Liars and Saints

 A student asked me to name my favorite movie; the answer tends to change, but right now it's "The Silence of the Lambs." This is a classic Hero's Journey story. Clarice must pursue a magical elixir--i.e., the senator's daughter, who has been imprisoned by Buffalo Bill. She resists the call; mainly, the resistance happens in her eyes. But ambition wins the day. Clarice wants to wield the power of Scott Glenn. A Hero's Journey tends to involve a trickster, someone who can't quite be trusted. I think Bruno in "Encanto" is an example. Or Maria Reynolds in "Hamilton." Or Adriana in "The Sopranos." But "Silence" has the greatest of all tricksters, Hannibal, who will offer you advice and then eat your face. Hannibal is, literally, a shape-shifter; he stitches the skin of a corpse onto the surface of his own skin. He wants to chat with you about the Duomo--but, also, he wants to insult your accent and to share mean inferenc...

  "One Life" is a clever film that benefits immeasurably from Anthony Hopkins's presence. Hopkins is an elderly man who worries about becoming a grandfather. His life has dried up, in a way; he spends his time hoarding objects, to his wife's frustration. She urges him to start "purging"--and this act sends him on a journey. Long ago, the Hopkins character helped approximately six hundred children to flee Czechoslovakia during the Second World War. He did this, at least in part, because he and one child had discovered a shared love of swimming. The human connection moved him--and he found himself making calls on various desperate kids' behalf. In the present, Hopkins wants his "Czech" papers and mementoes on view--as an example of the kinds of things that can be undertaken in your "one life." Because Hopkins, the actor, is so bright, he helps to make this character something different from a tiresome saint. Hopkins wisely underplays th...

This town has a rather secretive lottery for Pre-K "threes" .....and I'll tell you where my brain is at. Last night, I thought for a long while that I ought to find out all I could about the "threes" program -- via the Maplewood Moms. So I entered my search. I learned nothing, but I did stumble on a woman who worried about her mother-in-law. "There is a new American history curriculum, Amistad, that teaches about slavery. And my mother-in-law (MIL) says that these new lessons subtly imply that all white people are evil. How do I engage with this?" Like a moth, drawn to the flame, I kept reading. Many residents thought lengthy, reasonable discussions might lead to a growth in the MIL's emotional and intellectual maturity. I thought:  I have a bridge I'd like to sell you.... Soon, I'd forgotten about the PK lottery, but I had learned that my local BBQ joint, KB's Smokehouse, makes very nice Thanksgiving options. And I learned that a neigh...

How strange it is to watch "The Two Popes." The Catholic Church--responsible for so much evil in the world--is now the subject of a buddy comedy. Herr Ratzinger, who ignored the suffering of many child-victims, until politics made such behavior impractical, and whose own brother seems to have "overseen" many egregious cases of abuse, is now a twinkling cantankerous old fussbudget, embodied by Anthony Hopkins. (I'm halfway through the film, and I'm wondering if any attention is paid to the moment Ratzinger went after a heroic nun--a nun who seemed too concerned with fixing the plight of women in America--even as priests were raping and beating children on multiple continents.) Also, the movie seems not too interested in "the sainted" John Paul II, who actually seems (in the cold light of 2020) far more problematic than Ratzinger himself. Check out the New Yorker article on JP's own knowledge of Church evils; this was a piece publ...