Category: Film

Manhattan Inside: Films & Books

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The rainy gray weather of the past week kept us inside, and we focused on seeing newly released films, heavy ones with religion at the core, but also the somewhat frothy Book Club.  We took the 6 line from 59th Street station down to Bleecker Street and the Angelika Film Center where we saw three of them.  I also found time to do a bit of reading.

FILM FARE

Book Club

This movie is funny and fun, a chick flic for the retirement set.   But it isn’t all fluff as there are some poignant moments midst the humor and the sex jokes.  And the four stars, Jane Fonda, Diane Keaton, Candice Bergen, and Mary Steenburgen, are perfectly cast. 

Fonda is a rich single hotel owner, the kind of brittle stylish female she does so well.  Keaton is nervous and anxious, a recent widow, who’s being micromanaged by her adult daughters.  Bergen is the more sedate, serious one of the group. Divorced 18 years, she’s a federal judge who lives alone with her cat.  Steenburgen, a chef, has a recently retired husband who seems to have retired from any and all fun.

When one of their book group selects Fifty Shades of Grey for their next meeting, the fun begins as each woman in her own way shakes up her life or gets it shaken up (see Steenburgen’s flight).  Yes, there are men involved, and they provide the spice or the yeast or whatever metaphor you prefer.  As in all good romances, there is a happy ending!  See it, have fun, and end feeling good or, at least, happy.

On Chesil Beach

  Ian McEwan’s novel is short, more of a novella really, and I wondered how it could be turned into a full-length feature film.  The answer lies in the fact that McEwan, who wrote the screenplay, expanded the story to continue on from 1962 to scenes in 1975 and 2007.

The rendering of 1962 in all its youthful innocence is spot on as this young couple meets and courts and then marries.  They each bring baggage from childhood exacerbated by their difference in social class and compounded by their different expectations.  It’s unclear what Edward will do long-term while Flo is committed to a career in music with her string quartet.  What results is a wedding night neither would have predicted. The novel ends ambiguously; the film gives us the coda to 1962.  It’s beautiful, and at times, painfully sensitive, to watch.  Saoirise Ronan and Billy Howle star as the wedded pair.

ASPECTS OF FAITH

Pope Francis:  A Man of His Word

This documentary shows the human side of Pope Francis and both his compassion toward those less fortunate and his global concern.   It is, however, mostly talking heads, the pope’s primarily, as he and others give speeches and make pronouncements before Congress and at tragic events or situations in many countries.  It’s good, but not great and definitely too long.  It would have benefited from much editing.

First Reformed

This is a strange and weird movie that combines a troubled hermetic minister with a troubled environmental activist lawbreaker.  Set in bleak upstate New York, it is dark, dimly lit, and stark.  Reverend Toller, minister at the historic congregationless First Reformed Church, has a job there solely by the grace of the enterprising successful minister at the evangelical Abundant Life church.  Abundant Life owns 250 year old First Reformed.

Toller is divorced, grieving and guilty over the death of his soldier son, and berates himself for his perceived shortcomings.  He’s called upon to counsel Michael, at the request of Michael’s pregnant wife Mary, who is fearful about her husband’s dark tendencies.  How the lives of these three intersect around the issue of climate change and the future of planet Earth makes for a dark, disturbing film.  While the critics have accorded it high praise, I did not find it entirely convincing or satisfying. Ethan Hawke stars.

 

RECENT READING—HISTORICAL AND MYSTERY

White Houses by Amy Bloom

It is accepted knowledge that Eleanor Roosevelt had a very close friendship with journalist and reporter Lorena Hickok.  Whether that friendship constituted a physical affair is debated.  What Bloom has done in this sensitively written novel is to depict an affair based on Hickok’s reminiscences of their times together. The novel is set over several days in 1945 after the death of FDR and Hickok goes back in time to recount instances in their friendship, a trip she and Eleanor made together, embraces stolen in secluded corners, and her own years of living in the White House.

