Welcome to WeeklyWilson.com, where author/film critic Connie (Corcoran) Wilson avoids totally losing her marbles in semi-retirement by writing about film (see the Chicago Film Festival reviews and SXSW), politics and books----her own books and those of other people. You'll also find her diverging frequently to share humorous (or not-so-humorous) anecdotes and concerns. Try it! You'll like it!

Category: Humor and Weird Wilson-isms Page 1 of 29

In the spirit of her full-length book “Laughing through Life” that featured humorous stories of child-rearing and general life, Connie has written humor columns for a variety of newspapers, which Erma Bombeck’s widower described as being very much like her columns when presented with a book at an Ohio writing festival.

Character Matters, But Does It Matter in 2025?

Bee Gone

Bee Gone book by Connie Corcoran Wilson

Something that the MAGA group seems to need to be reminded about is that CHARACTER MATTERS. A person’s past actions are the single best predictor of their future actions, as I was once told by a job recruiter running “mock” interviews for my Rhetoric students at Eastern Iowa Community College,

CHARACTER, DOES INDEED MATTER. A Washington Post reporter interviewed a former aide to Senator John McCain and the news from the front was not pretty.

“Karen Tumulty writes that we have catapulted past constitutional crisis and are now in the domain of constitutional collapse. She is also writing about the shadow emperor, whose designs lurk behind an executive branch “run-a-Musk.”

Of course, the president is at fault for this collapse, Karen writes, but so, too, is Congress, which the nation’s Founders could never have imagined would be “so supine in the face of such a barrage.”

Karen writes wistfully of the “statesmen of an earlier era, all Republicans,” who stood up for Congress’s authority when presidents overstepped. One of those was Sen. John McCain, whose former chief of staff Karen interviews.

He tells her: “We’re getting a pretty intense lesson in how much our constitutional order depended on people’s character. … Republicans, almost to a person, have failed.”

America, We Have A Problem. WAKE UP!

“Why Musk’s Nazi Salute Matters” –from  Zach Beauchamp of “Vox”

“Elon Musk doesn’t deserve the benefit of the doubt,” said Zack Beauchamp.  While speaking at President Trump’s inauguration, Musk twice  thrust his arm out in a Nazi salute—there’s “no other plausible interpretation of his gesture.”

Some tried to dismiss it as merely an awkward moment, but context matters, and Musk has an “extensive track record of extreme right policies, flirtations with antisemitism, and juvenile trolling.”

Elon Musk

Elon Musk

Musk responded to the uproar not with an apology, but by mocking critics with snide Nazi-themed puns, including “Bet you did nazi that coming.”  Not surprisingly, neo-Nazis were giddy about Musk’s salute; the fact that it occurred at a presidential inauguration signals “a deeper rot.”

The tech oligarch is promoting Germany’s far-right Alternative for Germany party, urging party members to move “past guilt” over Nazism’s horrors, and he personally restored neo-Nazi Nick Fuentes’ account on “X”.  It’s all part of “the Trump era ‘vile shift,” in which there’s no accountability for extremist rhetoric and performative cruelty.  As we descend this slippery slope, it’s vital that decent people “assert that there are real moral standards” and that Nazi play-acting violates them.  Those standards may be our only bulwarks against the return of “honest-to-goodness Nazism.”

“Andre Is An Idiot” Sundance Film Promotes Colonoscopies at 45

Andre Is An Idiot film

Andre Ricciardi appears in Andre is an Idiot by Anthony Benna, an official selection of the 2025 Sundance Film Festival.

Andre Ricciardi was an eccentric advertising man who lived an interesting and unusual life. Even one of his daughters (Tallula and Delilah) described her father as “he looks like someone who lives on the street.” In this 88-minute film we learn that Andre has dubbed himself an idiot because he rejected his best friend Lee’s invitation to join him for a colonoscopy when they turned 50 (born in 1968). Roughly one year later. after ignoring some symptoms,  Andre was diagnosed with terminal Stage 4 colon cancer that had spread to his liver.

Andre told his mother, “If I don’t defeat this, you’re right: I’m a fucking idiot.”

DATING HISTORY

Andre had a long history of doing idiotic things. While drinking in a bar with a girlfriend and a friend named Johnny D, Janice, the bartender, tried to get Johnny D. to marry her so she could stay in the country. Janice was Canadian and her green card was expiring. Johnny D was reluctant, but Andre stepped up, in return for a trip to Mexico contingent upon the promise that they would stay married, legally, for two years. Andre shared that “My girlfriend got drunk and spent the night in Golden Gate Park alone.”

