Black Sheep (2018)

Each action has an equal and opposite reaction.  In this movie Cornelius Walker reflects on his impressionable teenage years as a young black boy living in a majority white neighborhood. His parents move their family from London to Essex after a young boy, much like Cornelius, was killed. His parents did what many would do, protect their children. Yet, Cornelius’s new life in Essex becomes an indirect consequence of the young boy’s death.
He feels trapped in the town. He meets kids who yell racial slurs at him, beat him up, and shun him. Inevitably, the physical and psychological torment weighs on him. To fulfill his need to be accepted and ease the pain he slowly erases himself. However, his blackness keeps him from fulfilling that desire. Ultimately, he decides to take radical measures to fit in. He bleaches his skin, wears blue contacts, and picks up the local accent.   
Later, he realizes that he “became friends with monsters.”   The diector uses vivid imagery that is consistently powerful, intentional, and emotional. Also, Cornelius’s storytelling is seamlessly interwoven with each scene. In one scene, Cornelius is trapped in a circle of white boys yelling names at him and threatening to hurt him. The visual contrast reflects his position as an outsider, a black sheep.  A short film that leaves you thinking about the stress of survival.

Chocolate Peanut Butter Truffles

I was once again baking in California with my friend, and this time we made truffles.  So easy and delicious!

• 2ounces best-quality semi-sweet chocolate chips
• 1⁄2cup heavy cream
• 2tablespoons butter, cut into bits
• 3⁄4cup chunky peanut butter
• 2teaspoons vanilla
• 1⁄2cup finely chopped salted peanuts, about

DIRECTIONS

1. In a large saucepan combine the chocolate, cream, butter and peanut butter and heat over moderate heat, stirring, until chocolate is completely melted.
2. Remove from heat and stir in vanilla and a pinch of salt.
3. Transfer to a bowl and chill for 4 hours, or until firm.
4. Form mixture by heaping teaspoons into balls and roll lightly in peanuts.
5. Chill on a baking sheet lined with wax paper for 1 hour, or until firm.
6. Keep in an airtight container, chilled, for up to 2 weeks.

Lifeboat (2018)

This short documentary, which is nominated for an Academy Award in that category, is about the refugee crisis between North Africa and Europe, which has seen thousands of desperate people take to boats in a bid to make the treacherous journey in search of safety and a better life.  Boats crammed almost to sinking point with people, many of whom are sick from their time at sea and volunteers trying to help them with scant resources. The captains of these rescue boats aim to break this sea of humanity down into individual lives. Many of the refugees here tell tales of human trafficking, of being bought and sold and incarcerated before taking the chance to flee.
This short film puts you right there with those who do the rescuing.  It works on the emotional element of what this looks like on the ground, aiming to shift the focus of the way that those in the West perceive the problem. Castle insists that "rationality" is all well and good but that the closer you get to the reality on the ground, the more you begin to see the problems not as a single crisis but as thousands of individual people in crisis coming together.  Do not miss this.

2019 Oscar Short Animated Nominees

 The animated shorts are all really good, as always.  But like the Best Live Action shorts nominees, there is a bit of darkness that runs through them.  Late Afternoon is done by the Irish animation studio that has done a number of feature length animated films that are very good.  This deals with a woman who is moving out of her house, we presume to go into a more supervised living situation.  She is reminiscing about her life when she was young.  It has a bittersweet quality to it.

One Small Step chronicles a girl and her father.  He encourages her to dream big, and she does indeed want to go into space, to be part of something big.  The trajectory of her childhood dreams becoming a reality also has a bittersweet end to it.

Weekends is from a Pixar animator, who depicts the shuttling between his parents as a child.  This is a wordless tale of bleakness, with a father who starts off being more of a playmate than a parent, and then movies into something less interested, and the mother is not much better.

This is really hilarious.  The story is by far the funniest, and the animation is the most rudimentary.  The animals are true to their base behavior, and the whole thing devolves as the group therapy session progresses.








And last but not least, is Bao, from Pixar.  I saw this first when watching The Incredibles 2, and while it is very clever, the ending is a bit grim.

Cinnamon Rolls

We have been watching the Great British Baking Show and it continues to influence us big time. These were great!

