Honeyland (2019)

This is unusual in that the movie was nominated in both Best Foreign Language film and Best Documentary. 
The movie is set in an isolated mountain region deep within the Balkans, Hatidze Muratova lives with her ailing mother in a village without roads, electricity or running water.  The filming took three years because of the remoteness of the location.  Hatidze comes from a long line of Macedonian wild beekeepers, eeking out a very modest living selling honey in small batches in a city 12 miles from her home--which she walks to. Her peaceful existence is thrown into upheaval by the arrival of an itinerant family, with their seven rambunctious children and herd of cattle. Hatidze optimistically meets the promise of change with an open heart, offering up her affections, her brandy and her tried-and-true beekeeping advice.  It doesn't take long before Hussein, the itinerant family's patriarch, senses opportunity and develops an interest in selling his own honey. Hussein breaks the rules of beekeeping, starves his hives, which attack Haditze's bees and upsets the natural order of things.  Taken on a macro scale, their conflict exposes the fundamental tension between nature and humanity, harmony and discord, exploitation and sustainability. Even as the family provides a much-needed respite from Hatidze's isolation and loneliness, her very means of survival are threatened.

American Factory (2019)

I didn't realize it when I watched the movie, but this is the first movie that the Obama's worked on with Netflix, and lets just say it is not a "feel good" story by any means.  All of the five nominees for Best Documentary share a very grim view of the world.
The filmmakers made an Oscar nominated short documentary about the closing of a GM plant near Dayton, Ohio in 2009.  This is filmed in that same factory when it is reopened as a Chinese financed factory, Fuyao Glass America.  The money and the chairman are from China, and you can see from the beginning that there are significant culture clashes.
The American workers are happy to be back at work, but they are making less than half of what they made as GM workers.  The Chinese struggle with the safety regulations, leterally ignoring them and seem annoyed when it is pointed out to them that following them is the law.  Then there is the trip that Chairman Cao arranges for the Americans to visit a Chinese factory.  Workers are much more organized, more professional, faster, and they work 6-7 days a week.  It is starkly evident that we just cannot compete with that on the international stage.  All the air is sucked out of the room as the story comes to a close.

Bombshell (2019)

The movie is not aptly names since it should have come as no surprise that Fox News tolerated sexual harassment from the top down.  It would have been a bombshell if they treated women as equal partners, both intellectually and professionally. 
The film outlines what happened before and during the summer of 2016, when “Fox & Friends” morning show co-host Gretchen Carlson filed a lawsuit against the former Fox News CEO Roger Ailes and Megyn Kelly—the network’s biggest star at that point—came forward with Ailes harassment tales of her own.
Chalize Theron is magnificent.  She plays Megyn Kelly to a tee, embodying the anchor with eerie accuracy. You feel as if you’re watching Kelly herself, and the fact that she’s doing an extended walk-and-talk to explain the inner workings of the conservative news network accomplishes a couple of crucial things right off the top. Kelly shares in conspiratorial tones who the players are, how the power structure operates and what people must do to survive—especially if they want those coveted spots on air. and it softens her for those of us who find the real Kelly to be too edgy.  

The Irishman (2019)

Some might call this an epic, others might characterize it as a bloated movie in desperate need of editing.  I see the merit in wither description, as it runs over 3 hours and there is a lot of detail that could have been left out.
It is the story of the Mob and Teamsters labor union hitman and courier Frank Sheeran (a real-life figure, who died in 2003 aged 83), who is played by Robert De Niro.  Shortly before Sheeran shoots mobster Crazy Joe Gallo outside Umberto’s Clam House in Little Italy in 1972, Gallo celebrates his birthday at the Copacabana club where comic Don Rickles is performing.  De Niro has been here in not just one but two other movies that centered on the seamier side of life.  It is not Scorsese and Mafia lore that make The Irishman a requiem, however, but the way it morphs from an ebullient, sprawling comedy-drama about the outsider Sheeran’s three-decade involvement with La Cosa Nostra into a mournful reflection on friendship, betrayal and the unassuaged guilt men take to their graves.  The movie garnered 10 Academy award nominations, including for all three of it's heavy hitting lead characters, and is well worth watching.