Andre then arranged to have the new couple appear on The Newlywed Game Show, figuring that would be good practice for Janice’s INS interview.  Since they didn’t know much about one another, they devised an elaborate scheme to win. This included always picking the nicer answer and, if there were two choices, pick the one with the highest letter of the alphabet. The couple won their episode and, with it, a trip to the Sonesto Beach Resort in Anguilla. The vacation was a success and they remained married until Andre’s death in 2023, which was a 28-year run.

FAMILY

Andre and Janice had two daughters, Tallula and Delilah. Best friend Lee (who looked a bit like Seth Rogen) shared a story about Andre reading “Helter Skelter” aloud to one of the girls when she was hospitalized. Janice and Andre married in 1995 and remained a couple until he died in 2023 at age 55, after being diagnosed at age 52.

ON DEATH & DYING

Andre undergoes 50 rounds of chemo, which he tolerated surprisingly well, something he attributed to a murky and complex relationship with drugs and alcohol. (“Nothing more serious than meth and heroin.”) Andre felt he tolerated chemo so well because of his 35-year relationship with hangovers, although he finally was told, “You’ve gotta’ start taking better care of yourself.”

We see Andre hitting his bong of a morning. When he needs someone to portray his reluctant father, Tommy Chong enters the picture. Andre says, “There is an awkwardness between people and death.” Friend Lee adds that the two “find humor in shitty situations.” Explaining that he anticipates that death will be nothingness, Andre says, “I’m not afraid the way so many people are of dying. I’m afraid for the people I’m leaving behind…Dying is surprisingly boring. This is like a vacation for me. I feel that everything should fall into this ‘I’m dying’ mode and it isn’t and it doesn’t. How mundane my own death is. It’s hard to think of a more serious topic than dying of cancer. I am using a proportionate amount of humor.”

CAUSES of CANCER

Andre offers up a variety of creative ways in which his cancer might have been contracted, including eating salami, ingesting rat poison, and his mother running behind DDT trucks when she was eight.

HUMOROUS SUGGESTIONS

Director Tony Benna of "Andre Is An Idiot"

Anthony Benna, director of Andre is an Idiot, an official selection of the 2025 Sundance Film Festival. Courtesy of Sundance Institute | photo by Traci Griffin Benna.

Andre and Lee embark on a van journey that reminds of “Will and Harper,” the documentary about Will Ferell and his trans-gender best friend Harper Steele. While traveling the country, the pair work on a death yell, as instructed by an online guru. Andre’s is “So long. Suckers.” Lee hollers “Come and get me, Spaceman.” After the two scream, vigorously, into the void of an echoing canyon in the desert, Andre observes, “You might actually die doing this.”

GAME SHOW IDEA:  Peter, Andre’s therapist, listens to Andre’s latest off-the-wall idea of a game show entitled “Who Wants to Kill Me?” This actually isn’t such a unique idea.  I reviewed a movie entitled “The Show,” (2017) directed by Giancarlo Esposito and starring Josh Duhamel, where people are paid to  let others murder them, live, on television. Andre’s therapist, Peter, suggests, “You have the capacity to find the comedic in everything.” Andre is very interested in discussing having his head transplanted onto a healthy body, but he is too sick to make the lengthy journey. Andre’s eyelashes grow amazingly long due to side effects from one of his medications.  He does well tolerating 50 rounds of chemo, but lost 20 pounds on radiation and says, “It was fucking hell.”

MUSIC

Dan Deacon provides some rhymes that amuse, including this verse: “Cancer’s always been depressing. It’s never been pleasant.  It don’t care if you’re a royal. It don’t care if you’re a peasant.” We also hear a song in which the lyric is “Please remember to feed the cat. Please remember that I’m never coming back.”

PSA

Ultimately, Andre wants to encourage others to get life-saving colonoscopies. He  approaches his old agency, Mekanism Ad Agency and Jason Harris, his former boss, to encourage them to mount a PSA campaign that would urge people to get a colonoscopy when they are 45. These PSA billboard ads are still in the works, but the meeting with his former employer is also humorous as Andre is pitched various creative ideas for the ads.