Reference is made to historical events and, we have Hick’s thoughts on FDR’s affair with Missy LeHand and his relations with other women.  We never have Eleanor speaking in her own voice; all is filtered through Hick. It’s a lovely novel and created based on Bloom’s extensive research into nonfiction works, correspondence and the like. (~JWFarrington)

To Die But Once by Jacqueline Winspear

I have liked some of the Maisie Dobbs better than others and thought some were more fully developed than others. This one I enjoyed very much.  The year is 1940 and Maisie is asked to find out why a neighboring family hasn’t heard from their son recently.  Joe is working for a painting company and usually calls home weekly. When he turns up dead, Maisie’s investigation takes her deep into the wartime letting of contracts and who shares information that is classified.  The secondary characters, Billy Beale and Sandra, her associates, as well as her friend Priscilla and family, all have rich roles in this book. Even the events surrounding the Battle of Dunkirk have a place.  (~JWFarrington)

Notes:  Images are from the web:  Book Club from deadline.com, On Chesil Beach from nytimes.com, and the photo of Roosevelt and Hickok from advocate.com.  Header photo by the author.

Big Apple: Film & Art

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Of the many pleasures of being in New York, we love to gorge on new films and explore the diversity of art on exhibit.  We saw two excellent films this week and joined the throngs at the Met for “Heavenly Bodies.”

GREAT CINEMA

RBG

A superb film. Although diminutive in stature and soft of voice, Justice Ruth Bader Ginsburg is a force to be reckoned with, and somewhat strangely, has become an icon for our time, “Notorious RBG”.  The film is both a salute to her accomplishments related to equality for women, and a history lesson for anyone who didn’t live through the 70’s when she consistently won the cases she argued before the Supreme Court.

Her spouse Marty, a most supportive man and “liberated” for his time; several of of her former law clerks; her son James and daughter Jane; and others such as Nina Totenberg of NPR; offer personal commentary on Ginsburg’s life and her character.  She is not a fan of small talk and is in love with the law.  After her first bout with cancer, she hired a personal trainer and regularly works out.  Driven and determined, she is a magnificent woman who has achieved much.  May she continue to serve on the court for many more years—at least six!

Disobedience

A quiet film of religion and re-ignited passion.  Lesbian Ronit left her conservative Jewish sect in London for a career in New York as a photographer.  She returns to London for the funeral of her rabbi father, but no one really expects her to dare to come back.  She is reunited with childhood friends, Dovid, a rabbi, and Esti, a teacher now married to Dovid, and invited to stay at their home.  Esti seems strangely distant and unwelcoming initially, but eventually the buried passion and love between the two women erupts.

Theirs is a strict sect with proscribed roles for men, but particularly for women, and Dovid and Esti each struggle with the disruption Ronit brings into their lives.  Shot in dimly lit interiors with lots of grays and muted colors, this is a sensitive and compassionate portrayal of a conflict between religious teachings and individual choice.

AT THE MUSEUM  

“Heavenly Bodies:  Fashion and the Catholic Imagination” at the Metropolitan Museum

I am not a Catholic as are, or were, most of the designers creating costumes for this gala exhibit.  And I probably don’t have quite the level of appreciation of the robes and mitres on loan from The Vatican as a Catholic would, but I was more impressed, awed, and delighted with this exhibit than I expected to be.  We went to the Met on 5thAvenue, but have not gone up to The Cloisters for the remainder of the exhibit.

 

Overall, the exhibit combines high fashion, sumptuous fabrics and beading, with the mitres, copes and other garment items worn by popes and cardinals.  The contemporary gowns, along with a range of elegant black dresses showing the influence of the nun’s habit on fashion, are displayed in the Byzantine hall. 

Downstairs in the Anna Wintour Costume Institute, are the vestments on loan from The Vatican.  The Catholic clergy were not restrained in their garb—at least not until the present pope—and there is elaborate embroidery, gold thread, and many instances of amethysts and other jewels affixed to mitres and robes.  Photography was not permitted  downstairs.

This is a stunning exhibit and deserves attention.  It runs into early October.

Note:  Cover image of Justice Ginsburg is an AP photo from motherjones.com; all other photos by JWFarrington.

