Liars and Saints

 Sam Raimi has the gift of "bad" taste: You're going to see corpses in his films, whether you're streaming "A Simple Plan," "Dr. Strange II," or "Evil Dead." Also, Raimi has an eye. His work is visually stunning. In his new movie, "Send Help," you're treated to a plane crash, a wild boar attack, and a brief trip to the Land of the Dead. Each of these interludes is brilliant; you're seeing the work of an artist. For a long while, "Send Help" seems to be a retelling of "Misery." (Recently, Rachel McAdams worked with Kathy Bates; I wonder if this led to certain ideas.) The twist is that--with "Send Help"--the "James Caan" guy is in no way sympathetic. He is an asshole. So you're disoriented. You can't just cross your fingers for the James Caan guy. His potential victory would be a sad thing to contemplate. In the Kathy Bates role, Rachel McAdams is transcendent. She never misj...

  It was a surprise to see the NYT piece on Sondheim yesterday. My favorite mini-essay was from Renee Fleming, who reflected on "Not While I'm Around." This song--like so many others--has been mistreated by Barbra Streisand. By removing the song from its context, Streisand drains the song of some of its power. What moves me in "Sweeney" is that Tobias is making a "victim outcry." He is complaining. Because the nature of Tobias's complaint is so disturbing, the words do not flow from his mouth. He also feels that he has to *solve* the problem--though the necessary steps are well beyond his capability. (Because I'm watching "The Pitt," I'm weirdly aware of this kind of subtext right now. The woman who is trafficked seems to communicate with her eyes. The victim of molestation seems to have a conversation with herself--before getting upset and walking out the door.) Not to worry, not to worry. I may not be smart, but I ain't dumb...

 My son is strongly attached to "The Spongebob Movie--Search for Squarepants." Josh hasn't fully mastered adverbs--he doesn't see that "very" often requires an additional adverb--so his statement of protest is slightly malformed. "I very  want  to see this movie!" Josh enjoys any discussion of undies, toilets, gassiness--his zeal is such that he doesn't just laugh. After laughing, he turns to you to make sure that you, too, have seen and appropriately valued the potty joke. He is especially fond of Patrick Starfish, who wears a skimpy loincloth under an immense belly. At times, Josh's delirium causes him to stand up out of his theater seat and do a kind of celebratory bouncing dance. (We've seen "Spongebob" twice; the second time, we braved faux-blizzard conditions, though the public school system had officially "thrown in the towel.") Clearly, Josh has inherited certain dominant alleles from his biological father, w...

  "After This" is a novel about trauma. Sources of trauma--for men and women. John Keane fights in World War II; on a bad day, he finds himself holding a dying young man. The man--Jacob--is a stranger. Keane returns to New York--having lost three toes--and names his own son Jacob. When the son dies in Vietnam, John represses his grief. A useful strategy--until it isn't useful anymore. In this strange and moving story, John has a "foil"--his other son, Michael. Michael is the opposite of Jacob--impetuous, loud. As a child, Michael finds himself in his family's car during a windstorm--the entire family has bolted from the beach, and the adults are unprepared. As everyone eats sandwiches, Michael realizes that he could easily cause chaos. He just needs to roll down one window of the car. The storm will send all the paperware--the cups, plates, napkins--flying through the air. As Michael grows older, he is consistently an irritant for John. (This is because Mich...

 One genre "The Pitt" uses is the mystery story. In that particular story format, a crime has occurred in the past--detectives must do the delicate work of an investigation. A wrong move can (unintentionally) bring about the silence of a crucial witness. While doing the work of probing, two detectives can become closer (or can get pulled apart). A recent episode concerns a young woman who may or may not be the victim of trafficking. Her employer seems overbearing; the employer never takes a hint, never leaves the examination room. (At the same time, the employer is clearly very pregnant--an odd, intriguing detail.) The doctor wants the victim to admit that she is a victim. But an emphatic series of questions might cause the victim to run away. The ambiguous semi-victory here concerns a special pen. The pen has a phone number for victims to call--but the number is concealed within the inner organs of the pen, so a pimp will not realize exactly what the pen "means" fo...