CONCLUSIONS

Andre’s last message, delivered by A.I. is this:  “I sat with fear today.  I didn’t run from it or try to defeat it. Instead, I greeted it like a friend and let it wash over me again and again, terrifying me.  But it was okay.  My fear is insignificant compared to the love around me. I wept for the first time in years.  It was remarkable.  I thought I needed suffering, but, instead, I got bliss.  My heart has never been more open and my fear of death, also tapping at my window, feels a bit more familiar and a little less powerful.”

Also from Andre who is shown near the end stroking Waffles the Cat: “We paint the portraits we want people to see, but the most beautiful portraits are the ones that show the flaws within us.”

A great epitaph for a true original. The Q&A following the film was worthwhile, so here it is:

Q&A:

Q&A with best friend Lee and Director Tony Benna:

Q:  How did you end up doing this film with Andre?

A:  I worked with Andre over the years. Every project Andre ever had was insane. Cancer is not funny, but Andre definitely is. I wanted to get some of his outlandish stories on film.

Lee added:  “We kind of signed in blood to do whatever he wanted us to do.  Andre and I worked together for years. He always talked about making a really funny documentary about something really serious.

Q:  How did you stay out of the way at the house?

A:  Janice opened up her house. She would make muffins for us to take home. We just honored Andre’s wishes. I think that’s what kept him going. At the final point, when he kind of went downhill, it seemed just natural.

Q:  Editing question about how much Andre was involved.

A:  Andre got to see quite a bit of the scenes, including the Death Yell scenes. It was a four-year film project. He didn’t get to see a final cut but he felt it was in good hands.

Q:  What would Andre think about this?

A:  (Lee)  He’d try to sabotage it somehow, saying, “How did we get here?”

Q:  What’s the status of the PSAs?

A:  They’re not out yet, but the idea is to get them out and to spread the word.  From the beginning Andre said, “Let’s try to help people.” He had one idea that involved me getting a colonoscopy live while doing a Q&A, but that didn’t fly.

Q:  What darlings did you have to kill?
A:  We did radiation sessions. The head transplant guy in Italy Andre was really interested in, but he was too sick.  It felt like Andre would have been proud of the edits.  The puppets,. The animation. Something raw and amazing. This film is kind of representative of the kind of work Andre would have done in his life.

Q:  Who did the animation?

A:  (Tony Benna) I did the animation. We had 6 weeks to do 3 minutes of stop-animation. It was very rushed. It was very time comsumng.

See this one, if you can. It was well worth the time.

 

 

 

 

“Mr. Nobody Against Putin” Screens at Sundance Film Festival

Pavel Talankin

Pavel Talankin, director of Mr. Nobody Against Putin, an official selection of the 2025 Sundance Film Festival. Courtesy of Sundance Institute | photo by Helle Moos.

“Mr. Nobody Against Putin” about the Putin-dictated shift in Russia’s schools was made possible by a young Russian schoolteacher named Pavel (“Pasha”) Talankin. At the time of the Russian invasion of Ukraine, Pasha was serving as the school videotographer and event coordinator for Karabash Elementary School,  the biggest school in what is a very small town of 10,000 people deep in the Ural Mountains, Russia’s industrial heartland. Karabash was world famous because it was once dubbed “the most toxic place on Earth,” with an average life expectancy of 38 and a huge copper mining plant that has blackened the mountaintop with pollution. One commentator called it “the most depressing place I’ve ever been” and “the darkest place on the planet.” But to Pasha it was home, where he lived near his widowed mother (his father drowned in a lake when Pasha was 9) in a two-bedroom apartment in the city center. Pasha’s humble flat contained 427 books, carefully arranged by color coding, and he has a dog named Nebraska.

NEW RUSSIAN PROGRAM

At the outset of the Russian invasion, Pasha sent out an e-mail  ( described as “an overly long e-mail”) about the exhaustive program Putin’s government was pushing on Russian schools. The New Federal Patriotic Education Program was an impediment to actual teaching. Said Pasha, “Few of us were prepared for such an effort to interfere in our ability to teach…I am a teacher forced to do the exact opposite of what a teacher should do.” I could relate to Pasha’s dismay, because I lived through a push from those above me in pay grade to make all of us jump through hoops to select students for the Scripps Spelling Bee Competition. It soon became clear that 75% of my classroom time would have had to be spent doing spelling bee trials to select the finalists. The other things I was supposed to be teaching, which included, at that time, literature, grammar, composition and spelling, were to be shunted aside in favor of the Spelling Bee lady, who apparently outranked me on the food chain (even though I was ostensibly Department Chairperson and had been there many more years and had an actual degree in my subject area, which this woman did not. She, however, was married to a fellow School Superintendent; I was not). I soon cut to the chase and selected my contestants based on abbreviated preliminary bees, which left me free to go back to actual teaching. Things did not go quite as smoothly for the woman who insisted that ALL of our classroom time be spent running things the way the local newspaper dictated and she soon ran in a ringer who had not competed at all, as he was in the hospital with a broken leg during her many elimination bees. But he had an I.Q. of 152, so the rules that Mrs. Superintendent had imposed on us all soon went out the window, given the upset wins her trials were creating.