Manhattan Jaunts

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This week we’ve had some new adventures including a tour of a small historic museum, a jaunt over to Roosevelt Island, time in Central Park with our younger granddaughter, and even a film.  All food for body and mind as some days we’ve racked up 20,000+ steps!

HOUSE MUSEUM
Mount Vernon Museum and Garden is a former carriage house for a large house across the street. When the main house was destroyed by fire, the carriage house became a day hotel for seven years from 1826 to 1833. Today you can tour the house with a guide and see both furnishings and art from that early period.  

Most visits begin with a 12 minute video which explores the history of New York City and New York State in the 1820’s and 30’s including the building of the Erie Canal. The video is very well done and really gives a sense of all that was happening then. The population of New York during that time grew to about 300,000, but was all centered below 14th Street. The hotel at E. 61st Street was in the country and offered an escape from the noise and busyness downtown.

ROOSEVELT ISLAND
So near yet so far. Roosevelt Island is officially part of the borough of Manhattan, but it’s a world apart. Quiet, pastoral in parts, with few shopping and dining amenities.  But it’s also the site of Cornell University’s new tech campus, and the coming influx of graduate students will undoubtedly bring new energy and new eateries.

The island is connected to the city by a stop on the F subway line, but the more fun and picturesque way to arrive is by the tram from 59th Street.  Hovering above and alongside the Queensboro Bridge, it offers stunning views of the bridge itself, the city skyline and the water below.  The ride is just 4 minutes and is the price of one subway ride.  

We went over by tram on a lovely afternoon and enjoyed walking the river promenade, admiring the lingering cherry blossoms, scouting out baby goslings in Southpoint Park, and surveying Cornell’s striking new buildings.  The small visitors’ center also sells an informative map for just $1.

We saw only a few other pedestrians and even fewer cars or trucks. We would have liked to explore the Roosevelt Four Freedoms Park at the far end, but it’s closed on Tuesdays and it was Tuesday.  

Remains of Smallpox Hospital

A couple of historic buildings remain such as the shell of the Smallpox Hospital built in 1854 and the handsome and restored Strecker Laboratory (1892), now a power substation for two subway lines.  I definitely recommend this as a most pleasurable afternoon’s outing—a short jaunt away from Manhattan’s hustle and bustle!

WATER AND MUD
We spent a recent morning in Central Park with our two-year old granddaughter experiencing the Brooklyn Forest program for toddlers.  Developed in Brooklyn initially, it’s a gentle program that lets children play with sticks and stones, make mud pies in pails, and drop leaves, twigs and stones into a small stream.  Snacks take the form of apple slices, red tea, and warm bread.

The activity takes place in several different parts of the park (The Ramble) and ends with a round of songs with hand motions. Two teachers lead, but in a very non-directed way so that the children (about nine of them this time) with their parent or nanny discover things at their own pace.

WESTERN FILM

The Rider is a beautifully photographed film set in the vast expanse of North Dakota.  It’s the story of a young rodeo rider, Brady, who suffers a serious head injury which prevents him from doing what he loves best.  A blend of fact and fiction and feeling like a documentary, it stars the real Brady and his own father and mentally challenged sister.  There are some lovely scenes of Brady training a young horse as well as scenes of him with his cowboy friends around a campfire.  We see his recovery, his frustration with his physical limitations, and his efforts in a new job stocking shelves in a supermarket.

I did not realize until after the film was over that it wasn’t actors playing the key roles, but Brady and his family taking on this version of themselves.  Interestingly, the director is a woman, Chloe Zhao, from Beijing. The beginning is a bit slow as the scene is set and everyone introduced, but then it picks up.

Note:  All photos ©JWFarrington.

Culture Notes: Movies, etc.

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With the exception of the lecture we heard, these films and books all focus on women—young women, angry women, and one, a queen.

BINGEING ON MOVIES AT HOME

The Chief Penguin and I are trying to catch up on some of this past year’s best films, or at least ones that got a lot of press.  

