Liars and Saints

 This is a movie about three sociopaths, and the script asks us not to notice the "mental illness factor." The characters played by Jennifer Lawrence, Matthew Broderick, and Laura Benanti all behave in an inexcusable way; as "penance," the Lawrence character is set aflame and tossed into the ocean (actually, tossed from the windshield of a speeding car). But an ocean can't turn a sociopath into a functioning person. You have to turn off your brain; just suspend disbelief. I've heard that Jennifer Lawrence is perhaps unhappy with her career. The Ringer says that Lawrence has the charisma of Goldie Hawn 2.0; she should be doing comedies. But, for years, she was sandwiched into dreary, airless films ("Hunger Games," "X-Men"), and her few entertaining moments happened only in Fallon/Cohen/Letterman interviews. I'd love to see more comedy from Lawrence; like many ticketholders, I was dazzled when the newest Lawrence character emerged from ...

  In my teaching days, a certain group argued against the word: "No!"  When you're making your class rules, try not to focus on proscriptions. Instead, be positive. Focus on the *good* things we *ought* to do.... At the time, I thought this was a nifty idea--but, now, as a parent, I realize that the idea is nonsense. "No" is popular for a reason. When Andrew Rannells was walking his grade-one nephew to the 9/11 Museum, that nephew decided to "go boneless" in the middle of an intersection. He just became a puddle of jelly. And Rannells panicked, and he whispered: "Don't be an asshole. Get up." The words were exactly right. The crisis was then averted. Lately, when my son exhibits a certain kind of energy around his sister, I calmly say, "Don't be a pest. Don't be naughty. Don't be mean." These vague, lazy sentences seem to work very, very well. My child gets the message. Jane Fonda wants you to understand that "N...

Kelly Clarkson has fumbled her opportunity; everyone is ready to love a divorce album, but the Times says Clarkson has really failed to go mining for gold. One of my favorite divorce songs is "Crazy Love," by Paul Simon; it seems to be about post-Carrie Fisher wreckage. Fat Charlie the Archangel sloped into the room... He said, "Well, I have no opinion about this...." And: "I have no opinion about that...." Sad as a lonely little wrinkled balloon. He said, "Well, I don't claim to be happy about this, boys..." And: "I don't claim to be happy about that...." Simon mocks himself, and it's charming. He is like Bartleby, the Scrivener, turning away from the world. Calling himself "Fat Charlie the Archangel," he seems to be making a reference to his delusions of grandeur. At the same time, he is laughing about his own weight. She says she knows about jokes; This time the joke is on me. Well, I have no opinion about that....

  There is a great deal of finger-wagging about the rich people who died in the Titan submersible. "Those fools!" "A billionaire misadventure!" I'd like to think I would never enlist in a project with Stockton Rush--who compared car-driving to his own Titanic escapade--but I certainly know what it is like to make a stupid choice. So: My heart goes out to those folks in their watery grave. I feel for them, especially when a self-righteous NYTimes reader makes sniffy judgments in response to their obituaries. Over the weekend, Marc and I watched a movie about young people behaving in an idiotic way. It's called "Like Crazy," and the title says it all. A young Felicity Jones is smitten with love; she ignores visa regulations to spend a few extra weeks with her American boyfriend, Anton Yelchin. Anyone with half a brain would say: "Fuck around, and find out...." But who has half a brain among undergrads and grad students? Jones and Yelchin lo...

I expected my daughter to have a bit of a struggle with camp, and I was fully wrong. Susie was cool and collected on Day One, and she did not give me a parting glance once she had entered the classroom. By contrast, the one and only boy in her group, Theo, seemed to be having a meltdown. "He is upset because he went to the dentist yesterday," said his mother, and I swear that I caught my daughter rolling her eyes. When Amy Schumer learned that she had endometriosis, she asked for info about the cure, and doctors said, "We don't study this one all that closely, because it doesn't happen to men." And Schumer said: "Right. We have nineteen different shapes for Viagra, but endometriosis just can't be a priority." I resented little Theo for sucking all the oxygen out of his classroom--although I know it's iffy to have these kinds of feelings about a small child. Having packed Susie's bag for Day Two, I noticed that she had discarded her belo...