For the dough-

• 1/4-ounce package yeast
• 1/2 cup warm water
• 1/2 cup scalded milk
• 1/4 cup sugar
• 1/3 cup butter
• 1 teaspoon salt
• 1 egg
• 3 1/2 to 4 cups all-purpose flour

For the filling-

• 2 tablespoons melted butter, plus more for pan
• 1/2 cup granulated sugar, plus more for pan
• 1/4 cup light brown sugar
• 2 tablespoons ground cinnamon

For the glaze-

• 4 tablespoons butter
• 2 cups powdered sugar
• 1 teaspoon vanilla extract
• 3 to 6 tablespoons hot water

Preparation:

• Heat oven to 350 degrees F.
• In a small bowl, dissolve yeast in warm water and set aside. In a large bowl mix milk, sugar, melted butter, salt and egg. Add 2 cups of flour and mix until smooth. Add yeast mixture. Mix in remaining flour until dough is easy to handle. Knead dough on lightly floured surface for 5 to 10 minutes. Place in well-greased bowl, cover,  place on top of warm oven, and let rise until doubled in size, usually 1 to 1 1/2 hours.
• When doubled in size, punch down dough. Roll out on a floured surface into a 15 by 9-inch rectangle. Brush melted butter all over dough. Mix sugar, brown sugar, and cinnamon and sprinkle over buttered dough. Beginning at the 15-inch side, role up dough and pinch edge together to seal. Cut into 12 to 15 slices.
• Coat the bottom of baking pan with butter and sprinkle with sugar. Place cinnamon roll slices close together in the pan and let rise on top of the oven until dough is doubled, about 45 minutes. Bake for about 30 minutes or until nicely browned.
• Meanwhile, mix butter, powdered sugar, and vanilla. Add hot water 1 tablespoon at a time until the glaze reaches desired consistency. Spread over slightly cooled rolls.

First Reformed (2018)

This film was nominated for Best Original Screenplay, and that was it.  I have to say, Ethan Hawke's performance in this was very powerful and worthy of consideration for Best Actor.  He brilliantly plays an alcoholic Protestant minister undergoing a profound spiritual and psychological crisis, and it is a visually stunning, enrapturing film.  That said, I am not sure that I got the take home message.
The Rev. Ernst Toller (Hawke) is a troubled man. The congregation that faces him from the church’s spartan pews is minuscule. At night, alone, he drinks and begins to confess his misery to a journal. We soon learn what’s behind his agonized countenance: He was a military chaplain when he encouraged his soldier son to go to Iraq. The son was killed, Toller’s marriage collapsed and he was left cold and alone. His assignment at this church—which seems to do more business in tourist trinkets than souls—is equal parts penance and abnegation.
The world’s misery begins to intrude on his own when a congregant gets him to talk with her husband, who is an environmental activist with a solid streak of pessimism. In a long scene, the young man and Toller discuss the ways humanity is rapidly despoiling the earth and the planet’s bleak future prospects. While the pastor urges that there are still plenty of reasons for hope, it seems he may have been influenced by Michael’s words as much as the other way around.  It is a turning point for him, that God wants us to take care of his creation, and that the Christian thing to do is to fight for environmental regulation.  Which does not go over well.

Hale County, This Morning, This Evening (2018)

This is a very unusual documentary, and I am somewhat surprised that it beat out the Mr. Rogers documentary to get on the list of Oscar nominees. It is filmed a series of vignettes, almost.  They are connected by their location rather than because they are telling a linear story.  It is cinematically very interesting, having an almost photographic quality, coupling with muffled sounds as well as blaring ones.
Hale County is rural Alabama.  Greensboro is the biggest city and there are only 16,000 inhabitants.  It is named in honor of Confederate officer Stephen Fowler Hale.  Like a lot of places in the south, the legacy of slavery remains all around.  The film focuses largely on Hale County's African American citizens and it feels like we are almost spying on their everyday life.  An unusual entry in this category, in my limited experience, but days later I am still trying to figure it out.

Pork Pizzaiola

We recently had pork chops on a sub-zero day where grilling outdoors was just not a great option.  Served with risotto it was a solid main course on a cold and wintery day.  May be able to Instapot it as well.