But for Pasha, the restrictions were going to get worse, and they came from much higher up.

NEW RUSSIAN TREASON LAWS

Mr. Nobody Against Putin

A still from Mr. Nobody Against Putin by David Borestein and Pavel Talankin, an official selection of the 2025 Sundance Film Festival. Courtesy of Sundance Institute | photo by Pavel Talankin

Initially, shooting the film for this documentary was risky, but not illegal. But in April of 2023 Putin and his government passed a law mandating life imprisonment for treason and strengthening the laws about “treason.” Things would become increasingly dangerous for Pasha as he filmed what was happening in Karabash.

Pasha:  “It’s a very unpleasant feeling. It’s like you’re in a room and the walls are closing in and the air is leaving.  You remain trapped in the system. I love my job, but I don’t want to be a pawn of the regime.” Pasha actually resigned his position at one point, but when  director collaborator David Borenstein contacted him, suggesting they act on Pasha’s idea, he withdrew his resignation and set about documenting what was going on in Russian schools.  Pasha: “I’ll use my camera to film the abyss this school is sinking into.”

Others in the town mention how even first graders are being asked to recite war poems.

Pasha:  “Since last year there is no freedom to be found here. All Russian movement is for the children’s movement.” Every day there are clubs being formed that resemble the Nazi Youth Clubs of Hitler’s day/ Victory Day, the holiest day of the year when parading crowds carry pictures of their dead veterans, seems to suggest, “Maybe one day you can be a dead soldier, too.” Pasha notes that the young people will have to carry the burden of victory over evil. Pasha:  “All of you will die, but know one thing: Mother Russia will never forget you.  Every warrior’s name will be carved into a plaque.”

At this point, Russia is losing 1,000 soldiers a day in the Ukrainian conflict. Says Pasha, “It’s now time for the mercenaries to teach: marching drills, grenade throwing competitions, shooting competition.” The film of boys as young as 10 being handed guns and sighting down the length of them is frightening. They are shown handling weapons of the Great Patriotic War, including Mosin, SVT machine guns, etc.

There are scripted lessons after scripted lessons. Proof that the school is complying with the directive is required. Soon, the scripts are given to the students, as well. They are being brainwashed by the state in the New Federal Patriotic Education Program.

KARABASH ELEMENTARY SCHOOL HISTORY TEACHER

David Borenstein

David Borestein, director of Mr. Nobody Against Putin, an official selection of the 2025 Sundance Film Festival. Courtesy of Sundance Institute | photo by Helle Moos

Pasha films history teacher  Pavel Abdulmanov. Abdulmanov is strictly by the Russian book. He suggests that, “It’s so crucial to eliminate dissenting views so there is no split in our Mother Country. If you don’t like it, go to the country that you think is better.”  When asked to name the Russian historical figures he admires most, he names Lavrentiy Beria, Stalin’s father of the Gulag system; Viktor Abakumov, Stalin’s spy hunter; and Pavel Sudoplatov, Stalin’s assassin for enemies. Sudoplatov masterminded the murder of Leon Trotsky from an ice pick driven into Leon Trotsky’s brain. Abdulmanov tells his students daily that “Russia could destroy Ukraine in a couple of days” and warns that countries in Europe will “soon be riding horses” as there will be no wheat or oil from Russia. He also tells the students that “state policy in Ukraine is decided by radicals and Nazis,” suggesting that Russia must eliminate the Nazis in power in Ukraine. Abdulmanov was given a luxury apartment as a reward for being named Teacher of the Year at the school.

LASHING OUT

Feeling an uncontrollable urge to lash out, one morning Pasha plays a recording of Lady Gaga singing the United States National Anthem, rather than the Soviet anthem. Soon thereafter, a police car is parked outside of Pasha’s apartment.