 Sometimes, novice writers with a publishing deal think that they can bury their weakest essays toward the back of their book. This is very much the case with Andrew Rannells's essays ("Uncle of the Year"): Two pieces, on the gym and on a semi-amateur production of "Miss Saigon," should not have evaded the close scrutiny of Rannells's editor. That's all right. Rannells has an odd, interesting career to reflect on, and he makes some smart choices. I really liked his observations about Lena Dunham: While advising Rannells on his work, the basically adolescent Dunham was able to demonstrate the toughness and acuity of a veteran in her fifties. (Dunham is very different from Hannah Horvath.) Rannells also makes clear that the memory of Dunham's fearlessness and honesty has been a major motivating factor in his own career, in the past fifteen years. It's also a treat to read about the genesis of "The Book of Mormon." Rannells doesn't car...

  One piece of "Sex and the City" lore is that no plot or subplot can see the light of day unless it has its roots in an actual event from a staff writer's life. Again and again, you can think, "Yes, that does seem like something that might actually happen to me." Some examples. Che Diaz seems to reject physical contact, and this behavior sends up red flags, but really Che is just feeling weird about Che's gut (because of comments from TV producers). Or: Seema dumps a guy because he has an odd "renter" arrangement with his ex-wife, and then Seema becomes defensive when her hairdresser accuses her of always rushing to judgment. Finally, Nya's discovery of her own "extramarital feelings" happens on the same night that she (accurately) accuses her estranged husband of indulging a roving eye. All of this interests me, but here's my concern: The stories don't add up to a TV show. There isn't a sense of urgency on the page. Also...

 It takes a great deal to lock down a babysitter. The sitters are fickle, especially if they're teenagers. So--when I found one--I wasn't going to cancel my New York City trip. Not for any reason. Noxious gas had filled the air, because of crazy apocalyptic wildfires in Canada? This was not a concern to me. I wore my mask and wandered the streets of Manhattan, noting the chartreuse sky! The subway cars made me nervous--because, now, actual murders occur on the subway--but all I detected were some overstuffed bags of trash and a "poopy" smell. It was difficult to enter the Strand, since two buses had rammed into each other, and several blocks were taped off. But I found a way. The new trick at the Strand is for people who are too lazy to ask themselves, "What would I really like to read?" The table is called "Blind Date with a Book," and various Strand employees have packaged novels with wrapping paper, and with hasty, vague descriptions. "Sexy...

"Cabaret" seems to be a template for "Moulin Rouge": An American writer travels to Europe and meets a sexy, slightly nutty performer (and complications ensue). But, to me, the thing that makes "Cabaret" special is its B plot (and I think I recall that this is largely absent from the bizarre movie adaptation). As the writer pursues Sally Bowles downstage, we're also aware of upstage intrigue--with the aging landlady, Fraulein Schneider. Schneider has a small crush on her friend, Herr Schultz. When threats arise by way of the morality police, the two Berliners agree to marry. This is the romantic climax of the show ("How the world can change, it can change like  that ....due to one little word,  married.... "), but happiness dies quickly; a vengeful neighbor alerts Nazi authorities to the fact that Herr Schultz is Jewish. Schneider cuts off the engagement, because she does not want to die, and she doesn't want to be imprisoned. Assailed for...

  Nicole Holofcener's third major film--"Friends with Money"--is like her "problem play." It's the one that doesn't really work. It's the one that earned just *qualified* praise from Roger Ebert. If you've seen "You Hurt My Feelings," then you recognize certain recurring sources of interest. Holofcener likes when a couple experiments with brutal honesty; for example, a man might tell his wife that her "ass looks fat." And the wife might say, "I'm not sure I needed to hear that. Just because you believe something, you need to say it? Do you need to hear that your breath stinks?" Holofcener also likes to consider well-intentioned behavior that actually seems to be destructive. In her new film, a son complains that his mother once demanded an inflated grade on a term paper. ("You're welcome?" says the mom. And the boy says, "I earned the bad grade I'd received. I needed to just accept that bad...