The Edge of Democracy (2019)

Petra Costa is known for her storytelling.  This documentary finds her intersecting the personal and political on the public stage, and in the process documents a crisis erupting in slow motion over the last several years at the heart of Brazilian politics. Thanks to extraordinary access to figures at the center of the story – former leftist Workers’ Party presidents Lula de la Silva and Dilma Rousseff, as well as rightwingers Michel Temer and current president Jair Bolsonaro– Costa manages to craft an intimate primer about the state’s descent into populism and the fraying of the country’s democratic fabric.  Her access to both sides of the story is extraordinary.  Her grandparents made their fortune in the construction industry, which propped up the likes of Temer and Bolsonaro (and continues to do so), and her Marxist parents went to prison because of their opposition to the military junta that once controlled the country. At one point, Costa observes her mother’s warm first meeting with Rousseff; both women were held at the same prison, although not at the same time, and have much in common.
The criticism that this does not show the profound descent into poverty and violence that has been rampant throughout Brazil as this story unfolded is well founded, but I appreciated the calm telling of a terrifying story of the profound influence that oligarchs wield on the world stage.

Missing Link (2019)

This movie is nominated for an Oscar and it won the Golden Globe award this year.  The theory is that with Frozen II and Toy Story 4, the Disney vote was split and this came out the winner (which doesn't make total sense to me, but then I am neither a film critic nor an expert on all things Hollywood), but none-the-less it is a funny story that I very much enjoyed.  It is also probably amongst the last of the dying breed of stop motion animation films that will be made.
The story is somewhere between a road trip comedy and a buddy adventure.  The movie follows the brave adventurer Sir Lionel Frost on a journey to find the legendary Sasquatch and reunite him with his long-lost relatives. Along with fellow explorer Adelina Fortnight, the trio weather all manner of perils and ultimately learns that sometimes you can find family in the places you least expect. It is an adventure story that traverses iconic locations in the world circa 1900 but also navigates subtexts like xenophobia, classism, and the anti-evolutionary precept of human exceptionalism. We were a room full of adults who loved it, start to finish.

The Joker (2019)

There is a lot to say about this movie, but how it got nominated for the most categories, and how the director beat out Greta Gerwig for the nomination is a mystery to me.
This is both the origin story for the Joker as well as for Batman, and it is not a pretty picture.  At worst it emphasizes all the basest human qualities, and glorifies them.  It seems quite contemporary in both its scope and content.  We are living in the time of Gotham, and there are no checks and balances what so ever.  It is a tragedy.
On the other hand, it depicts mental illness in a horrific light that it does not deserve.  The fallacy that people with mental illness are violent is unfair and untrue.  What is true is that the victims of domestic violence do go on to struggle with violence themselves.  A book on the subject, No Visible Bruises, avers that most mass shootings have an origin in domestic violence, and some start by killing a family member, and then go on to kill others. So not a great message there.
Finally, Joaquin Phoenix plays crazy like no one else.  He is entirely believable as the antihero who starts off being a victim and then emerges as a killer who inspires others to follow his example.  There is no bottom to his rage and it rolls off him in every scene.

Once Upon a Time in Hollywood (2019)

What to say about a Quentin Tarantino movie?  Unfortunately there is this underlying edge to it that just feels like he neither likes nor gets women.  Once you take that as a given and move on, the movie flows.
For a change, this is not a stylized replica of an existing genre, but rather a broader commentary track about the movie industry, looking back to what is essentially it's middle years. 

It is  ambitious and at the same time entirely ordinary. For in setting his story on three very specific days in 1969, the writer-director also brushes up against the specter of the Charles Manson murders, the impact this threat had on that community, and the seismic shift happening in the Southern California culture during that era. Working class stiffs like blue-collar stunt man Cliff Booth (Brad Pitt) or fading character actor Rick Dalton (Leonardo DiCaprio) counter-balance the rise of the counter culture, leaving those on the downhill side of their careers to fight to hold on to what they had.  And then there is the revisionist history, just so you don't forget that it is a Tarantino  movie.  Not my choice in any category it is nominated in.