 I rarely feel more competent than when I'm watching "Beauty and the Beast" with my daughter. Her questions are straightforward: Q. Is Monsieur D'Arque a zombie? A. Not literally. His pallor is symbolic--it's meant to suggest the *moral* rot within his soul. Q. Why does Belle hide during the snowball fight? A. It's just a strategic move. She wants to win. She is no longer scared of the Beast--because the Beast magically became nice during the "wolf" interlude (in the middle of Act Two). Q. Why does the Beast say, STUPID? A. He feels that the bows in his hair are not a reflection of his true self. You may disagree. But there is nothing really scandalous about using the word "stupid" in this context. He is just talking about a style--not making a judgment about his own intellect. I'd love to add that Monsieur D'Arque seems to be an allusion to "Sweeney Todd"--to the asylum sequence in the Second Act. Additionally, Sondheim w...

  Kelli Giddish has spoken to the press about her career strategy; she explicitly asks Dick Wolf for "troubling storylines." She does not want Amanda Rollins to seem like a superhero. It's moments of vulnerability--involving addictions, involving difficult family members--that make a character interesting. The most recent SVU feels like a bit of "retconning." For a while, Kelli Giddish was written off the show--presumably because she was asking for too much money. (It's a notable bit of irony that SVU, a series that purports to have a feminist basis, would handle a female cast member in this way. I notice that Ice-T is allowed to stick around--despite his inconvenient salary requirements.) Now, a writer has decided that the career trajectory of Amanda Rollins is a sign of her fundamental instability. It's (allegedly) a part of the grand plan to have Amanda fumbling with job questions. This shows that she doesn't know herself--she is always on the run...

 A main strength of historical fiction is that it allows for "windows and mirrors" comparisons: We can see another world (through a window), but we can also see ourselves (through various mirrors).  "The Choral" (with its irritating, twee title) is partly just about getting laid: The gay pianist wants some kind of arrangement with the gay musical director, the virginal postal worker wants to make plans with the local prostitute, the wounded soldier wants a hand job from his ex-girlfriend. Love is always troubling; war makes love *more* troubling. In one scene, a young woman confesses that she just wants her special friend's status shifted from "MIA" to "dead," so she can move on with her life. At the same time, there are reminders that we are *not* in the present: the blithe assumption that a Black woman wants a handout and not an audition, the elaborate effort involved in *not* using the word "gay," the skeptical, snobby attitude t...

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=R3rAiwP8IBg   Yip Harburg was a champion of racial and gender equality. Also, he wrote "Somewhere Over the Rainbow." That's enough for one life. But on top of that, he wrote "Down With Love." This is an "I Want" song--but the wish is a wish to commit violence. To murder and stuff a dove. It's an "I Want" song for someone like Sweeney Todd. Down with love--with flowers and rice and shoes. Down with love--the root of all midnight blues. Down with things that give you that well-known pain... Take that moon, wrap it in cellophane. Standard writing advice says, "Use the white space. Pay attention to what a character omits. This matters as much as what a character chooses to advertise." In a catalogue of romantic cliches, Harburg's speaker lets us know exactly what her last six months have been like. Without telling the story, she nevertheless "tells the story." Down with songs that moan ...

  Grief memoirs are my personal candy -- the loss of a marriage, the loss of a loved one, the loss of one's own health. "In Love," "Strangers," "Getting to Know Death," "Shattered," "Awake" -- this stuff is thrilling to me. My daughter's own loss is (just slightly) pedestrian. She lost her security animal -- a stuffed dog, "Tiny Doggie." The literary world is weirdly silent on this topic. Of course there is "Knufflebunny," but that book ends with the *recovery* of the bunny. It's like there is a knife attack in the Salman Rushdie story -- and then Rushdie's face magically heals itself. It was so strange to watch my daughter's journey through grief. She would be fine -- she would forget the loss -- and then the memory would come roaring back. On one level, I know how this is. I can recall getting bad news; I would wake up in the morning, and for a moment, I'd be fine, but then I'd remember ...