  People should never complain about choices they themselves have made--conscious choices, when no one had a gun to anyone's forehead--but I'll go ahead and complain about "Moving Up Day." My child is in fact not moving up; his classroom next year will still be a preschool classroom. But there was a twenty-minute party. Music played; no one sang along; there was shouting and, occasionally, I saw fisticuffs. At one point, I tried to move to clear space for the woman behind me, but she said, "Stay where you are. You're blocking me from my kid, and this makes him less anxious!" At the end, there were donuts, which I rejected, because everyone in my house had been puking for a couple of days. I ran off in my car, but then the teacher called, and said that my child was having a "literal" panic attack. "I'm worried he will hyperventilate." This of course proved to be overdramatic--but my family "rescued" Josh, who calmly spent...

 A theme in "Kimberly Akimbo" is: seeing. In the first number, the title character describes her peers: Sure, tonight, I'm getting looks... But, tomorrow, they might see me... (They never really see me....) Because of her disease, Kimberly is labeled odd, and she is dismissed. To an extent, this happens even with her own parents (and we observe the result in the explosive climactic number of the show): There's always you, and always me, And there's the ghost of a girl I'll never be.... Before I go....let go of the ghost. Just let her disappear. And then, maybe, you'll *see* me-- While I'm still here. The reason "Anagram" is so special is that Kimberly has just met a person who actually sees her. This is really the only "seer" in her life (with the occasional exception of her grifter aunt): I wonder how you see the things you see. With a change of perspective.... Nothing's defective.... I wonder what you see....when you *see* me....

 Jane Fonda recently made news by saying, "I guee old age is hard, but it's youth that is really hard. People forget how brutal it is to be a clueless twentysomething." I thought of this in reference to "Slow Motion," a memoir by Dani Shapiro. The story Shapiro tells is relatable; it's just about being dumb and reckless in one's twenties. Shapiro is a student at Sarah Lawrence when she finds herself sleeping with her close friend's married father; this guy is a pathological liar and a powerful lawyer, with his name in NYT stories and flashed across CNN screens. Shapiro soon loses her friend, and she drops out of college; she is going to "become an actress." This doesn't go well, but at least the powerful lawyer is forking over huge sums of cash. Also, Shapiro's parents seem not to care about Shapiro's behavior. There is really only one moment of parental interest, when Shapiro's mother says (after years), "Just tell me ...

 If I could offer advice to new parents, I'd suggest that you ought to be wary of diagnoses. At some point, someone used the word "apraxia" with reference to my child, and I thought this was the gospel truth. Later, I was told the word "apraxia" actually can't apply to a child so young. Certain benchmarks need to be met before the word gets assigned. Later, still, a speech therapist, while mocking diagnostic errors, went ahead and  made her own diagnostic error : "It's definitely not apraxia." She kept marching down this fantastical road, issuing declarations: "It's a language-based learning disability? It's not attention deficit. Maybe it's attention deficit?" I have one person in my life who is a continuous source of common sense, and what she repeatedly says is: "When they're so little, you want to see progress. You don't want to see stasis, and you don't want to see regression. If there is progress, th...

 Anne Lamott says there is really one way to tell a story: Take a character in a good place, force that same character into a bad place, then show the gradual (heartening) return to the good place. Or, if you're writing a tragedy: Take a character, chase her up a tree, then throw rocks at her. And throw more rocks. I'm not sure if "Happy Valley" is a Lamott story or a tragedy (I suspect it's in the Lamott camp), but I'm eager to find out. We learn quickly that the "Happy Valley" hero, Catherine, once had a pretty good life. Catherine had a marriage, a child, a job. Things shifted. A man raped and impregnated Catherine's child, who then gave birth and hanged herself. Catherine assumed custody of her grandson; Catherine's husband couldn't take the heat, and he abandoned the marriage. Tough Catherine couldn't really "move on," especially when she learned of the rapist's completion of his prison sentence. So Catherine is tee...

  I'm on board with the critic Adam Feldman, who has cited the songs from "Parade" and "Sweeney" as the highlights Sunday night. The "Parade" choice was predictable (in fact, it's the same choice that the 1990s producers made) -- but it put a useful spotlight on Micaela Diamond, and it had a sense of momentum. An awards clip needs momentum. The opening of "Sweeney" is among the four or five great openings in Broadway history; Sunday highlighted the "Sweeney" choreography and the "Sweeney" chorus (two things I love). Do you see how the dancers seem to be "quoting" Lady Gaga and Michael Jackson? I can't get enough of that! I might have tossed a few lines to Annaleigh Ashford, but maybe Ashford just wanted a quiet night in her aisle seat. Is it odd to omit Mrs. Lovett? She is *the* protagonist of the show; when Angela Lansbury bows, she bows last. Oh, well. It's just one number. "Anagram" is a ...