How to Train Your Dragon:The Hidden World (2019)

This is the third in the series, and it closes a chapter.  The story is a bit unimpressive, but the animation is gorgeous, in an over the top sort of way.
Hiccup's father is gone, and Hiccup struggles to take his place as a leader. Meanwhile, Berk is struggling to care for a community that can barely contain the dragons who vastly outnumber the people.
Two new characters are the focus in this third film, and it turns out that Toothless is not the last of his species. A white female, dubbed by Astrid as the Light Fury, arrives. But she is part of an elaborate trap by ruthless dragon hunter Grimmel the Grisly, who is determined to kill Toothless and as many other dragons as he can. Hiccup, Astrid, and the other Berkians work together to keep Grimmel away from their dragons and from the Hidden World, a secret dragon sanctuary.
There is a fair amount of silliness in this, which maybe I would have loved if I was 50 years younger, but this is my last choice in the feature length Animated nominations this year.

Star Wars: The Rise of Skywalker (2019)

This is all kinds of special effects, and that is what both dominates the 150 minutes of screen time you log in watching it, but it also has more of a plot to follow than the last couple of movies--although as I think about them, they kind of echo the plot progression of the first Star Wars movies released, which happened in my late teens (in other words, quite a long time ago).  This is the latest in the current trilogy, the one where good is the acknowledged underdog and evil is the overwhelming favorite to take home the prize.
The roles in this story, as in others, have seen women rise to leadership roles.  They are still mostly bad asses rather than using their intuition and social skills to rise above the fray and do good, but still, this is a welcome change from where the series started.  Adam Driver is exceptional in that this seems so far afield of what he normally does as to be impressive that he pulls this off too.  The sound and lights and special effects are impressive, and the gratuitous creatures of yore are actually toned down and more enjoyable.  All in all, this was really pretty good.

Little Women (2019)

This is pitch perfect.  Everything about it, from the musical score, to the script and the cinematography, not to mention the acting, it is the whole package.
It was brave of Gerwig to take on a well known classic in her second directorial debut, but the success of Ladybird must have buoyed her to take the risk.  This film unravels the book a bit, and puts it back together again in a series of movements between two time periods, which as the audience you kind of have to ride that wave with some faith, but it really works in the end.  The essence of the March Sisters Jo, Meg, Amy and Beth is still very much in tact, with the siblings’ hearts and souls preserved in the right place.  Jo is played by Saoirse Ronan (who is once again brilliant in yet a totally different role from Brooklyn or On Chesil Beach), who is a  surrogate of sorts for Alcott herself. When we meet the strong-minded, career-focused tomboy, Jo is already seven years into the future—not residing at home but at a boarding house in New York, pursuing her dreams to become a novelist.  We go back to find out where she is from and what made her who she is.  The pace and the story telling will stay with you, whether you loved the book or never read it.  No matter, this is a story well told.

Pain and Glory (2019)

Antonio Banderas plays a famous film director who is later in life, and he has a number of physical ailments that have caused an artistic block.  He is unable to work.  The implication is that Banderas is a stand in for Aldomovar himself, looking back over his career and evaluating the people he has lost touch with, as well as the people he has lost.  There are persistent flashbacks to his childhood, the place that he came from and escaped, and the things that might have come with him into his work from there.
At first, the director is very self consumed.  He has both pain and an inability to swallow, which has led to a significant weight loss, as well as a sense of defeat.  He even turns to heroin to ease the pain, but relatively quickly decides that this is not going to go well, even in the short run.  Friends try to help him, and finally something clicks and he turns a corner.
This is a soft and rough retrospective that ends with a sign and a smile.  Beautifully rendered and unusually ordinary for the filmmaker, it is beautiful.

Three Men and a Boat by Jerome K. Jerome (1889)

I was visiting a very good friend in Billings, someone who reads more than I do, and she referenced this book in passing, and I was like 'Wait, what book?', I have never heard of either it or the author, and the subtitle (To Say Nothing of the Dog) was a hook for me.  My library did not have it, so I searched through what the Kindle library had to offer, and read it on my recent trip on the Nile.
Ostensibly this is the tale of three city clerks on a boating trip on the Thames, an account that sometimes masquerades, against its will, as a travel guide.  It hovers somewhere between a shaggy-dog story and episodes of late-Victorian farce.  The book is about the cameraderie of youth, the absurdity of existence, camping holidays, playing truant, comic songs, and the sweet memories of lost time. You could also read it as an unconscious elegy for imperial Britain.  In short, like all the finest comic writing, it's about everything and nothing.  Seinfeld could have read this and developed his modern version of the same approach. 