  "A Boy Called Bat" is about a non-neurotypical kid, Bat, who adopts a little skunk (Thor). Bat is the acronym formed by the boy's initials--but, also, when he is overly excited, he flaps his hands and seems to resemble a bat. Bat is capable of deep empathy; this is most obvious when he is caring for his baby skunk or when he is braiding his sister's hair. Feelings of empathy don't always line up with a strong ability to read social cues--Bat's apparent awkwardness can sometimes be (wrongly) interpreted as an absence of feeling. In one wonderful scene, a classmate, Israel, tries to engage Bat in a little chit chat. Bat finds this exhausting--in the barrage of "yes or no" questions, Bat simply answers "yes," or "no," and he waits for the questions to end. Who could fail to relate? To me, the most captivating part of the book is Bat's rapport with his sibling, Janie. This strongly reminded me of the TV series "Parenthood,...

  Several of the storylines on "The Pitt" are not-quite-mundane: a patient lying to get access to abortion medication, a young man who may have a "Columbine" vision, a kid who takes Zoloft-laced-with-fentanyl (and later dies). In this context, it's interesting that the scripts keep returning to an apparently trivial issue: a white guy, Doug Driscoll, is upset because he is spending too much time in the waiting room. Though I don't know what it's like to "dance with" fentanyl, I do know how it feels to be aggrieved "in the anteroom." Every time I have a telehealth appointment with my child's neurologist, I struggle with rage--because the minutes tick by and tick by and tick by. It doesn't matter if I schedule the appointment for the very beginning of the work day--there are still mysterious affairs that keep the neurologist from arriving on time. The Doug Driscoll character is compelling because he inspires strong sensations of...

  Three times, I have lured my husband to Film Forum -- for "Ninotchka," "The Third Man," and "Sunset Boulevard."  There are unwritten codes in this space; if my spouse took me to a football game, I would expect to follow meticulous directions, and at Film Forum, the roles are just reversed. For example, an unstated rule:  You do not try to use the men's room after 1 pm on the weekend. Also:  The front row is actually fine. Also:  It doesn't matter if the film is seventy years old. On a Saturday,  it will sell out . These are things I've learned the hard way -- through trial and error -- and I'm proud of the learning I've accomplished. Seeing "Sunset Boulevard" with an appreciative crowd -- with a functional sound system -- you can't beat this. My spouse enjoyed the "gay" lines: "You there, why are you so late?" "Why not try the  vicuña? If the lady's paying..." "I *am* big. It's ...

 Media stories focus on "Bug"'s prophetic approach to the idea of "social contagion"--in a play written in 1995, long before conspiracy theories about Covid vaccines and Dr. Fauci. But I also think that this play is strangely insightful about domestic violence. When we first see Agnes, she is alone in a motel room, thinking about a ringing phone. We learn quickly that the silent caller is (likely) Agnes's ex-husband, Goss. Agnes doesn't have to keep picking up the phone--but she does. It's like she is aware of Goss's power over her. He is going to come calling eventually--whether or not she answers the phone. One of Goss's big entrances is a "jump scare." Agnes has just hosted Peter Evans in a slumber party. She calls to Peter--"there are clean towels" under the sink. (We think that Peter is preparing to take a shower.) But then the man that emerges from the bathroom is Goss--he has evicted Peter and made himself at home w...

  No one is asking me to write more about "Hello, Dolly," but that's just fine. I'm doing it anyway. Beyond "I Put My Hand In," there is one additional great number in this show. It's "So Long, Dearie"--it's essentially a Taylor Swift song. In a classic Taylor Swift song--"We Are Never Ever Getting Back Together," "Babe," "Dear John"--Swift narrates the story of a bad relationship, via parenthetical references, while also formalizing her "kiss-off message." I'm really gonna miss you picking fights-- And me. Falling for it. Screaming that I'm right. And you would hide away and find your piece of mind-- With some indie record that's much cooler than mine. From the canonical "Dear John": Long were the days when my nights once revolved around you. Counting my footsteps-- Praying the floor won't fall through....again.... Jerry Herman has fun with objects, subjects, adverbs: Wave y...

 If you could design my ideal reading experience, the book would look quite a bit like Belle Burden's "Strangers." This is like an enormous ice cream sundae -- overflowing. Marshmallow sauce, caramel sauce, little crushed bits of M and M. Burden -- a member of Grace Church School society -- endures an unusually brutal divorce. She happens to be a born writer -- so she digests and writes down every odd detail in the "after" years. She spares no one. Who could resist this book? A note about Grace Church School society. Burden is weirdly coy about this school. She calls it "an episcopal school on Fourth Avenue," but this isn't the label I'd use. GCS is a "rich kid school." I guess it has an episcopal tradition? I do remember chapel sessions -- but in those times, we would talk about Hanukkah, Diwali, or the historical legacy of Ruby Bridges. Jesus was mostly absent from GCS -- and, surely, Burden is aware of this. OK. The story. Burden m...