 My daughter runs around singing pop tunes; sometimes, the melody is "Let It Go," and sometimes, the melody just seems to be something she drafted in her head. This reminds me that I spent my youth daydreaming about my own radio show; I would ride my bike down the road, belting out Madonna tunes for listeners throughout the tri-state area. "I see," says my husband. "And did anyone suspect you were gay?" Over the weekend, I introduce my daughter to  Miss Saigon , which is not very good, but gosh, it's powerful. "This was the gospel of my own childhood," I explain. "Keep an eye on young Kim. She has a heart like the sea...." This is a reciprocal relationship, so my daughter teaches me, as well. Were it not for Susie, I wouldn't spend time on Wikipedia, discovering that Kristen Bell actually has formal training in musical theater. (She left NYU for an ill-fated Broadway version of "Tom Sawyer"!) Also, it's Susie who h...

  I keep thinking I'm done writing about "Kimberly Akimbo," but I love to extol the virtues of this show, and I know there are at least a few other Levaco zealots out there. Justin Cooley might (it's unlikely) win a Tony Award tomorrow for his Broadway debut. He is in the "supporting" list, which seems like category fraud; next to Victoria Clark, Cooley is the co-lead of his show.  Cooley plays Seth Weetis, a nerdy boy whose great desire is to "throw caution to the wind." He makes this confession in his "I Want" song: My brother played with nunchucks; I liked playing chess. My brother broke the knicknacks; I would clean the mess. I ate my peas and carrots; My brother never would. And as my mother died... I promised to be good. This is about labeling. Lazy adults tend to see children as "good" or "bad"; the practice is harmful not just for the hyper kids, but also for the seemingly docile kids (who may quietly resist th...

 It's said that theater has only two kinds of songs: the "I Want" song and the "I Am" song. The distinction becomes blurry, but generally an "I Am" song is simply a self-portrait; it's not a declaration of "want." A classic in the "I Am" bucket is "Mr. Cellophane," from  Chicago.  Another is "Cockeyed Optimist," from  South Pacific. If you're singing "I Am," you're reflecting on how you feel; you aren't focused on a specific thing that you desire.  This weekend, America will celebrate Into the Woods , which has a terrific "I Am" moment, a song called "It Takes Two." It's about a married couple taking new risks; emboldened by a quest, the wife interrupts the narrative to state some blunt truths about her husband.... You've changed.  You're daring. You're different in the woods. More sure-- More sharing. You're getting us through the woods. If you co...

 Sometimes, my children hold hands in the back of the car, and they just giggle. It's reliably the greatest thing that happens on the planet, and I can't predict when it might occur, and I can't fully interpret the meaning of the laughter. At other times, my son walks up to my daughter and pushes her (for no clear reason). This really alarmed me until I watched a Chris Rock special, and Rock spoke about his daughter's fondness for biting the limbs of strangers. I really think that Rock should win some kind of humanitarian award--just for publishing this confession. My spouse and I are not sure how to counsel my daughter. Occasionally, there is a temptation to say: "Just push back!" This doesn't seem very Christlike...but....maybe...who cares? I took pleasure in a picture book yesterday, "Timothy Goes to School." In the book, Timothy is bullied by Claude--and Timothy does not meekly accept this nonsense. Instead, he daydreams about Claude falling ...

 For Pride Month, I'm putting a spotlight on Maurice Sendak. Sometimes, Sendak seemed weighted down by his own sense of importance; his bitchy colleague, James Marshall, called him "Morose Sendak." But I think Sendak's early works, "Pierre" and "Chicken Soup with Rice," are really fun. In "Chicken Soup," a deranged child speaks of his fondness for broth. He sips it while gliding on ice-skates. He sips it underwater, with a turtle. He sips it from a robin's nest (a kind of bread bowl, up in the trees). I have a feeling that Sendak's strange rhymes inspired Sandra Boynton. "In February, it will be my snowman's anniversary....with cake for him and soup for me!" (And think of Boynton: "Look at all the hippos, with a belly button each! Do you wonder where we are? ....It's Belly Button Beach!") Two thumbs up.

