King Richard (2021)

OMG Will Smith. He really does seem to take on the mantle of Richard Williams and never once sluffs it off the whole length of this docudrama. It is about is half sports movie, half biopic and almost always a bit edgy. As such, it hits the sweet spots and sour notes of both genres. Depending on your perspective, this is either an invitation or a warning to parents of talented youngster who lack means and money. The story of how the preternaturally talented tennis superstars Venus and Serena Williams came to be at the top of the game in tennis. They grew up in Compton, a town synonymous with poverty and rap, but not athletic prowess. The title itself on exactly how complicated the characterization of its subject will be, which is not altogether likable. Richard Williams does some infuriating things here, but the movie never once indicates he was ever wrong. This film repeatedly comes at you from unexpectedly skewed angles and is ultimately worth watching.

Castles in the Perigord

Happy New Year! It is the Spring Festival, the Year of the Tiger, and there is a lot to celebrate! Today is my anniversary and I am reflecting not just on this last trip I took with my spouse, but also the past and future trips we have made and have yet to make. I am hoping that I will have a trip in 2022 that rivals the trip I had to the Perigord in 2021. In order to fascilitate that wish, I did manage to get my passport renewed and given that it is a ten year one, am hoping to fill it up with stamps and visas.

I am not sure why there are so many castles in the Perigord--there are at least hundreds and maybe more, but it is easy for me to understand that if in fact I were to build a castle why I might want it there. The towns are managable sized, the food is exceptional, the surroundings are beautiful, and like much of the country, good wine can be grown there as well. Perfect!

May we all be able to travel this year, to enjoy what other countries and cultures have to offer, and while I am sure that masks, proof of vaccination, and possible more shots will remain a reality, none of that impaired my enjoyment of this trip, and while I have realized that this is all here to stay it doesn't mean we can't enjoy the things we used to when we travel.

Billie Eilish: The World's a Little Blurry (2021)

This is kind of a refreshingly niave and yet ultimately knowing documentary, short listed for the Oscars this year. It’s almost impossible to predict when and where a new star will burst onto a scene. There are so many hopefuls vying for a spotlight, so much talent goes unnoticed. But documentarian R.J. Cutler lucked out when his cameras caught the astronomical ascent of electropop star Billie Eilish. He enters the picture just as Eilish is still creating music with her older brother in his room. Men from their record label stop by to hear what’s in the works, and they smile politely, unaware how big that small moment in the O’Connell’s home will become. We’re seeing a then-17-year-old Eilish change her style, come into her own and then to command control of her image, right down to directing her own music videos. We’re watching the birth of a star, an exhilarating and not infrequently excruciating experience.

The Copenhagen Trilogy by Tove Ditlevsen

This is a really interesting memoir by a woman who could turn a phrase. She says, and I quote, “Childhood is long and narrow like a coffin,” and you can’t get out of it on your own.” In some way this one sentence sums up the story that starts with an unloved child who lives in crushing poverty and without much in the way of supports, one whose ambition and talent lift her up, and then her addiction brings her down so far that she really doesn't completely get over it. She is physically and sexually abused, she values money and career advancement over love, which given her background, she may not fully comprehend, and she dies young. She marries four times. She becomes one of Denmark’s most celebrated poets. Her work is now required reading in Danish schools, and she is recognized as one of the originators of the autofiction genre of the memoir-novel hybrid, with a direct line between Ditlevsen and the power house that is Karl Ove Knausgård.

Attica (2021)

Prison is still a bad place in the 21st century, but in the 20th century it was even worse. This documentary, short listed for the Academy Awards, is a harrowing, infuriating look at racism and the abuse of power in a prison where the incarcerated were largely black and brown and the administration and the guards were 100% white. The prison itself is located in a rural white town in upstate New York, and as depicted here at least, the prisoners were seen as less than human, much like a master/slave relationship. The subject is the riot that began at Attica Correctional Facility on September 9, 1971. Over 30 prison staff members were taken hostage in the largest prison uprising in American history. Once they temporarily gained the upper hand, the prisoners at Attica—mostly Black and Latino but also White—tried to negotiate for better conditions. They brought in a slew of outside personalities including senators, lawyers, journalists, and even Russell Oswald, the NY Commissioner of Corrections, and survivors and offspring of those who did not survive are interviewed, interspersed with footage from the time. Instead of reaching a peaceful conclusion, however, the standoff ended five days later in a hail of bullets that took out hostages and inmates alike. There was a short lived attempt to cover up the fact that law enforcement shot at everyone and everything indiscriminantly, but the ugly truth came out.

