When storytelling leaves me… dismayed.
Addled Adults? Not On My Watch
Do we notice ageist stereotypes on TV?
Movie Night
Nothing like a classic film when you’re under the weather. Add popcorn for maximum curative effect.
Friends With Money
I happened across a quirky little film recently, Friends With Money, starring Jennifer Aniston and a talented ensemble cast. It’s the story of four friends, three of whom have money, and one who doesn’t. Aniston plays Olivia, a former teacher, a few years younger than her more established pals in their 40s. She’s a maid […]
Stranger Than Fiction
You know what they say. Truth is stranger than fiction. Reading about the devil ball at the Master’s tournament, I certainly thought so. (New sort of lap dance? I suppose the condom dress qualifies as well.) As I reflect on a few recent events (none I care to share at the moment), I flash. A […]
Stella Dallas
It stopped me cold, and I couldn’t change the channel. It was Barbara Stanwyck, in 1937’s Stella Dallas, a film I hadn’t seen in years. It’s the story of a working class mother who manages to marry into money, leaves her husband, then raises her daughter under difficult (and questionable) circumstances. Years later, when the […]
Losing Elizabeth Taylor
Elizabeth Taylor – screen legend, world-renowned beauty, Oscar-winning actress – has passed away. She died today, of congestive heart failure, at the age of 79. Like most who recall her in Butterfield 8 or Cat on a Hot Tin Roof, we think of her exquisite face and voluptuous body, her smoldering sexuality that heightened extraordinary […]
Magnani, Manolo, and Where’s My Life of French Chic?
Anna Magnani was peeling herself out of a black satin slip, splashing in a small fountain, and sputtering in Italian while the women on the street around her were trying on clothing. Furiously. It was all very Filene’s Basement. The original – in the 1960s. But what was an Italian film icon doing in the […]
Loving X Two: In Love With Multiple People
Have you loved more than one person at the same time? I suppose I should make a distinction between “in love” and “loving,” but is that necessary, really, if the net effect is the same? When you’re involved with multiple people, you’ve got double the pleasure. Maybe. You certainly have double the trouble. And then […]