PASHA’S MOTHER

Throughout the film Pasha is shown bringing his mother flowers as she works to repair damaged school books in the school library. He repeatedly praises his mother. She is a particularly dour woman who never expresses any warmth towards her only son. At one point, he says he is going to stop over with something for her that evening and she tells him “Forget it.” Her view on the changes in the school’s atmosphere :  “I am sorry, but people love war.  It’s always been like that.  People love to shoot each other.” Also representative of the town’s collective feelings is Masha, one of Pasha’s students, whose brother is drafted into the war effort. She says, “I could care less about the war as long as it doesn’t impact me personally.” This seems to be the main opinion of the town. (Masha’s brother eventually defects and is killed.)

GRADUATION

Pasha is in charge of arranging for Graduation Day. He addresses the assembled crowd, saying, “My dear friends: wherever your life takes you, I wish you solid ground under your feet.  There’ll be turning points you’ll have to choose.  Sometimes to express your love, you must sacrifice everything, but I know that your choice will come from your heart.  Thank you so much for working with me through this year. I love you very much. The time for the last bell has come.”  This heartfelt speech is followed by dancing in the most toxic town on Earth and students tossing Pasha into the air in celebration.

That night, he flees Russia and crosses into the Czech Republic, where he is now seeking asylum. He is being paid as co-director of this impressive effort for the BBC’s Storyville, but he was not present at the Q&A at Sundance.

Mr. Nobody Against Putin: Graduation Day

A still from Mr. Nobody Against Putin by David Borestein and Pavel Talankin, an official selection of the 2025 Sundance Film Festival. Courtesy of Sundance Institute.

CONCLUSION

Pasha put in three years of work on the project. He tells the camera, “Even a guy like me should have some principles. By June I am done here.”

This was a brave act of principle in the face of an oppressive autocratic regime. Having just completed a University of Texas class entitled “Putin’s Rise to Power” that laid out the ways in which Putin has closed down and expelled Western journalists from Russia. I am now enrolled in a class entitled “Misinformation and Disinformation.” Our first lecture went into a great deal of detail about how difficult it is to get truthful reporting out of Russia.

This documentary is a real treasure and should be seen by anyone who loves democracy. It was a courageous and brave act by someone who has risked his entire life to help alert the world to the truth of Vladimir Putin’s plans for world domination.

“2000 Meters to Andriivka” Premieres at Sundance, 2025

"2000 Meters to Andriivka" by Mstyslav Chernov

A still from 2000 Meters to Andriivka by Mstyslav Chernov, an official selection of the 2025 Sundance Film Festival. Courtesy of Sundance Institute | photo by Mstyslav Chernov

AP journalist Mstyslav Chernov filmed “20 Days in Mariupol” two years ago. His first documentary showing the Russian invasion of Mariupol won the Oscar as Best Documentary of the year at the 2024 Academy Awards.

At Sundance this year the 97-minute documentary “2000 Meters to Andriivka” embeds Chernov and Cinematographer Alex Babenko with troops advancing approximately one mile to the embattled town of Andriivka in Ukraine. Andriivka is representative of so many Ukrainian towns and villages seized by Russian troops. Onscreen, as they get closer to the town, the distance still to be traveled is shown in a kind of count-down fashion.

THE GOAL

The Russians have mined each of the sides of a forested area, the Zhyzhky forest, where the enemy has dug in. If the 93rd brigade can make its way to the town, it will help cut the Russian supply line to the Russian-occupied city of Bakhmut. The Zhyzhky forest has had three previous Ukrainian attempts to make it to Andriivka, in June, July and August, only to see the front line of brave Ukrainian soldiers mowed down by Russian troops.

The goal? “If we are lucky, we’ll get there and see the raising of the Ukrainian flag.”

They do get there, but the town is totally destroyed.

THE FIGHTERS

The bravery of the Ukrainian men is admirable, but it all seems so futile.

Mstyslav Chernov,

Mstyslav Chernov, director of 2000 Meters to Andriivka, an official selection of the 2025 Sundance Film Festival. Courtesy of Sundance Institute | photo by Jeff Vespa

Chernov has conversations with individual fighters—Freak, Kavun, Gagarin—and we see bodies littered everywhere on the hellscape that was once a forest leading towards the small village. The village of Andriivka, itself, when they finally reach it, is as decimated as the Gaza Strip. There really isn’t a building, as such, to hang a flag on or over. When Chernov is asked during the audience Q&A how things changed after the men reached Andriivka and raised the Ukrainian flag, he said, “It became sort of anti-climactic and climactic.” There is a small moment of humanity when one of the Ukrainian fighters finds a small kitten and smuggles it out with him.

