Liars and Saints

  A large part of my life is talking to the neighbors about children: what is happening with the pre-K lottery, what does it mean to have a "fear" of the sprinkler, which Disney World restaurant deserves a blue ribbon. So "Mothers' Instinct"--a campy melodrama about two NJ mommy-frenemies--seems tailor-made for me. In this film, Oscar winner Anne Hathaway lives next door to Oscar winner Jessica Chastain. All's well until Hathaway's kid climbs onto a roof, and Chastain doesn't properly intercede. The kid dies--and Hathaway appears to take her revenge. She steals from Chastain. She disrupts Chastain's public events. She (maybe) kills Chastain's mother-in-law? Hathaway has the obviously showy role, but Chastain also has fun. She gets to make an insane accusation against Hathaway. She finds herself breaking into houses. Finally, she *asks* to be committed, to be returned to an asylum, where she was once confined for months for the sin of having s...

 People say it's more fun to consider bad manners than good manners, and so we have the film "Eileen." In this script, Eileen works at a boys' detention center and masturbates in the evening. She parks her car near a lovers' lane, brings herself close to climax, then stuffs snow between her legs, as a kind of punishment. Back at the office, she mixes up forms and, too often, she daydreams. She has dropped out of school--but she thinks, even with a college diploma, she would have become a secretary. "I think I'm just meant to be a secretary." But a stranger comes to town; it's Rebecca, a rebel doctor from Harvard, and Rebecca doesn't like passivity. She is perhaps too empathetic with the patients at the detention center; she sides with the boys, all the time, and she "forgets" about certain disciplinary protocols. She wants Eileen to leave her job and maybe map out a bohemian life; she says, "I bet you have wonderful dreams....

A movie that inspires passionate hatred is a special thing. To really, really hate a work of storytelling, you have to sort of care about that work of storytelling. Otherwise, you'd feel indifferent. To hate-watch can be intoxicating. It can stir you up. It can make you want to right (artistic) wrongs. I recommend the experience. The movie I enjoy hate-watching is Jonathan Demme's "Rachel Getting Married." I'm so puzzled and torn about this movie. I'm torn because there are things, here, that I really love. In particular: *Debra Winger. This is a titanic Winger performance. She is a volcano of rage. That she didn't win an Oscar here is still a bit shocking. When Winger appears, you creep forward in your seat. To see her mask slipping, slipping, and then to witness that big, justly-buzzy eruption of violence: Still fascinating. It's especially fun to watch Winger because she is so rarely around, these days, in Hollywood: You feel you're spot...