2 tablespoons olive oil

2 (1-inch thick) bone-in pork loin center-cut chops (about 12 ounces each)

Salt and freshly ground black pepper

1 small onion, thinly sliced

1 (15-ounce) can diced tomatoes, in juice

1 teaspoon herbes de Provence

1/4 teaspoon dried red pepper flakes, or more to taste

1 tablespoon chopped fresh Italian parsley leaves

1. Heat the oil in a heavy large skillet over medium heat. Sprinkle the pork chops with salt and pepper. Add the pork chops to the skillet and cook until they are brown and an instant-read meat thermometer inserted horizontally into the pork registers 160 degrees F, about 3 minutes per side. Transfer the pork chops to a plate and tent with foil to keep them warm.
2. Add the onion to the same skillet and saute over medium heat until crisp-tender, about 4 minutes. Add the tomatoes with their juices, herbes de Provence, and 1/4 teaspoon red pepper flakes. Cover and simmer until the flavors blend and the juices thicken slightly, stirring occasionally, about 15 minutes. Season the sauce, to taste, with salt and more red pepper flakes. Return the pork chops and any accumulated juices from the plate to the skillet and turn the pork chops to coat with the sauce.
3. Place 1 pork chop on each plate. Spoon the sauce over the pork chops. Sprinkle with the parsley and serve.

2019 Oscar Nominated Live Action Shorts

My advice would be to not read this until after you have seen these five movies, because there is no way to say much of anything beyond that they are all well done and suspenseful, which is true to the genre.
Four of the five are from outside the United States, two are from Canada, only two are in English, and it was very hard for me to choose the one I thought was best.
Madre is a Spanish film that centers on a mother whose six year old son is spending the weekend away with his father, who she is no longer involved with.  Suffice it to say that after this movie I am going to encourage the use of something like 'Find Friends' in the future.
Fauve is a film of two young boys who are essentially goofing off and land themselves in serious trouble, which is juxtaposed against Detainment, which is two other sub optimally supervised boys who get into even more, or at least very serious trouble.  Skin is a cautionary tale about children, guns, and racism colliding for a traumatic end (this one does demonstrate the danger of guns leading to death and worse). Marguerite is the sole nominee that has what is only a sad story thread.  Again, these are well done, but a somber group.

Cold War (2018)

This is a grown up version of Romeo and Juliet.  It is not their parents that keeps them apart but rather their country, but it is no less tragic.  One review that I read said that it swells your heart and then it breaks it.
It’s a tale with the makings of a legendary saga, following the union and break-up (and union and break-up again and again) of Wiktor and Zula, a classically gorgeous couple from the opposite sides of the tracks. They first meet deep in the dilapidated countryside of the post-World War II Poland. They soon thereafter embark on a stormy affair that disastrously evolves over two isolating decades and numerous unsympathetic locales across Europe.  Their choices and their circumstances recur across time,a and are so well told here.
The story will stay with you, as all good tragic love stories do.  The cinematography is so achingly gorgeous that it is a little bit of a downer when it ends and you have to return to your technicolor world.  This black and white one was so much more vivid in comparison.  It is perfect in so many ways.  Do not miss this.

Mirror Glaze Cake

We are now officially addicted the the Great British Baking Show, which will here after be known as the GBBS.
Joel made this spectacular cake for his birthday.
And yes, it will take you much of the day to accomplish this.

• For the génoise
• 40g (1½oz) unsalted butter, melted, plus extra for greasing
• 5 medium free-range eggs
• 165g (5¾oz) caster sugar
• 2 large oranges, finely grated zest only
• pinch salt
• 165g (5¾oz) plain flour
• For the salted caramel sauce
• 55g (2oz) unsalted butter
• 130g (4⅔oz) soft light brown sugar
• 5 tbsp double cream
• 1 tsp sea salt
• For the cream base
• 600ml (20fl oz) double cream
• 1 tbsp butter (to thicken, if necessary)
• ivory gel food colour (optional)
• For the chocolate glaze
• 150ml (5fl oz) double cream
• 135g (5oz) caster sugar
• 55g (2oz) cocoa powder
• 3 leaves gelatine
• To decorate
• 100g (3½oz) granulated sugar
• 50g (1¾oz) blanched hazelnuts
• chocolate curls (optional)