  The other day, I watched an ugly exchange on the train. NJTransit--a hotbed of constant dysfunction--had been struggling with its "app technology." Many civilians had purchased tickets via phone--and the tickets then became magically inaccessible. You thus entered a period of "ticket clemency." But then you needed to be ever-vigilant--because the ticket clemency could end at any moment. And--at the moment of termination--there might not be an announcement, or the announcement might be unintelligible. (We're talking about NJTransit here.) A Black woman near me--being human--missed the semi-incoherent announcement. So she didn't download her ticket. The white male conductor approached her. She described her confusion. I feel almost certain that--had she been white and male--she would have won the conductor's sympathy and understanding. But alas. The male made a bitchy speech about "paying attention to instructions." This was so, so shitty. I kn...

  In its many years on the air, "ER" landed only one (one!) Primetime Emmy Award for a series regular. The actor was Julianna Margulies. No one else ever won! And so "The Pitt"--after its first season--has already defeated "ER." Both Noah Wyle and Katherine LaNasa have Emmy Awards.  While the early years of "ER" were centered on the love affair between the Margulies character and the George Clooney character, there isn't a comparably soapy storyline in "The Pitt" (at least not within the first four hours, which are the hours I've watched). No one seems to be passionately in love with anyone else. Instead, the doctors and nurses have unglamorous storylines: Should I get a pet when I'm already overwhelmed with childcare duties? How do I manage an obnoxious frenemy? When my noisy iPhone ring disrupts a meeting, how do I tell my "inner voice" to shut up and move on? One thing I'm often aware of in a TV show is ...

  I am delighted for my husband's friend--Gabriel Arana--who has a wonderful personal essay in "The American Prospect." The essay isn't new--it's around ten years old--but Marc just made me aware of it. Perfect title, perfect opening, perfect conclusion. It's a demonstration of the power of "voice." From the first sentence onward, Arana is blunt and charming. It's easy to follow him anywhere he wants to go. I haven’t been home for Christmas in ten years. The excuse I always gave was that the holidays stress me out, which isn’t untrue. I can’t stand to watch once the local news station starts its seasonal coverage. You know the hard-hitting journalism I’m talking about: brave reporters staked out at Wal-Mart before it opens at 6 a.m. on Black Friday; with a frumpy Jane Doe browsing Amazon.com on Cyber Monday; and, around now, live on the scene at the airport giving updates about the bad weather, long lines, and flight delays. Just thinking about s...

My idea of the ideal haircut is "Helen Mirren hair." I realize that today's youth may not look to an octogenarian British actress for hair guidance--but that doesn't mean I need to be happy about the realization. Inspector Jane Tennison of "Prime Suspect" is flawed, but she is certainly not an insubstantial human being. She makes use of her time. I'll bet she does not worry about lice; she has a short, striking bob, and so I suspect that the lice leave her alone. Also, I think that the unfussy hair improves her agility; she can take down criminals because she is not tripping over her own flowing locks. It seems to me that 2026 Demi Moore--for example--would have a harder time saving the world. She would have a harder time because of all that hair. I have to allow my daughter to make her own hair choices--because the alternative would be insufferable. But it is so exhausting to bear witness. Susie wants the Demi Moore style, but she doesn't want to do...

  In some ways, "Primate" is a missed opportunity. The setup is so great. A family of idiots in Hawaii keeps a pet chimp. The chimp gets Rabies-via-mongoose--then goes on a killing spree. This could be a chance for intriguing character development. Trapped in a swimming pool, the humans could have a kind of popularity contest. Who should brave the proximity of the chimp in order to retrieve a cell phone from the house? (The chimp won't enter the pool, so the pool is a type of panic room.) Secrets could be revealed; bargains could be attempted. This could be like the final episode of "Succession"; I had issues with that hour, but I loved when Shiv dragged out the memory of a certain corpse to discredit her own brother. Unfortunately, "Primate" has almost no interest in its humans. The main star is the chimp, Ben. He demonstrates creativity by inserting two fingers into a human mouth--then detaching half the face from the rest of the body. He terrorizes ...