I, Tonya.  I knew the story behind Tonya Harding’s career, the C.P. did not.  Mostly, I wanted to see this film for Alison Janney’s performance. She won the Oscar for Best Supporting Actress, and, oh, my, did she ever deserve it for her portrayal of Tonya’s toxic mother!  None of the people in this film is particularly likable—not Tonya’s husband, not her clueless bodyguard, and even Tonya herself is hard to take.  But, at least, you understand from her deprived upbringing what she had to contend with and why she is driven to compete.  Intense and full of vulgar language, it’s almost painful to watch.

Victoria & Abdul.  I would see almost any film starring Judi Dench, and here she is the aging queen—fat, unattractive, querulous—nothing like Jenna Coleman of the current Victoria series.  Long years after Albert has died and after John Brown is gone, Queen Victoria takes a shine to a young Indian servant who has been sent to England to present her with a special coin. Abdul charms her with his knowledge of poetry, leads her to believe he is a writer, and at her insistence becomes her teacher or munshi.  His continued presence at court and his increasing status horrify the government and the royal household while simultaneously providing joy to the monarch.  Loosely based on real events (Abdul Karim spent 15 years in the U.K.  with occasional trips back home), the film is somewhat light fare, but enjoyable and a definite change of pace from I, Tonya.

HUNDRED YEAR OLD NOVEL  

Ann Veronica by H. G. Wells.  This is a curious novel.  Published in 1909, it’s about a modern young woman in London.  Chafing under her father’s strict control over her behavior, twenty-one year old Ann Veronica Stanley very much wants to go to a ball that some of her friends are planning to attend.  Both her father and her aunt forbid her to go and he goes so far as to lock her in her room.  Dismayed, determined, and yet deluded about what it takes to live, she escapes to London intending to find a job and an apartment.  Ann Veronica is both innocent and naive about the ways of the world and soon finds herself borrowing money from an older man, living in a spare room, subsisting on not much, but thriving on the intellectual challenges of working in the college biology lab.  How she navigates her so-called romance with Mr. Manning, her entanglement with Mr. Ramage, and her attraction to Mr. Capes make up her education in life for the next six months.  

The novel is polemical (a tendency seen in other of Wells’ work) and presents an idealized view of womanhood as all wifedom and motherhood.  Floundering in trying to discover who she is or who she wants to be, Ann Veronica also is briefly caught up in the women’s suffrage movement.  The early chapters were too full of political exposition for me, and some of the characters mere mouthpieces for their points of view, but I found it got better and more engaging the farther in I got.  But, even given that, the ending was questionable.  However, Ann Veronica’s enlightened perspective on her father and aunt (they looked smaller and less threatening) was one believable outcome of her growth as a woman.

Ann Veronica was the subject of my local book group’s March meeting and it provoked a lively discussion.  A few individuals thought that young women today are still too prone to being objectified by men, while others, like myself, felt that we have made a lot of progress in terms of the opportunities available to women for careers and an independent life.  But then, you have the #MeToo movement which has brought to light sexual assault and harassment of women by men in positions of power.  The group found AV’s extreme naivete about what Mr. Ramage might expect from her in return for the loan unbelievable and felt the happy ending with marriage to Mr. Capes unconvincing.  It was noted that at the time the novel was published, Wells was in the midst of an affair with a young woman, Amber Reeves, who bore him a daughter, and later became a noted feminist.  Wells was clearly attracted to intelligent women as he also had an affair and another child with author Rebecca West among others.  Here are several of the various covers for this title. Which one do you think best represents the book?

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

TOWN HALL

The fourth speaker in this series of lectures supporting the Ringling College Library was Siddhartha Mukherjee, author of The Emperor of All Maladies and The Gene:  An Intimate History.  It was a talk about trends in science and medicine that are already impacting human health, especially cancer treatments.  He was very engaging and a welcome change from another talk about politics!

Notes:  The image of Tonya is from golfdigest.com; the book covers are all from the web and in order of appearance from Abe Books, Barnes & Noble, and the Project Gutenberg Archive.  Header photo of Tiffany glass from Morse Museum.