Directions

1. Preheat the oven to 350F. Grease and line two 8in springform cake tins with baking paper.
2. For the génoise, half fill a large saucepan with water and bring to a simmer. In a large heatproof mixing bowl, combine the eggs and sugar, then place the bowl over the saucepan (creating a bain-marie). Make sure the bottom of the bowl doesn’t touch the water.
3. Using a hand-held electric whisk, vigorously whisk the mixture for around 7 minutes, or until trebled in volume, pale and it leaves ribbons on the surface when the beater is lifted. Remove the mixture from the heat as soon as it is warm to the touch to avoid cooking the eggs.
4. Gently fold in the orange zest and salt. Sift the flour into the mixture in three batches, gently folding in each batch before adding the next. Slowly pour the melted butter down the side of the bowl and fold in.
5. Divide the mixture equally between the prepared cake tins, pouring from as low a height as possible. Place on the middle shelf of the oven and bake for 18-20 minutes, or until they are coming away from the sides of the tin and a cake skewer inserted in the middle comes out clean. Cool in the tin for 5 minutes then transfer to a wire rack to cool completely.
6. For the salted caramel sauce, put the butter and light brown sugar in a small saucepan over a low heat and stir until the sugar is melted (about 3 minutes). Drizzle in the double cream, mixing well – take care as the mix may splatter. Bring to the boil and simmer for 1 minute, then remove from the heat. Stir in the sea salt and set aside to cool, stirring frequently to prevent a crust forming. When cooled, whisk it for 1-2 minutes to incorporate some air.
7. For the cream base, whisk the double cream until stiff peaks form. Then whisk in the salted caramel to make a salted caramel cream. If the mixture is too loose, beat the butter until smooth and add to the salted caramel cream as necessary. Use a toothpick to add enough ivory food coloring to make a light brown/orange color (if using).
8. To assemble the cake, cut each cake in half horizontally to make four layers. Carefully place the first layer on a cake board. Using a palette knife, spread about 5mm of cream on top in an even layer. Place the next layer of génoise on top and repeat the cream and cake layers until you have four layers of génoise with salted caramel cream on top of each layer.
9. Apply a ‘crumb coat’ of cream all over the cake, ensuring any gaps are filled to give a smooth surface. Make sure there are no overhanging edges as this will affect the mirror glaze later. Transfer the cake to the fridge for 20-30 minutes.
10. Remove the cake from the fridge and add a final layer of cream all over, finishing it carefully using a palette knife (the smoother the cream, the better the final finish will be). Place back in fridge for 20 minutes, along with any remaining cream.
11. For the chocolate glaze, add the cream, sugar, cocoa powder and 150ml (5fl oz) water to a small saucepan and heat gently until the sugar is fully dissolved. Keep stirring during heating. Bring to the boil and simmer for 2 minutes. Remove from the heat and leave to cool for 10 minutes.
12. Soak the gelatine leaves in a bowl of cold water for 5 minutes. Squeeze any excess water from the leaves and stir into the glaze until fully dissolved. Use a sugar thermometer to check the temperature of the glaze and cool to a maximum of 100F before using.
13. Pass the glaze through a fine sieve into a measuring jug and tap on a hard surface to encourage any air bubbles to pop.
14. Once the cake has finished cooling in the fridge, transfer to a wire cooling rack placed on a large baking tray to catch any excess glaze as you pour it over the cake.
15. Pour the glaze evenly over the top of the cake. Check the sides of the cake are covered and add more glaze if needed by reusing any excess glaze caught in the baking tray. Immediately transfer the cake to the fridge to firm up.
16. To decorate, make a caramel. Put the sugar and 1-2 tablespoons water in a small pan over a medium heat. Do not stir, just swirl the pan. Heat until the sugar is an amber caramel color, then remove from the heat.
17. Meanwhile, attach each hazelnut to the end of a cocktail stick. Very carefully dip each hazelnut into the caramel (the caramel will be very hot, so take care not to burn yourself) and hang over the edge of a work surface, using a heavy chopping board to hold the cocktail stick in place – protect the floor and any cupboards and with newspaper as the caramel will drip. This will form a caramel ‘spike’ as the caramel stretches. Once all hazelnuts are coated, trim the spikes to the same length using scissors and remove from the cocktail sticks onto a sheet of parchment paper.
18. To finish, put the cake on a serving plate and pipe small circles of salted caramel cream around the top edge of the cake and place a caramelized hazelnut on each circle.

Mirai (2018)

The story is that of a boy who is happily enjoying being at the center of his parent's world.  The montage at the beginning shows them meeting, dating, moving in together, getting a dog, and then Kun arrives.  As far as he is concerned, life is perfect and why would you want anything more?
Then Mirai, his younger sister, comes home.  She is a bit fussy, his parents have no time for him, they are tired and stressed, and Kun is beside himself with grief over this.  Each time something happens that gets him into big trouble, or he loses his temper, there is an imaginary dream like sequence that follows, trying to show him another point of view, a way to see things a different way and be less distressed.
These scenes start off kind of oddball, and by the last one they are just way out there, but the animation, both within the fantasy and in Kun's everyday life, is truly stunning.  Whatever you think of the story and its arc, it is visually stunning.  The movie emotionally took me two places--the first was back to when our second child came home and  our first was beside himself with anger about the whole thing for several weeks.  The second is that when he has a second child himself,  his first may very well struggle hersel as she has very clearly loved being the absolute center of her universe.  The lesson that life can carry challenges comes early.