  For seven episodes, this year, the writers of "Somebody Somewhere" pitched a perfect game. This was like watching an Anne Tyler novel on television; I can't think of higher praise. Sam--a walking trainwreck--grows agitated when her friend, Fred, announces his plan to marry. "No new people," says Sam. Also: "I don't trust love; I've never been in love." These lines are unnerving, but there is so much hilarity in the show, it's possible to overlook the awkwardness. It's difficult to make even a small change--and Sam really struggles just to drag herself down the road to singing lessons. (She will need to perform "Ave Maria" at Fred's wedding.) The lessons happen to toss a new person into Sam's orbit (such is life), and the new guy, Brad, soon falls in love with Sam's close friend, Joel. Because he senses how fragile Sam is, Joel hides his relationship from Sam, and the tension starts to grow. At the same time, Sam ...

  The Natural History Museum is both the worst and the greatest thing about New York City; it is loud, overpacked, badly organized, and also a portal to pure wonder.  If you compare it to our nearby Newark Museum, it's like you're comparing "Per Se" to Domino's Pizza. It's one of the main reasons that the city itself seems so magical, to everyone living in every other portion of the United States. My son is addicted to movement, and I have to just believe that he is absorbing some of what I read while he is running around. This could possibly be true, because he recently disclosed that he knows the words to some portions of "The Music Man," and he is also becoming familiar with bits of "Showboat." So I try to narrate what I see in museums, and I try to be accurate; that said, my heart goes out to the parent who lazily declares that "tigers are found in Africa." Or the parent who confidently states that polar bears live together wi...

  "Sweeney Todd" became the soundtrack of my freshman year of college; I couldn't stop listening to it. I believe--and Sondheim would trash this idea--SS was writing about his mother. He loved the figure of the damaged victim who unleashes horror on the world. He invented this monster for "Gypsy," and then he made some edits, and he brought out the monster again for "Sweeney." Sondheim's mother was shallow and cold; she told Sondheim that her great regret in life was having given birth. She tried to sexually seduce her son. I believe that Sondheim felt a mix of sympathy and repulsion--and I think this interesting mix became his inspiration; he can't reject Sweeney, because he understands and loves Sweeney. We are all Sweeney. "Perhaps, today, you gave a nod to Sweeney Todd...." If Sweeney is Mom, then Sweeney is also a self-portrait. Sondheim explicitly mentions that Sweeney is "a proper artist with a knife." Many lines of w...

  * "Unscripted." This is billed as the real-world "Succession," and, yes, it's more disturbing than "Succession." The "Logan" character, Sumner Redstone, loses his mind, and he begins aggressively courting young women (so he can brag about these women when chatting with Larry King). Two of these women recognize that they could steal Redstone's fortune; they become Redstone's "family," and the nurses hover on the perimeter and whisper nervously about elder abuse. Elsewhere, Redstone's deputy, Les Moonves, assaults women and orchestrates a coverup; he promises minor casting opportunities to victims who agree to stay silent. In non-fiction, it helps to have someone you can admire, and I guess that person here is Sumner's daughter, Shari. However, she is a Trump supporter. If you can forget about her gross politics, you might enjoy her battle against Moonves. The final scene--with Shari kneeling at the grave of a father...

  To be in a same-sex marriage is to talk (and talk and talk) about "Sex and the City."  "Did you really think the newest season was so bad?" asks my husband. "Yes," I say, "it really was. I thought Che Diaz was insufferable. I thought the Comedy Concert was inexcusable--almost something you can't recover from. I could not--COULD NOT--believe that the writers had Charlotte lecturing a group of Black friends on the market value of various works by Black artists. And the friends all sit wide-eyed, and they say, CHARLOTTE, TELL US MORE! ....Who thought that this scene was a good idea?" My husband plays Devil's Advocate. "There was something redeeming....wasn't there? There must have been something you liked?" "Well, yes. When Carrie cruelly says to Choudhury, you haven't lived unless you've married. And then Choudhury breaks Carrie's picture frame. And Carrie says, NO, YOU DON'T UNDERSTAND. And the cheap pi...