The Farewell (2019)

This is really a fabulous movie, so do not skip it because you have to read subtitles half the time.  It is well worth it.
The screen writer takes a story from her own life and makes.it into a story that everyone can relate to on some level.
Her beloved grandmother was dying in China, and the family decided not to tell their matriarch to protect her and prevent her from living in fear throughout her remaining days. Instead, they planned a lavish wedding as an excuse to bring everyone together one last time.  This is a culture clash with the younger generation who live abroad wanting to tell their grandmother the truth, while her children and her sister actively forbid that.  It explores the cultural differences between East and West and between generations without judgment or pronouncement as to whose approach is best. It’s as if the filmmaker wants us to see all sides of the delicate argument with a kind heart and an open mind. Her approach is so intimate and so no-nonsense, she makes you feel as if you’ve been immersed in this town, this family, this life. And you may even find yourself changing your mind over the course of the film as to how you’d handle such a dilemma yourself.  Really good.

Rocketman (2019)

This is going to sound like a criticism, but this movie is exactly what you would hope for and expect from an Elton John biopic.  It does not dwell on his love affairs too deeply (that, if rumor is true, could have taken the movie to mini-series length), and instead focuses on the one that screwed him both personally and professionally. It was a cold romance hit, where an agent used his considerable personal and physical charm to set himself up financially.
The movie opens with the singer dropping in to an AA meeting and basically admitting that he is addicted to everything, and then the movie is a montage of scenes going backwards and then into the present to illustrate just why that might be.  I really liked it but beware, my spouse did not.  So it may be one of those things that differing tastes will dictate how you feel as you leave the theater.  Taron Egerton did just win a Golden Globe for his portrayal of John, so at least some professionals agree with my assessment (which is not always the case!).

Apollo 11 (2019)

This documentary, found streaming on Hulu, has been shortlisted for the Academy Awards, and it is well worth watching.  It isn't like other documentaries about the first moon mission. In fact it isn't like most other movies, period. It's magnificent and unique, an adrenaline shot of wonder and skill. 
The filmmaker tells the story entirely in the present tense, omitting the historian interviews and vintage news clips that you expect to see in films on this topic. Even though the filmmaker gained access to previously-unseen archival footage and previously-unheard audio recordings, and synced them to create an almost vertigo-inducing sense of immediacy, this isn't a history lesson. It is a thriller, the story unfolding before us.
For example, the familiar voice of Walter Cronkite is heard but not seen, and his voice is given no more dramatic weight than the voices of NASA announcers, supervisors and technicians speaking into headsets. The most exhilerating moments—the liftoff; the landing; the departure from the lunar surface; the descent through Earth's atmosphere—are conveyed mostly in unbroken images, taken from a fixed vantage point (such as the shot through a capsule window during re-entry that shows flames roasting the spacecraft's heat shield). The movie is intuitively assembled, fond of the grand gesture, and often playful. Highly recommended.

Egyptian Kushari

Of all the food we had on a recent trip to Egypt, this was the one that stuck with us.  We ate it in a restaurant that only serves kushari, that is it.  The options when ordering are small, medium, and large, and they are all priced around a dollar a bowl.  And the taste is phenomenal.

For the onions:

• 1 lb onions (454g)
• Vegetable oil for frying, I use canola or sunflower

For the lentils and rice:

• 4 tablespoons onion oil
• 1 ½ cups medium grain rice, I use Calrose (11oz, 312g)
• ¾ cup brown lentils (5.8oz, 164g)
• 2 tablespoons ground cumin
• 2 teaspoons salt, or to taste
• 3 cups vegetable or chicken broth (or 3 cups water and 1 bouillon cube) (750ml)

For the pasta:

• 1 lb box ditalini or macaroni (454g)
• 4 tablespoons onion oil
• Salt to taste

For the spicy tomato sauce:

• 2 tablespoons onion oil
• 1 onion, cut small
• Green pepper – depending on how spicy you want it – 1 big mild pepper, or several jalapenos, cut small
• 5 cloves garlic, minced fine
• 17.64 oz box of Pomi strained tomatoes (or other good quality, strong tomato sauce) (500g)
• 4 tablespoons white vinegar
• 1 bouillon cube
• Salt to taste

Optional:

• 15 ounce can chick peas, warmed and drained (425g)
• Garlic Vinegar Sauce, see notes

Instructions

For the fried onions and onion oil:

1. Clean the onions, cut them in half, then slice in thin half-circles.
2. In a medium pan, heat oil to 350 degrees F. You want just enough oil to cover the onions, about 3 cups.
3. Cook onions in oil, stirring occasionally. Keep an eye on the edges around the pan, that will darken too quickly first.
4. When they are golden brown, lift them out with a slotted spoon and spread on a layer of napkins. Keep them spread out so they can stay crispy.
5. Keep the onion oil - you'll use it in three other places in the Kushari.