Caramelized Orange Pork Roast

We have been buying an heirloom pig each year and as a result we need a lot of ways to prepare it.  This one my husband made last weekend was really delicious.  It is a low and slow cooked recipe, so while it doesn't need much in the way of personalized attention, it is best suited to a weekend meal.

• • 1 cup white wine
  • 1 cup soy sauce
  • 3/4 cup brown sugar
  • 1/2 cup Sriracha hot sauce
  • 1/3 cup whole-grain mustard
  • 1/4 cup rice wine vinegar
  • 1 orange, juiced and finely zested
  • 6 cloves garlic, minced
  • One 6- to 8-pound bone-in pork shoulder

Whisk together all the ingredients except the pork in a large roasting pan. Poke the pork all over with the tip of a sharp knife or a fork, to allow the marinade to penetrate, and place in the pan with the marinade. Turn the meat several times while it marinates in the refrigerator for at least 4 hours. If you don't have 4 hours, do it for as much time as you have. Overnight is good, too.
Preheat the oven to 325°F. Loosely tent the roasting pan with foil, and cook the marinated pork for 1 hour per pound. Every hour, drizzle the meat with the pan sauce, and add ½ cup water as needed to prevent the sauce from becoming too concentrated and scorching in the pan.
Remove the foil. If the pork is caramelized at this point, continue cooking at 325°F; if not, raise the heat to 375°F. Cook until an instant-read thermometer reads 190°F (the point at which the cartilage melts), about 1 hour more, basting the pork with the pan sauce a few more times. Continue to add water as needed.
Remove the roast from the oven. Let rest for 20 minutes, loosely tented with foil. Shred or slice the meat and return it to the pan with the sauce. 

Love and Kindness

I am always in favor of being kind.  To nature, to your fellow man. The damage that is being done each and every day throughout our nation is so staggeringly stressful that it is important to take a step back and count what we can be thankful for.  The love of others, the way we make our own communities and how they sustain us.  I read an article in the Boston Globe last week about a long standing community where most residents had raised their children, but they were grown and gone.  When a young couple moved in and has a baby, they were all excited to meet the new baby and be a part of her life.  Very early on it became clear that she was deaf, and there was great sadness.  They were so looking forward to telling her how happy they were that she learned to ride a bike and such, but how could they?  What could they do to support this family?  Well, they hired an American Sign Language tutor, as a neighborhood, and learned sign language.  This girl will grow up with people who can communicate with her.  That is a joyful way to address adversity.
It is in stark contrast to people who blame others for their woes, and then vote for people who make their lives worse. While I can't get all the way to being forgiving of the people who voted these heartless people into office, I do worry that as the world becomes increasingly broken theirs will be worst of all.  So as much as you can, so acts of kindness and slowly may we repair the world.

Can You Ever Forgive Me? (2018)

Melissa McCarthy may have found her sweet spot between drama and comedy.  She has unbelievable timing as an actress, but a lot of her work has been in poorly written, silly movies where she looks good but a lot of what surrounds her is very mediocre.
In this she plays a real life character, Lee Israel, who has written a number of celebrity biographies, which have had modest success, but she really had a mold that she wrote to, and when that style went out of favor, she was completely unable to adapt.  Instead, she flogged her agent (played by Jane Curtain), refuses to listen to her or anyone else, takes absolutely no blame, nor is there an iota of soul searching.  Instead she drinks more, and it isn't until her cat gets sick that she starts to sell off her prized possessions.  She has some letters from famous people, which she discovers are valuable, but could be even more valuable if they were kind of racy, or said something quite quotable, and so on.  What does she do?  She starts to write them herself.  To find out what happens you'll have to watch the movie, but it is a lot funner to watch than I am making it out, and she turns in an Oscar nominee winning performance.

What Would Lincoln Do?

As I greatly despair at the almost unimaginable roll back of environmental regulations and the lack of attention to solving the climate change crisis, I think about politicians who worried about the country they were elected to govern.  Lincoln was elected at a turbulent time, where there were powerful forces that felt strongly on both sides of the slavery issue.  The end result was that the country literally split apart, it was that extreme.  So the divide that we are experiencing now is not unprecedented.  And is it really that different from the slavery debate.  Clearly it is on the level that we do not own other people, on paper, at least.  However, politicians have allowed the separation of children from their families, children who they had not intention of reuniting from the very beginning, because they made not even the tiniest effort to keep track of them.  The tolerance of ever more obvious racism, sexual harassment, and religious discrimination, on top of scorn for the social safety net, is all very much in concert with people who think themselves superior to others.  These are not good people.  They are selling our planet and our children's future home for oil and gas profits.  It is a crisis, and they are plotting how to make bank on it rather than responding.  And it is their children's future home that they are trashing.