  I enjoy stories about schemes--stories where people deliberately play roles to win prizes (prizes that apparently could not be achieved through honest work).  This is a big part of why I'm so fond of the TV series "The Outs," which repeatedly has its lead characters attempting little performances. Oona conscripts her gay bestie to play the role of "boyfriend"--to make an old ex jealous. Mitchell has an ex pretend to be a *current* boyfriend--because Mitchell needs to seem like a "relationship expert" for a specific audience. Inevitably, the schemes fall apart. The Broadway version of "The Outs" is "Hello, Dolly!" Dolly Levi doesn't want her client Horace to court a young woman named Irene--so Dolly mentions (falsely) that Irene's first husband "may not have died of natural causes." Later, to lure Horace to the Harmonia Gardens, Dolly (falsely) promises a fabulous date. When the date implodes, Dolly moves in for t...

  To me, it's strange for a survey of one artist's work to be emotionally overwhelming--but the Renoir show at the Morgan is moving in the way that a good film is moving. You see approximately fifty years of one person's work. As Renoir ages, his arthritis makes his career difficult. But he doesn't give up; he starts using red chalk, which is apparently easier for his hands. Then he moves into sculpture--he collaborates. The collaboration lets him keep an eye on his health. It would be impossible to give up. I have been interested in Renoir since taking a trip to Paris when my son was very little. Staring at Renoir's many images of his own children, I understood that the artist was mainly compelled by the idea of different kinds of flesh. He wanted to show how the light hits a child's cheek--and how it hits a mother's cheek. The light behaves in different ways in different contexts. That one apparently small observation can be the "reason" for maki...

 There is a divide within my family, and the source is Taylor Swift. I think the new album is a stunning failure--utterly uninspired. I think a high-school student might feel embarrassed to submit a sophomore poetry assignment with the following lines: It's about to be the sleepless night you've been dreaming of! And: Don't care where the hell you've been cuz now you're mine! And:  Daisy's bare naked, I was distraught. He loves me not, he loves me not. The final clunker asks us to believe that "distraught/not" is a persuasive rhyme. It also uses a cliche. It also uses a cliche that Taylor herself has employed before . ("I picked the petals, he loves me not.") My husband feels more enthusiasm for this enterprise. Though he has an overall "thumbs down" response, he does enjoy quoting from "Wood." ("Sounds like Travis has a magic wand!") My niece just likes the album. She plays it quite a bit. She isn't discount...

 For a long while, Val McDermid's bread-and-buttter was the world of serial killer stories. McDermid's Tony Hill series often featured a killer on the loose; there was a ticking clock; yadda yadda yadda. At a certain point, McDermid began to pursue a different kind of story, the cold-case story. This was through her Karen Pirie series. Cold-case narratives are a nice way of steering around one problem of a serial killer narrative. Serial killers can become dull and repetitive; I began to sense this in the Tony Hill stories. Is it conceivable that there are *not* inexhaustible options for making a crazed "spree killer" seem interesting? With a cold case, it's possible that someone committed one terrible crime--then chose to "self-correct." But failing to acknowledge the crime is a kind of societal disease. It's a disease because victims of the crime may still be trying to live their lives; they have "ingested" the idea that someone can terro...

  The other day, I was in New York at the Angelika--which now has assigned seating. I wasn't late--I think I arrived thirty seconds after the start of the first preview--and yet a human refused to stand up for me.  This was inarguably rude. The person was blocking my passage to my assigned seat--it was her task to "make way." She was not incapable of standing; I know this as a fact. So what was going on? Was she simply lazy? Had she just lived through a bad day? Did she feel that her intransigence was a just punishment for my disruption of the first preview? Was this merely thoughtlessness? I'll never know. It helps to watch "The Outs," which, in my favorite scene, nicely dramatizes the problem of uncertainty. Jack and Mitchell recall a particular threesome. "We invited a third to our apartment and we were--you know--doing things." "We were having gay sex--it's what we tend to do." "We were ten minutes in--and the guy stands up a...