The Magician by Colm Tóibín

I have a deep admiration for Tóibín--in addition to the richly drawn works of absolute or at least obscure fiction (maybe his books are based on real people, but they are largely little known real people), this is his second work of fiction that is woven around the life of a real author, in this case the exiled, troubled, German Nobel prize winner Thomas Mann. I first read Mann when I was travelling with my then boyfriend now husband in Bolivia for a month, and we carried with us a suitcase of books in English, including several by Mann. He had me at Buddenbrooks and held on tight to me until I had read them all, or at least most of them. So consider the source, I love both the author and the subject, but this is well worth readingas well as thinking about. Underneath the actual story of Mann's life there are a lot of unanswered questions. Was Mann safe, sorry, or indifferent about his avoidance of politics, and on the eve of Hitler and WWII, what was going on in his mind? Did he regret anything? He ultimately had no choice, he was targeted by the Nazis and had to flee. He was not the child his parents backed as a writer, and what lessons does that have for parents? He had children, lots of them, to shield himself from those who might try to expose his homosexualty, but failed his offspring in that respect. There is a lot here, and it is well worth reading.

Don't Look Up (2021)

In retrospect, this movie is more memorable than it is good. It is a clever, unapologetically brash satire about a future America so consumed with celebrity worship, brain-numbing infotainment, social media popularity, and political gamesmanship that it refuses to take the impending destruction of planet Earth seriously. We’re not talking climate change here, though the parallel is obvious. Dr. Randall Mindy (Leonardo DiCaprio) has irrefutable evidence that an unprecedentedly gigantic comet will wipe out Earth in precisely six months, 14 days. The chances of “planet extinction” are set at 99.78%. “Call it 70% and let’s just move on,” says President Janie Orlean (Meryl Streep), who’s more bothered by the upcoming midterms and the unearthing of nude pics of her sexy boyfriend, a Supreme Court nominee (also unapologetically skewering the anti-intellectualism of the GOP). And so it goes, the endless attempts to alert people to the dangers that fall on deaf ears, and then how that inevitably plays out.

Read Until You Understand by Farah Jasmine Griffin

This is a mixture of literary dissection and personal memoir. The author lost her father to a cerebral aneurism, and while his prognosis at the time of his cerebral event might not have been very good, the seared memory for the author is how law enforcement treated him. Let's just say they were not there to help, and it left an enduring mark on her young self that propelled her in life going forward. In addition to her father, who gave her her first exposure to black literature and all the richness it contains, her second biggest influence was Toni Morrison, whose reflections on mercy, justice, rage, death and beauty helped her to understand both herself and her history. There are other authors that are covered, from Phyllis Wheatley and Frederick Douglass to authors who are writing today, but the resounding message from this university professor of literature is something that her father taught her, which is to read and question and think until you understand what is there in all it's pain and beauty.

Respect (2021)

The most important thing to know first off is that Jennifer Hudson does an outstanding job of inhabiting Aretha Franklin and belting out the songs that we know and love. This biopic does follow the path of others that have preceeded it. Starting with her childhood growing up with a controlling preacherman father in 1950s Detroit, through the personal turmoils and civil rights struggles that came to a head in the 60s (she was a friend and supporter of Dr King and sang at his memorial service), to the triumphant recording of a bestselling gospel album in the early 70's, there is a lot that we know or could guess about the queen of soul's life story. The controling men in her life--starting with her father, who's iron clad lock on her song repertoir was holding her back, but she escaped into the arms of a man who mistreated her in every way but torpedoing his career, are also perhaps par for the course. The acting throughout is good and the music is better. The thing that is skated over almost completely is Franklin's being a survivor of child abuse. Her mother left her father because of his incessant infidelity, but he did little to protect his child from predatory men. I did not realize this, but she was likely abused by a relative as a young girl, and had children as a 13 and a 14 year old, almost certainly products of sexual abuse. There is no way to come back from that unharmed without help. There is no hint that it was acknowledged, much less addressed, and some of what follows might have had an altered path if she had been protected or aided in her recovery.

The Fortune Men by Nadifa Mohamed

This book was short listed for the Booker prize last year and is a retelling of a real life injustice. It is in 1952 in the multiracial Tiger Bay of Cardiff, Wales. It recounts the wrongful imprisonment and execution of Mahmood Mattan, a Somali seaman and father of three young boys, who was the last man to be hanged in Cardiff prison. Fabricated evidence, false witness testimonies and institutionally racist policing led to him being found guilty of the murder of a shopkeeper. The most tragic part is that Mattan is sure that the famous British justice system will exonerate him, and so he at first does nothing to tone down his shape-shifting character, variously positioned as a rakish antihero, plucky picaro, petty thief, charismatic dreamer, prideful gambler, doting father, anti-colonial firebrand and speaker of truth to power. The most searing element of Mattan’s incarceration is his spiritual contemplation when behind bars, interspersed with evocative flashbacks to his childhood in fractious British Somaliland and recollections of his risky life in the merchant navy. Mattan’s tender aspirations and vulnerabilities are brought to the fore, balancing out a man often dismissed by those around him as reckless and troublesome. The wrong done to him was eventually reversed decades later, but not before ruining the lives of his wife and children.