For the lentils and rice:

1. Simmer lentils in water until they are almost soft, about 20-25 minutes, then drain. You don't want to fully cook them at this point because they will be cooked further with the rice.
2. In the same pan, heat 4 tablespoons onion oil. Sauté rice and cumin in oil about 30 seconds then add lentils, broth, salt, and 1 handful of the fried onions, smashed.
3. Bring to a boil. After boiling, cover pan with lid, turn heat to low, and cook until rice is done, about 15 minutes. Turn off heat, let rest for 10 minutes, then fluff with fork. Keep covered until ready to use. Wrapped in a blanket, the rice will stay warm for several hours.

For the pasta:

1. Cook the small pasta in salted, boiling water until al dente. Drain.
2. Toss with ¼ cup onion oil and salt to taste.
3. Cover and keep warm until ready to use. Wrapped in a blanket, the pasta will stay warm for several hours.

For the spicy tomato sauce:

1. Sauté onion and green pepper in 2 tablespoons of the onion oil until they are soft.
2. Add garlic, tomato, vinegar, bouillon cube, and salt to taste. Let simmer 10 minutes. Turn off heat. Keep warm until ready to use.

To assemble and serve Kushari:

1. Either layer the separate components in a big serving dish or in individual bowls. First a layer of the rice and lentils goes in. Then the pasta, sauce, and finally the fried onions.
2. If you are using the optional chickpeas, add them on top of the sauce and before the onions.
3. For the optional extra garlic vinegar sauce, see notes.

For the vinegar sauce, in a jar combine:

3 cloves garlic, minced
1-2 tablespoons minced green pepper
2 teaspoons ground cumin
3 tablespoons white vinegar
1 tablespoon lemon juice
4 tablespoons water
½ teaspoon salt

Maiden (2019)

This documentary is a nostalgic look back to 1985 when the first all-female competitors dared to enter a boat into the Whitbread Around the World Challenge. As with all firsts, the quest to be taken seriously is almost as insurmountable as the actual task at hand. And the Whitbread is no easy feat; it’s 33,000 nautical miles in total, through some of the scariest passages the ocean has to offer.  Because the team lacked sponsors as well as credibility, they had limited financial resources, and so instead of having a sleek boat designed and built just for them, they had a yacht that looked like it should be scapped, far heavier that any other boat in the competition, and that the crew themselves had to refurbish.
The movie moves back and forth between interviewing the captain and crew in the present, when they are looking back on what happened decades ago, and at the time the race was progressing.  It is a testament to a lot of things, and you certainly do not need to bee a sailing fan to enjoy this tale of highs and lows for the women who accomplished this feat.

The Lion King (2019)

My feelings about this are complicated.  The 1994 version was perfection: a childhood-shaping, Oscar-winning blockbuster, the second-highest grossing feature film of its calendar year, one of the last great hand-drawn Disney animated features, and a tear-producing machine.
This remake was controversial long before it opened, mainly because it seemed to take Disney's new branding strategy—remaking beloved animated films as CGI-dependent "live action" spectaculars—to its most drastic conclusion. It serves up the same story with different actors, different arrangements of beloved songs and soundtrack cues, a couple of original tunes, a few fresh scenes and sequences, and, of course, photorealistic animals. The latter are the movie's main selling point, so believable thatyou almost forget they aren't real.
I was aided by not having seen the original in 20 years, so I was a bit hazy on the details, but as the movie unfolded, it all came back to me.  It is a beloved story, and this rendition, if you missed the original, holds up very well.

Buttered Tumeric Rice with Almonds and Herbs

This is yet another gem from Alison Romans new book, Nothing Fancy.  Delicious with one of her many chicken dishes.

