Memoirous

Normal People BBC available thru Hulu Normal People is based on the bestselling novel by wunderkind Sally Rooney.   I can’t seem to get the characters of Connell and Marianne out of my mind. There were so many Shakespearean “what-ifs” that beset their relationship. Miscommunications that led to tragedy. It seems like a great love story if it wasn’t so normal. I’m not s millennial but I get them. It is an age group that has had a lot thrown at them, though this series does not touch upon any historical milestones or events. Basically there are no terrorists. Or action, for that matter. Yet the dialogue and interactions rise above navel-gazing, I think because we are so emotionally invested in the characters. That said there were moments where the sex (and there is tons of it graphically depicted) nibbled at the edges of Fifty Shades of   variety, which for me was emotionally off-putting in the sense that I wanted to scream at Marianne WTF! Stop it! You’re better...

When They See Us Ava DuVernay, director, screenplay When I say “Central Park 5” you know what I mean. When I cryptically mention “wilding”, you get it. Same thing if I say southside or westside. Code words for African Americans. POC, people of color. In mid- to late-April there was a news story about groups of roving black kids downtown. A warm April night (a rarity this past spring, not even goin’ to get into the fact it’s June and we’ve barely broken into the 70s yet) add social media and the mayor and the police chief were calling an emergency. According to the Chicago Tribune: What happened? About 500 teenagers  gathered downtown  early Wednesday evening. Police were ready for them because of social media posts, strategically staging patrols and calling for transport vans. The teenagers spread out across Millennium Park and near the Lake and Grand Red Line stops, passing packed restaurant patios. Some teens got in fights among themselves. In one case, po...

The Greatest Showman Director:  Michael Gracey Starring: Hugh Jackman Zac Efron Michelle Williams Zendaya The Greatest Showman is a made for the movies musical about P.T. Barnum, the king of bunk and humbug, the creator of the Barnum and Bailey Circus. The late great circus. Kids now will grow up wondering what’s a circus. This is the kind of movie I wouldn’t normally go to, but, what the hey, it was 7 below zero, I was out with the girls, and I was desperate for something different. For another world. For magic. Besides it was $5 Tuesday. From beginning to end this movie extravaganza is a miracle of motion. It has all the exuberance and appeal of a great, big Glee. A show stopper. What does that phrase even mean? But from the first number to the credits it was engaging. No slow moments. And the theater was packed. People wanted to see this movie. Whole families, classesmates, youth groups, etc date-night. I was surprised as I’d not really h...

Summer Hours (See my other posts about this movie) I rewatched an old favorite—actually not really that old, 2009 by director Olivier Assayas, subtitled in French. There is a certain feeling I get from this film, not so much the plot, but the sense of loss, mortality. It is bittersweet. Synopsis: When elderly matriarch Hélène Berthier (Édith Scob) discovers that her health is declining, she contacts her three adult children about contending with her valuable art collection after her passing. As the family gathers, local son Frédéric (Charles Berling) is on hand, while his jet-setting siblings, Adrienne (Juliette Binoche) and Jérémie (Jérémie Renier), fly in from abroad. Together, they try to agree on what to do with their mother's collection, as they also grapple with her mortality. Lately I’ve seen a few articles written about people my age having to deal with what to do with their parent’s stuff. Knick knacks, furniture, the detritus collected over a series...

What might be: King Charles III, a meta play As readers of this blog might have already guessed I’m intrigued by meta literature. One reason I’ve also been loving McSweeney ’s lately. It’s a sort of meta comedy or satire when a journal decides to run Trump’s Black History Month speech in its entirety—as humor. The whole meta thing seems to fit into what’s going on right now. I mean a reality TV star becomes president. He says something is fake or declares suddenly top-secret intel is now declassified. Climate change is a hoax, as also is his campaigns involvement with Russia. Up is down and down is up. When people talk about surreal, then I immediately think they’re talking about this administration. I’ve told a few close friends this: I grew up with an illogical mother. It was hard on a day to day basis to ever know what she might do. One might think it was a mother/daughter thing—I know I tried to believe this—but through the years I saw that at times her thinking was di...

Clouds of Sils Maria Olivier Assayas, Director Movie Review This was a very theatrical weekend for me: Hamilton, several videos checked out of the library, and the Oscars (what happened???) In between I tried to recover. I read the playbill and wondered . . . about the role of the understudy. How does one suddenly transformed, step into, substitute one role for the other? The bi-polar ability to code-switch, assume a while new skin. Which brings me my review of the Clouds of Sils Maria , a fascinating, multi-layered meta film, a house of mirrors about roles, acting, and the skin we’re in. How do the old (older) navigate a changing world? How do the young (younger) step into what are assumed roles and play a new part? What is the tangled, transforming, even wispy foggy, territory in between? Nothing in this film was spelled out for the viewer=refreshing. We weren’t “told” who the villains were. All the characters were vulnerable, pushed to “act” even in the midst of s...

You don’t realize how much of real life is squeezed into a Disney animated film. Life, Animated is a new documentary out by Roger Ross Williams about Owen Suskind a young man with Autism obsessed with Disney animated classics. Throughout the film Suskind and his father quotes lines from the movies that directly relate or are pertinent to Owen’s life: the fears, the highs, the lows. Even Owen himself sees parallels, how things always look worse before they get better, how the bad guy is all part of the hero’s journey, the necessary role of the sidekick. Owen’s life could be a Disney classic. For someone who needs the help of social cues, these movies become tools for Owen to navigate his life. As a 3-year-old Owen suddenly lost speech and retreated into a world of his own. A room without doors. His parents with the help of therapists and teacher searched for inroads, but ran into roadblocks. UNTIL one day, once upon a time, they discovered Owen repeating some lines from ...