Liars and Saints

  Halle Berry was an overachiever in childhood. Also, she was biracial, but her mother observed that America would not take an interest in her multiple identities. Mom said, simply, "America will see you as Black, and that's that." Berry had a prim and proper image, but a collaboration with Spike Lee showed that she could shed that image. The Spike Lee work became crucial, later, when Berry was lobbying for a role in "Monster's Ball." Additionally, Berry made a shrewd move to focus on Dorothy Dandridge--someone who was once used and misused by the entertainment world. The official story is that Dandridge died of an accidental overdose, but Berry wonders if "accidental" is a false label. The year of "Monster's Ball," many people expected Sissy Spacek to take home Best Actress--for her work in a Todd Field film, "In the Bedroom." (Curiously, this year, we have another Todd Field situation: Cate Blanchett vs. Michelle Yeoh.) Af...

**"Frozen II" is now an idea in the world. We have a trailer. A story happens when a character goes on a journey. The writers of "Frozen II" have--intelligently--opted for a literal journey. Elsa will leave her kingdom. How do you leave? By crossing the ocean. How do you cross? If you're Elsa, you do this by casting a temporary spell on the waves, so that they become ice-bridges. But the ice lasts only for a moment, so your life is in danger. Kinetic, unusual film-making. I'm hooked! **The newest Bosch novel has odd mysteries: A woman who seems to have been attacked really just had her face eaten off, postmortem, by a hungry cat. A semi-sinister sidewalk preacher may or may not have murdered a young girl. In another subplot, bullet-trajectory analysis suggests that a bullet might have boomeranged, after having been released, and assailed a certain shooter "in the balls." If only we could find a badly-injured man who paid a recent visit to the hos...