1 1/2 c. Jasmine or Basmati rice
Kosher salt
6 Tbs. butter
2 Tbs. olive oil
3/4 c. almonds, finely chopped
1/2 tsp. ground tumeric
1 large shallot, diced
fresh ground pepper
1 c. cilantro, chopped
1/2 c. mint leaves and/or dill

1.  Cook the rice in a pot until just al dente.  Drain, rinse, and set aside--you can use left over rice for this dish.
2.  Heat the butter and olive oil in a large cast iron pan. Add the almonds and cook, stirring until fragrant and the butter is browning.  Transfer almonds to a samll bowl, leaving butter behind, season with salt.
3.  Add the tumeric and shallot to the pan, season with salt and pepper and cook until shallot has softened.  Add the rice and press gently into the pan, with even contact with the bottom of the pan.  Cook without stirring until the bottom is browning, about 8-10 minutes,  Transfer to a serving platter, flipping it so the crisp part is on the top.  Add the herbs, then the almonds, and serve.

Balto (1995)

I had not seen this movie for at least 20 years when my granddaughter came to visit, and she vastly preferred watching a movie about a heroic dog to spending any amount of time around the dinner table with adults.  She lives with a Saint Bernard and a Newfoundland, so that checks out.  And it turns out what she loves, I, too, love.  even though the animation is shockingly dated.
Here's the story.  In the brutal winter of 1925, a team of sled dogs carried antitoxin across 600 miles of arctic tundra to diphtheria-stricken Nome, Alaska. The town was saved, and the dogs' heroic trek inspired what has become the world-famous Iditarod cross-country dog sled race.
That much is true, although the details here are the stuff of fairy tales.  In addition to the retelling of a great rescue story, there is a subtext as well.  Balto is a half breed, part wolf, and the question addressed here in is can he be trusted? 
Balto is a kind-hearted canine shunned by villagers who fear he might be dangerous simply because he is part wolf. This identity crisis forces Balto to live in seclusion and self-doubt. His only friends are a Russian snow goose, two hydrophobic polar bears and a dog named Jenna. But when disease threatens the town's children—and a pedigree sled team, led by the arrogant Steel, loses its way—Balto quietly sets out to save the day, followed by his faithful pals. So the shunned one wins the day. 

Walk Like an Egyptian

Today is a nothing-special passage of a year in my spouse's life.  He did not clearly move into or out of middle age (although he is almost certainly in the second half of his life).  He is not looking retirement squarely in the eyes.  He did gain a new grandchild this year, which is certainly not our accomplishment but it is very clearly a relatively new role for us, one that we are loving even though we haven't lived as close by as we would like.
None-the-less, it is good to mark the passage of time, and to recount the blessings that we have had in the past year.  We have recently returned from a visit to the ancient world of Egypt, which reminded us that man has been accomplishing great things for thousands of years, hopefully we will be able to reach that level of glory in order to save our planet as a place that is livable for humans. The fires in Australia are the canary in the coal mine for climate deniers, let's hope they see it that way.  In the meantime, it is a happy day in our household, and we hope for many more in the future.

The Atlantics (2019)

This movie, which is shortlisted for Best Foreign Language Film for the Oscars this year, is one that sustains its thrills throughout, matches its gorgeous imagery with a compelling story, and defies easy categorization. So, wow!
Set in Dakar, Senegal’s bustling capital, a young man frustrated by his boss cheating him and his friends out of a paycheck takes off for a better life in Spain. Souleiman leaves behind his love, Ada, without so much as a goodbye. Ada wrestles with her feelings for Souleiman and his abrupt departure while only days away from her promised marriage to a wealthier man, Omar. Her heart remains with Souleiman, wherever he might be, as strange and unexplained incidents begin to occur throughout town.
But what starts out as a love story tinged with the desperation that forces people to leave home and loved ones, echoes of the refugee crisis, a look at the exploitation of the poor by the wealthy, and the obsession with purity, takes a sharp turn into something else.  The cinematography keeps up with the plot and this is a great film.  Also, it is streaming on Netflix.

