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Summer in Review

 There is nothing rational behind these judgments. I can’t name a single criterion I used for my decisions. Just listening to my gut.


Movie of the Summer


"Top Gun II." I saw other blockbusters--"Jurassic World," "Thor," "Elvis"--and not one came close. The script of "Top Gun II" belongs in a script museum. It's a well-oiled machine. So many fine moments: Tom Cruise trying to evade his girlfriend's daughter, who watches his every move; Jennifer Connelly seeing the uniform in the bar, and understanding the meaning of that uniform; the computer screen, and Val Kilmer sitting at the keyboard.

I also thought Miles Teller gave a beautifully judged performance, and Jon Hamm was terrific. (Runner-up movies: "Watcher," "Resurrection.")


Book of the Summer


This has to be "Rogues," by Patrick Radden Keefe. It's a book of real-world stories about criminals. Keefe is an encyclopedia; he knows that the Unabomber's brother is the one who sounded the alarm (and there has never been any flicker of forgiveness afterward). Keefe knows that the victims of the Lockerbie terrorist explosion remained conscious while they drifted six miles to the ground, and the bodies of children were easily spotted, because they were lightweight, and they drifted, via winds, very far from the rest of the mess.

Keefe knows that, in the Boston Marathon bombing, one man noticed the corpse of his son while also trying to nurse his (maybe) dying daughter. He had to choose not to say goodbye to his son, so that he could get his daughter to an ambulance. (The daughter lived.)

Keefe saves the major fireworks for his story on Amy Bishop, who murdered several of her colleagues in Alabama after she was denied tenure. Amy's childhood was a Greek tragedy; it seems she became angry at her father and planned to kill him, but made a mistake and killed her brother instead. The panicking parents imagined losing *both* children, so they quickly invented a lie: There was just an "accidental discharge." The parents have never strayed from their lie. The story is part mystery, part Antigone. And it's real. It actually happened.


Song of the Summer


"I Know Things Now." Sondheim's fairy tale women are larger than life; there's the Witch, there's the Baker's Wife, there's Cinderella. Big names get attached: Sutton Foster, Laura Benanti, Bernadette Peters. In all this glitter, it's easy to lose sight of Little Red. But she is now having a moment. Julia Lester is the break-out star of the new "Into the Woods"; Sondheim found her just before he died. I love Little Red's words, and I'm glad they're drawing attention:

Take extra care with strangers....
Even flowers have their dangers....
And though scary is exciting....
Nice is different from good....
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