Liars and Saints

 One way to remember Betty White is via "The Proposal." This movie came out in 2009; White plays "Gammy," a strange, horny person in her late eighties. Gammy's grandson, Ryan Reynolds, gets involved in a sham marriage with Oscar-winner Sandra Bullock. Bullock needs the marriage because she is an emigrant from Canada, and she has an expired visa. But important men in suits suspect that the marriage isn't real; to prove her commitment, Bullock flies to Ryan Reynolds's ancestral Sitka, Alaska, to spend a weekend with Reynolds's mother, Oscar-winner Mary Steenburgen. Steenburgen does very little--but that's fine, because Gammy appears on the scene. I think the writers just wanted Betty White to say something outrageous every five minutes, so here's what we get: Betty White attends a strip club and screams at the male stripper: "Give it to me! Give it to me hard!" Betty White makes lewd eyes at her grandson as she presents him with a spe...

You put two gay men together in a house during a pandemic, and eventually someone is going to suggest "Betty White: The Documentary." This is not a great film. A sterling work of reportage would look for gaps in the subject's story; the subject would narrate one version of events, and the skeptical director would tease out a buried version of events, and the gap between truth and the subject's self-perception would be revealing and exciting, in some way. (See the Joan Rivers documentary.) "Betty White" is just hagiography; it's a love letter to Betty White. And that, too, is fine. Here's what I especially enjoyed: *Though all four women eventually won Emmy Awards for "The Golden Girls," White won first, and she won in the show's debut year. (She was subsequently nominated in every other year, as well.) *One day, Blanche asks Rose what her initial "Blanche impression" was. "Well," says Rose, "I...