Lemon Meringue Pie

We have been watching a lot of the Great British Baking Show, like seasons of it, and it has inspired everyone in my house (except me) to bake more.  This recipe, from Chez Panisse, was absolutely delicious.

• Flaky pie crust, enough for a 9-inch shell

The filling:

• 2 Meyer lemons or other large lemons
• 2 eggs
• 3 egg yolks
• 6 tablespoons sugar
• 3 tablespoons salted butter, cut in 3 pieces
• 3 tablespoons unsalted butter, cut in 3 pieces

The meringue:

• 3 egg whites, at warm room temperature
• ¼ teaspoon cream of tartar
• 6 tablespoons superfine sugar
• ½ teaspoon vanilla extract

1. Prepare the shell. Roll the pastry into a 12-inch circle, 1/8-inch thick, and fit gently into the pan. Tri the edge a half-inch beyond the rim, fold under and crimp or pinch to make a decorative edge. Prick the bottom with a fork. Freeze the shell for 20 to 30 minutes.
2. Prepare the filling. Grate the zest from the lemons into a small, noncorrodable bowl. Strain in the lemon juice, then press through as much lemon pulp as possible.
3. In a heavy, noncorrodable saucepan, beat the eggs, yolks and sugar until just mixed. Stir in the lemon juice and pulp, then the six tablespoons of butter.
4. Cook, stirring constantly, over low to medium heat, until the mixture comes together and thickens enough to coat a spoon. Remove from heat, allow to stand five minutes, then whisk briefly to smooth. Set aside.
5. Preheat the oven to 375 degrees. Line the frozen shell with aluminum foil, weight with beans or pie weights and bake for 20 minutes, or until set and dry looking. Remove the weights and foil, turn the heat down to 350 and continue baking until shell is golden brown, about 12 to 15 minutes. Set aside and allow to cool slightly, but leave the oven on.
6. Spread the prepared filling in the shell and bake for 10 to 15 minutes or until the filling is just set. Remove pie and turn oven to 375.
7. Make the meringue. Beat the egg whites until frothy, add the cream of tartar and continue beating until rounded peaks form. Beat in sugar and vanilla.
8. Spread the meringue over the filling, making sure it meets the edges of the crust to make a seal. Swirl in a design with a knife or spatula and bake for about 10 minutes, or until the meringue is lightly browned.
9. Allow to cool completely, from one to two hours

Of Fathers and Sons (2018)

The filmmaker, Talal Derki, is a Syrian man who now lives in Berlin.  To make this documentary, which is nominated for an Academy Award, he lived with Abu Osama, a leader in Al-Nusra, the Syrian arm of Al-Qaeda.  This is a harrowing  documentary that opens with children doing what children do around the world: playing soccer. But these children are not to have the life of other children.  They do not even go to school. And by the end, these boys will be a part of a unique ritual for children in parts of the world, learning to be a part of a militia. Watching young men become militarized is one of those gut-churning documentary topics.
But there are others as well.  One thing that comes through loud and clear is that this will not be over any time soon.  The country that once was Syria has been changed, perhaps not permanently, but for the foreseeable future it has little in the way of infrastructure, and the children in this movie know nothing but was, hear nothing but extremist rhetoric, and question nothing.  There is a scene where Abu Osama is joking with a man about his niece not wearing a hijab, that his sons would think she should be shot on site, and they are both laughing about this violence against women so casually,  then the other man says that they should be lenient as she is only two years old.  It is a crushing movie to watch but important.

Green Book (2018)

Wow, this is the whole package.  It was the last movie nominated for Best Picture that I had to see and it is clearly my favorite.
It is a familiar story: two men—one white, one black—from polar opposite backgrounds with wildly contrasting personalities get thrown together under unusual circumstances. They learn from each other, change each other for the better and discover that—guess what?—they’re not so different after all.  There are several twists involved, the first is that the educated, cultured, talented, and rich man, Don Shirley (wonderfully portrayed by Mahershala Ali) is the black man, and the working class night club bouncer, Tony (Viggo Mortensen at his best) is the white guy.  The situation under which they form this bond is that Tony is driving Shirley through the segregated American Sought in the 1960's, where in my lifetime African-Americans suffered sever prejudice and demeaning conditions at the hands of whites solely based on their color.  Even Tony can tell that this is just wrong, and he also comes to see the anguish it brings to a massively talented artist. It is beautifully told on every level, a must see.