 One spot that really tests my commitment to the "let them" theory is my daughter's school. My husband is generally magnanimous, and he loves my daughter's teacher. But I am not magnanimous, and I don't share the love. Specifically, I do not feel love when the teacher discloses a favored refrain she uses with Susie: "If you continue to chew on the sleeve of your shirt, you may unleash toxins within the fabric, and the 'unleashing' could damage your brain." (Oddly enough, this deranged observation does nothing to change my daughter's behavior.) Also, I do not love the teacher when she worries aloud that my child isn't mastering the phonics rules quickly enough. "That's because she thinks they're boring," I explain. "I had the same issue--and things worked out fine." The teacher won't accept this. "Figure out how to get those letter sounds in her head," she says. "Or she will be diagnosed with ...

  "The Plague" introduces three memorable characters (children)--Eli, Jake, and Ben. Eli is possibly on the spectrum; his interests are somewhat unusual. He enjoys cutting himself, saving the blood, and using the blood stash to simulate major freakish accidents (sometimes with an audience). He is unpopular at dances, so he chooses to dance with a cardboard cutout of Betty Boop. He seems happiest when he is speaking in the voice of Gollum from "Lord of the Rings." (This is 2003.) Jake is a bully; he is possibly a psychopath. No one at home is behind the steering wheel; Mom is dead, and Dad "manages" Jake by extending his summer-camp stay long beyond the length of time that is considered normal. Jake spies on other boys, then uses his new information for leverage. When Eli has a "public" erection, Jake encourages name-calling and taunting. Ben is torn between Jake and Eli; he wants to spend time with Eli, but he is understandably exasperated by som...

  One thing I like very much in "The Outs" is a climactic battle between the two central characters, Oona and Mitchell. As a viewer in his middle aged years, I still strongly relate to both of these people. Oona has residual anger because Mitchell's former boyfriend sabotaged Oona's relationship. This isn't Mitchell's fault--but, also, Mitchell has dragged the former boyfriend back into Oona's life. (At an Oona-sponsored party, Michell called his ex to assist in the search for a missing shoe. Drunkenly, Mitchell said, "I just think that other shoe is so lonely.....so alone....right now....") At the same time, Mitchell is furious with Oona. Having been laid off, Mitchell wants to talk about his work woes. But Oona can't listen; she is more concerned with her dating issues, since she is with a guy who is "not mean enough" during sex. Oona has also forgotten Mitchell's birthday. The screaming ends with an oddly lyrical exchange. ...

 Here's how I understand the "meta" casting of Gwyneth Paltrow in "Marty Supreme." Paltrow is a tough cookie. She endured Harvey Weinstein's harassment, and, when the ugliness of Hollywood became intolerable, she invented her own high-profile career away from the movie cameras. Yes, Paltrow is a child of privilege, and she sometimes makes dumb remarks. But she is also a fighter. That's the subtextual story in "Marty Supreme." Paltrow's Kay Stone sort of likes Marty Mauser--sort of but not really. Marty's true value is as a pawn in a psychosexual war between Kay and her husband. Kay can use Marty--his phone calls, his aggressive "restaurant behavior"--to make her husband uncomfortable. Marty misreads Kay's behavior; he thinks his best option with Kay is to feign "emotional authenticity." But Kay sees through this. She likes Marty as his actual self, a scrappy egomaniacal schemer. "Marty," she says, ...

 A main tradition for my family is to visit Christmas houses; we have two or three.  As we drive, we listen to and debate the merits of seasonal albums; Mariah Carey ranks in the top tier for everyone, but yours truly has a controversially high level of tolerance for Kristin Chenoweth. My husband thinks the obscure retro tunes--"Christmas Island," "Christmas Waltz"--are grating and/or tedious. I can't agree.  May all your dreams come true.... Well, this song of mine-- In three-quarter time-- Wishes you and yours... The same thing, too.... I have no issue with the "meta" reference to three-quarter time, but my spouse feels that the writer is treading water with nonsense syllables. The great thing about a Christmas house is that you do not need to wait in line, pay admission, or sit through previews. Also, the houses are not market-tested--each is a strange, wonderful expression of an idiosyncratic point of view. I feel this especially when I visit the ...