't lie, and I'm starting to feel it's right....The attraction! The tension! Don't you see, Baby, this is perfection!" Shakira...

George terrifies Martha. Martha vaguely threatens retaliation. The two head to the amusement park. Act One: fun on the ferris wheel. Act Two: fun with bumper cars. Act Three: fun on the slide. (Summing up: "They were having a wonderful time.") Then: the coda. In the pitch-black tunnel of love, Martha screams and scares the bejeezus out of her friend. Economy, a use of threes, and a possible reference to "Strangers on a Train" (Hitchcock, who made use of his own spooky "tunnel of love"). No word wasted.....

*Best Supporting Actor, Best Supporting Actress. It's hard to get the nominations, but of course it's even harder to get the wins. This is why "The Fighter"--Bale, Leo--is so special. When has there been a nominee pair from one movie? Think of "Lincoln" (Field, Tommy Lee Jones). "American Hustle," "Silver Linings Playbook." "Moonlight." "Spotlight." "Goodfellas." (Yes! REMEMBER NOMINEE LORRAINE BRACCO!!) *Here's what sometimes happens to young women. They are anointed with a Best Actress win, then Hollywood decides the appeal has worn off, and we don't really hear from these women, as prize contenders, again.  Lupita Nyong'o. Alicia Vikander. Mira Sorvino. Gwyneth Paltrow. Halle Berry. Anne Hathaway. Jennifer Connelly. That's why I am especially pleased when an actress pulls off an Oscar nomination post Oscar win. I'm particularly obsessed with "Steve Jobs"--weak...

"The Attic" is like a sequel to "The Artist." "The Artist": Martha makes a huge mess with a painting and loves the work, and has a grand time. Cautious, timid George is unsatisfied--but Martha remains unflappable. (Marshall's sympathies seem to be with wild Martha.) "The Attic": George half-wants to visit the spooky attic, and Martha goads him on. The attic is in fact totally bland? No matter. Martha will terrify everyone with an inventive horror story. (Her build-up to the story is like her painting, in "The Artist,": exuberant, out of this world.) Martha pays a small price for outlandishness: paint all over her body and her smock, a case of goosebumps after she has horrified herself with her own imagination. But, Marshall seems to say: So what? Martha has LIVED!

The Oscars are Sunday. Here is the trivia you need to know: *John Huston created an Oscar-nabbing role for his father, Walter ("Treasure of Sierra Madre"). Then, John Huston created an Oscar-nabbing role for his daughter, Anjelica ("Prizzi's Honor"). Three other Huston performers won Oscars: Claire Trevor, Greenstreet, and Bogart. That means, your odds are really good if you're working with Mr. Huston--better than with the Coen Brothers, with Soderbergh, with David O. Russell, with Cronenberg. *Speaking of David O. Russell: Mr. Russell created a Best Supporting Actor role in "The Fighter," but he also created a Best Supporting Actress role in that same movie. We're talking about Melissa Leo and Christian Bale. The Best Support/Best Support winner pair thing hadn't happened since "Hannah and Her Sisters." (Wiest, Caine.) *One Oscar situation pretty much everyone agrees on: Michael Caine should not have won the Oscar fo...

"The Hypnotist" has a twist ending. Martha, who has been so concerned about George's overeating, gets ready to deliver a lecture. But George interrupts. He asks if M *wants* one of the scandalous cookies. And M loses her mind. She has not one, but ten trillion cookies. More situational irony: The teacher has failed her own test. And this is life as I know it. (And do you agree????)

A poor gay boy reads all the time. His strong-willed mother recognizes that he has a future; she wants to send him to the seminary, because that's the way for a poor boy to get an education. The boy reacts: "I don't WANT to be a priest." The tough, beleaguered mom explains the ways of the world. She doesn't have any money. Her dipshit husband moved her to a cave--a cave!--and more-or-less disappeared. (The absence of the father is one of many things this movie handles so quietly, so deftly.) The mom needs to make her cave beautiful, and she is smart, so she sees opportunities. An illiterate manual laborer stops by; Mom speaks up. The laborer can apply tiles to the cave walls; in exchange for this, little Pedro Almodovar will teach the laborer to read. (Let's not pretend that the little boy is anyone other than Pedro Almodovar.) This small exchange sets so many things in motion. It will be a big source of Pedro's love and admiration for his...

"Tons of Fun" experiments with pacing. We have a story that seems finished--and then we get a surprise sequel. "The Sweet Tooth" has George eating too much candy. Martha demands that he stop--through silly means--and George obeys. We think we're done. Next: "The Photograph"--completely unrelated--has Martha wrongly falling in love with a clearly absurd photo of herself. Then: "The Hypnotist" seems to be its own thing. George puts Martha under a spell. Where could this story go? Aha! George was using the hypnosis trick just so he could sneak back to the cookie jar. We are reading a continuation of "The Sweet Tooth" !  Martha wakes up. Drama ensues. Good writing should startle you--and there you have it. Marshall finds a way to be "surprising but inevitable." The shocking sequel is also an example of an artist/writer growing and becoming more ambitious--taking greater risks--as time goes on.

We moved. At times I feel like the novelist Shirley Jackson in Bennington, Vermont--surrounded by hostile lunatics. We share a private back road with ten or twelve other families, and the families operate an email list--and so passive-aggressive mass e-mails are exchanged. "Does anyone know who this trash bag belongs to? It's just....we pay for only one can....so we really prefer not to give our can-space to this foreign bag....Picture attached....." "Is this your cat? He spends so much time in my garden and on my lawn....I just want to be able to greet him properly! Photo attached...." Within days of having moved, my husband and I received an ominous note on the windshield of our car. "Dear (New) Neighbor....We noticed you have been parking in this corner. Please refer to the attached survey, with explicit guidelines about right-of-way....We'd love to talk this over with you.....With neighborly regard...." When I saw the w...