One Child Nation (2019)

China famously had a one child policy for decades which is not news to anybody paying much attention, but the extent that local officials went to to enforce this policy, that is the shocking part.  This powerful and upsetting documentary examines the legacy of a brutal policy that limited couples to a single baby.
China’s “one-child” policy lasted from 1979 to 2015 (to be replaced by the two-child maximum, still in force) and is revealed in this powerful documentary to be a cruel and tragic experiment in big-government meddling, a colossal and yet intimate abuse of the family by the state whose aftereffects have still to be reckoned with.  The thing that I did not fully understand was that there was not wide-spread birth control available and abortion, sometimes very late in the pregnancy as to be infanticide, was routinely practiced.  The film interviews a variety of people who were involved in the rural enforcement of the ban and it is quite moving.

Citrus Chicken on a Bed of Herbs

This is another great recipe from Nothing Fancy, the Food 52 Cookbook for last month.
125 ml lime or lemon juice, plus 1 lime or lemon, thinly sliced
*125 ml orange juice, plus 1 orange, thinly sliced, seeds removed
*125 ml soy sauce
*2 tablespoons canola oil
*2 tablespoons yuzu kosho or sambal, or 1 jalapeño chilli, finely chopped
*2 garlic cloves, finely grated
*kosher salt and freshly ground
*black pepper
*1.8 kg chicken, halved lengthways through the backbone, or bone-in, skin-on parts
*1 handful coarsely chopped coriander, tender leaves and stems
*1 handful coarsely chopped parsley, tender leaves and stems
*a few sprigs of rosemary, thyme, oregano or marjoram (optional)

1. To make the marinade, combine the lime juice, orange juice, soy sauce, oil, yuzu kosho and garlic in a medium bowl and season with salt and pepper. Set about half aside for later, and add the rest of the marinade to a large bowl, resealable bag or baking dish. Add the chicken, tossing to coat well.
2. Let it sit in the marinade for at least 30 minutes, or up to 24 hours, in the refrigerator.
3. Preheat the oven to 230°C. Alternatively, heat a barbecue grill to medium heat, with cooler coals or low flames on one side. (You can grill the chicken over hotter flames, but it can be challenging to manage; for beginners, it’s good to err on the side of the coals being slightly cooler than slightly hotter.)
4. Remove the chicken from the marinade, discarding the marinade the chicken was sitting in. Place on a baking tray, skin side up. Roast until the skin is deeply browned and lightly charred and the chicken is cooked through, 35–45 minutes; there’s no need to flip or turn the chicken.
5. Alternatively, place the chicken skin side down on the grill and cover; make sure the vents are open. Let it grill, resisting the urge to turn or check too frequently, until it’s nicely golden brown with those cute little grill marks, 10–12 minutes; just like when you’re searing chicken in a skillet, the skin will release effortlessly once it’s cooked and golden. Attempting to move it beforehand will probably tear the skin and maybe ruin your day! Using your finest and largest tongs, carefully flip the chicken, then cover so that it continues to grill and cook on the other side, another 10–12 minutes. Flip once more, skin side down, and add a few halves of cut citrus if you have them. Continue to grill another 5–8 minutes, to crisp the skin and finish cooking through.
6. Place the citrus slices on a platter or cutting board and scatter with the herbs. Place the cooked chicken on top, skin side up, and pour the reserved marinade over. Let the chicken rest for 10–20 minutes, allowing its juices to mingle with the citrus and herbs.
7. Carve the chicken into pieces before serving.

Tomorrow Man (2019)

Ed is a guy who is living out the end of his life fearing the worst.  And preparing for it as well.  He has spent all of his disposable income in retirement on building and stocking his fall out shelter.  He combs the internet for facts about how quickly things would deteriorate in a dooms day scenario.  In a lot of ways we already know this, because when a storm is on the horizon, grocery stores empty out in no time.  And that is just from people trying to prepare for a week of being snowed in.  So he has a point, but it rules him.  And it has ruined his relationship with his son.
Then he meets Ronnie. She is not worried about the end of the world or much of anything.  She likes Ed, even though he is completely different from her, and they allow themselves to care about each other.  Then it happens.  Ed finds out that she is a hoarder and he can't let it go.  But there is a bit of a shift in his universe, and he starts to see that maybe he is a hoarder too, and he takes a baby step toward trying to be better.  It is a quirky but enjoyable movie.