Charm City (2018)

One review that I read of this is that it is Baltimore after the Wire.  The updated version of drugs, violence, HIV, prostitution, and such in the Charm City.

In this documentary by Marilyn Ness the backdrop is Baltimore’s crisis of police/community relations,  and the faces of her subjects — dedicated law enforcement personnel, activists, political figures — may be pained, but their efforts to find a healing path forward are palpable and usually hopeful.

Filmed over three years of escalated violence, and shaded by a climate of deep mistrust between cops and people of color after the 2015 killing of Freddie Gray,  the film focuses on a handful of people working hard to repair things.

Police captain Monique has 16 years on the job, but it’s her traumatic Baltimore childhood, coming from a home of desperation, drugs, and death, that informs her empathetic ways in uniform. In the poor, neglected, drug-riddled Eastern District, a brawny local figure named Alex — once targeted by racist officers, now a hard-working protégé to revered neighborhood patriarch, Mr. C — channels his anger at the injustice he sees every day into street-level programs that help kids, and that interrupt tense street flare-ups before they lead to more homicide statistics. Young, solution-minded city councilman Brandon Scott, meanwhile, believes politics is where real change can occur.  it is eye opening to watch.

Minding the Gap (2018)

This is an Oscar nominee for Best Documentary, and is shot by a very young filmmaker who is also a character in his own story.  The movie opens with a long elegantly shot series of three young men skateboarding through largely empty city streets in an unnamed town.  At first it appears that this is what the film is about,  it in actuality forms a small portion of the running time. Most of the movie is about the struggle to move out into the world as an adult and become a decent, functioning human being despite a lack of economic opportunities and (maybe more important) a poisonous cultural upbringing that teaches young straight men to hold emotions in, laugh off pain, and express frustration through anger and violence.
Bing Lui is the filmmaker and he is largely off camera as a result.  His subjects include Keire, the lone African-American in a mostly white skateboarding scene; Zack, the de facto leader of the group, who suddenly finds himself catapulted into adulthood when he gets his girlfriend Nina pregnant; Nina, who grows in maturity and confidence when Zack struggles to measure up to his responsibilities; and Liu and Keire's mothers, both of whom prove to be generous and insightful subjects.  What emerges are the very real challenges that under-educated, poorly raised men in our country face, with a back drop of a government trying desperately to help them less.

Vox Lux (2018)

Wow, this was kind of a roller coaster ride with a strange destination.  Natalie Portman does a spectacular job of portraying the crash and burn end of a career for a glam rocker.
But it didn't start out that way.  Willem Dafoe is the narrator who introduces us to the 13-year-old Celeste, played by the remarkable Raffey Cassidy.  Out of the blue, she finds herself badly injured during a Columbine-like school shooting, a tragic common-occurrence staple these days. The incident inspires her to write a musical lament — and the song, cowritten with her older sister Eleanor (Stacy Martin), surprisingly catapults her into the celebrity sphere virtually overnight. Suddenly, Celeste is has a manager (ably played by Jude Law, who does absoultely every sleezy thing you would imagine a manager to do) who has sold her to the highest bidder. From L.A. video shoots to recording studios in Stockholm, the teenager is shoved into a world for which nothing has prepared her, especially a pregnancy that results from a one-night stand with an older Brit rocker.
And so it goes.  The drugs, the alcohol, the grueling travel schedule, the people hanging on, sooner or later it would take a toll on anyone, and Natalie Portman's character takes us down and through that rabbit hole.

Shoplifters (2018)

This is a morally complicated movie, and after thinking about it for over a week, it is no easier to disentangle.
The movie opens with a man, Osamu, and a boy, Shota, in a store. They keep making eye contact, moving slowly through the aisles. The message is that they’ve done this before. They will do this again. They are shoplifting, but we instantly get the feeling that they’re doing it to survive. They’re getting food for their family, not taking trinkets from a fancy store.
On the way home that night, the man and boy see a girl on a balcony. We get the impression they’ve seen her before. Despite their obvious need, the man offers the girl a croquette, and she ends up coming home with them.  At home, there are other mouths to feed. We meet the mother named Nobuyo, another woman named Aki and a grandmother. And now there’s a new mouth with a girl named Juri. When Osamu and Nobuyo go to take the girl back that night, they hear a violent scuffle between parents who likely haven’t even noticed their daughter is gone. Nobuyo just holds Juri a little tighter and we know they’re not giving her back.The story gradually unfold about how these five people came to live under one roof, and what happens to bring it all crashing down.  Very good.