*You do pretty well at the Oscars if you are a Scorsese performer. We're talking about: Blanchett, Pesci, and De Niro. *Your odds are good if you're a Francis Ford Coppola performer. Think of De Niro, Brando, George C. Scott (because FFC co-wrote "Patton"). *And--surprisingly--your odds are great if you're working with James L. Brooks. We're talking about Nicholson (TWO Brooks Oscars!), Shirley MacLaine, Helen Hunt. No night matters more than February 9...... P.S. Billy Wilder plays a weird role here. You'd think the performers he'd coach to an Oscar might include Barbara Stanwyck, Gloria Swanson, Greta Garbo. But: no, no, no. We're talking about Ray Milland ("The Lost Weekend") and William Holden ("Stalag 17").

"The Irishman" is a weird and sometimes thrilling movie about silence and subtext. Scorsese has explicitly said that he is interested in what happens between people when the dialogue runs out. And again and again, you see him experimenting with long pauses. Body language. Things conveyed through the eyes. That's what keeps "The Irishman" floating along, more than the killings and big speeches. When Sheeran meets the woman who will become his second wife, she is his waitress. "Is there anything you need?" the waitress asks. Long, meaningful, Pinter-esque pause. Sheeran: "I'm great, I'm great." Waitress: "You just let me know if you need anything." Final, covert glance. In the next scene, Sheeran is divorced from his first wife and marching back toward the marital "aisle." This kind of playful use of gaps and pauses recurs when Peggy's "uncle" tries to make nice. "I bought you s...

You can see why "The Three Little Pigs" would interest James Marshall, toward the end of his career. It has a famous cat-and-mouse game, and this was a favorite game of Marshall's. "The French Lesson" has cat-and-mouse: George thinks he is in control, but in fact he is not. "The Box" again has cat-and-mouse: Here, it's Martha who mistakenly believes she is the cat. But Martha is the mouse. Cat-and-mouse requires subtext and disguise: To manipulate your fellow player, you have to say what you don't mean. So, in "The Three Little Pigs," when the Wolf says, "Let's get turnips," he doesn't mean that. He actually means: "Come outside so I can eat you." You can sense Marshall's imagination coming to life in the Wolf/Pig exchange. Toward the end of the game, the Smart Pig, having fun, says, "I'd love to go to the market with you! Would three o'clock suit you?" (That jaunty lan...

I watched "About Schmidt" last night, because I'm so happy that Kathy Bates is in the Oscar mix, and I wanted to revisit one of her earlier triumphs. A man loses his wife of forty-two years--a wife he sort of dislikes--and he discovers she once had an affair. The man has to fill his days, and he is maybe relieved that his daughter is getting married (a distraction), even though he has (correctly) identified the groom-to-be as a liar and an ass. And that's all. The groom-to-be doesn't change. The wedding is wonderfully painful, and our hero decides to be kind. He gives a vague, nice toast at the big dinner; he goes home and weeps. That's the story. This movie was Jack Nicholson's last great performance; he made "The Departed" later, but people don't like him in "The Departed." Nicholson won a Golden Globe for "Schmidt," and he almost won an Oscar; his co-star, Kathy Bates, almost won an Oscar, as well. The thing...

New Books.... *"Trace Elements" ....A new Brunetti mystery (March). Perfect spring break novel. *"Redhead by the Side of the Road." Coming in April....I admire an artist who sticks with her craft, year after year after year. This is a new Anne Tyler novel, already well-regarded, surely interested in "the muddle of everyday life." People like to announce that Tyler's career is over, but then a new novel makes her "buzzy" again; this happened with "Digging to America" and again with "A Spool of Blue Thread." *"Rodham." Due in June. A Curtis Sittenfeld novel that imagines Hillary's life if she had more consistently, emphatically refused Bill's marriage proposals. Brilliant, pithy title: The word "Rodham" is iconic. What if it weren't attached to the word "Clinton"? Sittenfeld struck gold with "American Wife"--which was partly about Laura Bush--and I imagine she...

Marshall uses the rule of threes in an early story, "The Mirror": Act One-- Martha admires herself in the living-room mirror. Act Two-- Martha, consumed by madness, admires herself alone in her bedroom, via handheld mirror, late at night. She giggles a bit--perhaps nervously, realizing on some level that she has a problem. Act Three-- Extension of the pattern. Martha returns to the mirror. But, a twist: George, deeply irritated, has pasted a monster-face onto the surface of the glass. "That's what happens after too much self-admiration. You grow several extra eyeballs." And Martha, chastened, vows never to be Narcissus--never again. Quick, strange, and satisfying. Special points for the late-night giggling in Act Two.....

"The Man" has my favorite line in Taylor Swift's "Lover," the justly-celebrated Leo DiCaprio reference: (If I was a man) We would toast to me--Oh! Let the players play.... I'd be just like Leo....in Saint-Tropez.... This is like a calling card. This is Ms. Swift saying, "I'm still sharper than most other pop writers at work." The internal rhyme--"me Oh....Leo"--delightful! Followed by the "play/Tropez." Really surprising and witty and "not trying too hard." But I have a hard time with other aspects of "The Man." Let's look at the first verse: I would be COM-plex... I would be cool... They'd say I played the field before I found someone to commit to... And that would be OH-kay... For me to do.... EV-er-y conquest I had made would make me More of a boss to you.... What drives me nuts is how screwed-up the syllable work is. People say, "Com-PLEX." Not ...