Grand Union by Zadie Smith

I love Zadie Smith, but I did not love this.  True, I am not a big fan of the short story, but seeing as I am a big fan of the author, I decided this was within my reach.  I was not comletely right about that.
 First, the good.  It’s an intriguing tale of education, class, betrayal and sexual chemistry in which the female protagonist reflects on the ways in which she has objectified men.  She has always been a master at saying difficult things about the patriarchy that aren't self righteous.
This idea of inconsistency hangs over many of Smith’s stories. Is consistency important? Is it even possible? She is tacitly arguing a point that she has made more explicit in essays: that it is OK to change your mind.  That it reflects a way forward, a path towards being a better person.
The inconsistency of quality is a more serious flaw. At least eight of the 19 stories in the book just aren’t very good, at least to my ear.  So ultimately a slimmer edition would have suited me better.

Poms (2019)

We know where this movie is going almost immediately.   Diane Keaton's character has an everything must go yard sale, and after the sale she packs up what’s left, cancels her upcoming appointments for chemotherapy, and drives to a relentlessly cheery retirement community in sunny Georgia. It is the perkiest retirement community where people wear pastels and ride everywhere in golf carts, they all wave to everyone who passes by, and all residents are required to join at least one club to promote socializing.  The thing that becomes quite apparent is that some mean girls in high school never quite outgrow it, and lord their will over women in a retirement community.  Keaton gives some significant push back, starts her own cheerleading club, and powers through to a joyous ending before she dies.  It isn’t a movie that delves too deeply into the range of emotions presented, but it is a fun week night movie, despite the serious subject matter.

Final Portrait (2017)

We have been full steam ahead movies of late.  The relief of winding down in the semester, which mainly affects the student amongst us, but because we all play a role in helping him get through it all, reading to him and quizzing him and making sure he knows the material, less of that opens up a lot of time for us as a family to so what we do best, which is watch a wide variety of movies together.

This is a movie based on the memoir of writer James Lord, who was a chronicler of 20th century art who not infrequently befriended the artists he wrote about. In 1964, in Paris, the sculptor and painter Alberto Giacometti asked Lord to sit for a portrait. What follows is week upon week of not producing a portrait, and yet does include an intimate look at the home life of the artist and his artistic process.

It is a small movie, with three talented actors playing out a triangulated relationship.  Let's just say it did not make me want to know an artist personally, but gave me an appreciation for the challenges involved.

Red at the Bone by Jaqueline Woodson

This is a sparse and beautifully written girl to woman tale that confronts the indelible marks of youthful indiscretions and the way we explain our adolescence to our adult self. Sometimes these memories act as lessons, other times as hindrances, providing a road map to who we are. In this case, when teenagers Aubrey, son of a single mom, and Iris, from a well-to-do family, come together with the passion and carelessness of young love—a relationship that produces a daughter, Melody—both families swallow their disappointment and resolve to make do.

The beauty of this work is in its seamless shifts from the past to the present and how we the reader are left to reflect on the connections. Melody is deeply conflicted about her mother, who left her with her father and maternal grandparents, Sabe and Po’Boy Simmons, so she could study at Oberlin and not be thwarted by a baby’s demands.

This poignant tale of choices and their aftermath, history and its legacy, will resonate with mothers and daughters. There is pain and hope in equal parts. If trauma is a cursed heirloom handed down through the decades, maybe love is the cure passed upward from the young to the old.

The Greatest Story Ever Sold (2011)

Happy New Year!
We go to the polls this year, and we will see.  Are we the country that can be bought?  I think the answer is already known, but the degree to which it is true is massively tilted.
So this movie seems like the way to ring in the year, with our eyes wide open to who we are.
Marshall McLuhan famously said “the medium is the message” but here the message is the movie. Morgan Spurlock, or Supersize Me fame,  actually raises the film’s $1.5 million budget as he makes his movie, and we follow him around as the audience while he does it.  So in point of fact, we know what the oucome is even as we watch him get rejected time and time again.
First he has to round up sponsors for the movie. When Ban Deodorant comes aboard at $50,000, you can feel Spurlock’s excitement after all the rejections. He gets a lengthy hearing from POM’s co-owner Lynda Resnick and her executive team, and even discusses commercials he might make for the company. He eventually makes one.  It just unfolds exactly as you think it will, but somewhere in the back of you r head you hope that it will not be so.  But eyes are wide open.