The Great Believers by Rebecca Makkai

This book was one of the New York Times fivwe best works of fiction last year, and it was short listed for the National Book Award.  In addition, I thought it was the best thing that I have read in a while.
The story revolves around two time periods, one the mid-1980's as the AIDS crisis is coming to the forefront for gay men in the United States.  The other is 2015 in Paris, where there is an update on how the crisis has a ripple effect.  I like stories that cover a long period of time, and reveal the long standing nature of bad things happening, and how they get passed on as well.  In the wake of the federal government shut down, where workers missed 8.5% of their annual income based on the length of time they were out of work because the President would not acknowledge the overwhelmingly negative results of the 2018 election and instead wanted to force his will on people regardless of the consequences. 
This focuses on the gay community, tells a few stories of different people, most of them very difficult and sad, and then follows up with the sister of a man who died, who then went on to sit at the bedside of almost all of his friends as they too died.  The modern story is her attempt to make up for lost time with her daughter, who felt unloved and uncared for by a mother who had seen endless death.

The Old Man and the Gun (2018)

Robert Redford, the director and lead actor in this movie, has said that this is his final film.  He plays Forrest Tucker, a real life bank robber who not only repeatedly robbed banks throughout his entire adults life, sometimes several a day, but also was somewhat of a legend when it came to escaping from prison.  He doesn't seem too upset when he gets caught, and once out of prison it doewn't take him long to return to a life of crime, not because he has to but because he is drawn to it.  The man who is hunting him down in this end-of-career story, John Hunt (ably played by Casey Affleck, who once again shows he is capable of playing many parts), almost doesn't want to arrest him, and doesn't take credit for having found him in the end.
The aura of the movie is as deceptive as its protagonist. It tells the story of a man so likable and gentlemanly that tellers and bank managers practically handed him their money as he went about one of the most infamous robbery sprees in American history. Tucker's relationship with the Sissy SPacek character just adds to the ambience. Who is this man?   But however smooth the movie itself may be, it's another accomplished piece of work from a filmmaker who continues to surprise with the range of his interests and output.And maybe this is the final chapter.

Eighth Grade (2018)

Watching this movie is like being transported back to middle school, and I do not mean that in a good way.  It skips the really serious mean girls stuff all the while capturing the incredible awkwardness of the age.  Kayla is a very shy girl who is almost invisible in her school.  The movie opens with her doing advise videos, and while the advise is largely very reasonable, we come to see that it does not come from Kayla's experience.  She has one sharply challenging moment where the mother of the most popular girl at school gets her daughter to invite Kayla to her birthday party (we strongly suspect the mom is thinking about getting on Kayla's father's good side), and she goes, but survives around the periphery.  We all know this is better than many other alternatives, but it is still hard to watch.
So the movie covers all of what everyone goes through at this age, but superimposed on it are the twenty first century realities, walking the viewer through  what it's like to be a teenager today: constant internet use, scrolling through the carefully curated Instagram feeds of classmates, the societal pressure to seem "okay" and "fabulous" all the time. When a teenager feels pressure to "perform" her life on Instagram or Snapchat, it changes the game in subtle ways that probably aren't even understood yet. Beautifully acted and scripted.

First Man (2018)

I did not love this movie, and I definitely thought it could and should have been a half our shorter.  But here is the thing. 
If you want to get an almost first-person sense of what it felt like to fly in one of the earliest supersonic planes or ride a rocket into orbit and beyond, then this is the movie to see. More so than other films about the US space program it makes the experience seem more untamed and scary than grand, like being in the cab of a runaway truck as it smashes through a guardrail and tumbles down the side of a mountain.
Future first-man-on-the-moon Neil Armstrong (quietly played by Ryan Gosling. Almost no dialogue and little emotion is required) and his colleagues zips into insulated suits, wait hours or days for clearance to take off, then spend a few minutes being shaken and rolled. The vibrations of the trip rattle their bones and the noise scorches their eardrums. There might be a brief moment of beauty or peace, along with a sidelong glimpse through a window of the earth or the moon but it's largely deep space. They expend most of their mental energy studying the instrument panels and trying to process the information that's being fed through their headsets by mission control, knowing that one missed fact or wrong choice could mean their deaths.