FREAK ET. AL.

Freak is one of the fighters we get to know. He is only 22 years old and talks about his previous time at university. He says his plan is to “go in with the thought that I’m going to stay alive.” (Freak is injured 6 months later and his body is never recovered.)

A 46-year old military policeman (and a grandfather) who volunteered to defend Ukraine  says that he should not be made out to be a hero. “I haven’t done anything heroic , yet here I am on camera. It shouldn’t be like that. There are those who have done so much.” He worries that his wife back home won’t have clean water and that he didn’t fix the toilet well enough before he left for war.

Gagarin is shot and falls, onscreen. (Later, the soldier who held Gagarin’s hand as he died, will also be killed in a drone strike in his village). Gagarin’s funeral is the 56th funeral in his small town.  The town turns out en masse and there is much mourning and crying.  One of the mourners says, “We are burying our children.  Women bury their husbands.  Our boys still had everything ahead of them.  They could have been entrepreneurs, agriculturists.  When the time came, they took up arms to defend us.”

CONCLUSION

Where “20 Days in Mariupol” was optimistic, now, with a new administration in place, one that seems much less interested in supporting Ukraine in its struggle against Russia (and much friendlier towards Putin), the counter-offensive does not seem to be viable. Russia now controls abut 20% of Ukraine as of January, 2025.

Director Chernov said, “I don’t want to to speak to any of my relatives right now, because I would want to tell them that everything is okay and it’s not.”

I felt depressed after the November presidential election and on January 20th.  I’m even more depressed after viewing this remarkable film about what is actually happening in Ukraine. It should be seen in a double viewing with another remarkable Sundance film, “Mr. Nobody Against Putin,” which depicts how Russian schools are being told to brainwash students and turn them into soldiers at increasingly young ages.

“Everyday Horrors:” Short Stories By Steve Rasnic Tem

"Everyday Horrors" short stories book by Steve Rasnic Tem

“Everyday Horrors” short stories book

Steve Rasnic Tem has written over 500 published short stories. His stories have won awards from the International Horror Guild, the Horror Writers’ Association, and he has won the British and World Fantasy Awards.   His novels and writing with his late wife Melanie Tem are also lauded. His short fiction has been compared to that of Franz Kafka, Ray Bradbury and Raymond Carver.  Joe R. Lansdale proclaimed him to be “a school of writing unto himself.” As a writer and a teacher of writing, immersing myself in this collection, “Everyday Horrors,” was a treat, but a dark one. This description by another was right on the money: “Steve Rasnic Tem’s large body of tales: imaginative, difficult-to-pigeonhole works of the fantastic crossing conventional boundaries between science fiction, fantasy, horror, literary fiction, bizarro, magic realism, and the new weird.”

With Christmas bearing down on us like a train jumping the tracks, I had to limit myself to three stories a day. The tone of each tale is solemn, grim, evocative of so many depressingly ordinary things in our lives as we age. As a woman in the seventh decade of life, five years older than the author, I could relate to Steve Rasnic Tem’s themes, just as I remember relating  to Melanie Rasnic Tem’s excellent short story “Best Friends.”

I’m not sure that a younger reviewer would relate as well to this collection’s themes of death, dying and deterioration. There was a time when I, too, would have glossed over recitations of the indignities of aging. Now, fighting cancer, diabetes, auto immune hepatitis, fibromyalgia, asthma and side effects from the drugs prescribed to make you better (which seem to always make you worse), I could better relate to passages like this excerpt from Steve’s story “The Old Man’s Tale” (one of my favorites):

Steve Rasnic Tem

Steve Rasnic Tem.

“He was so tired of this, having to schedule his life around his unreasonable bodily needs, the toilet, his fatigue, his bouts of worry and anxiety.  It was humiliating.  None of those had been considerations when he was young.”

Ah, yes, remind me again about “the golden years.”

Or  how about this soliloquy on aging from the same short story:  “How do you know when you’re old?  I really don’t know.  I guess when everybody tells you.  I look at other people—with their white hair, all their wrinkles—and I think they’re a lot older than I am.  But most of the time it turns out they’re younger.”

As that story about a couple traveling to the Grand Canyon goes on, the author muses, “It’s too bad we can’t leave our sorrows there, isn’t it?  If everybody drove to that giant wound in the earth and could toss their sadness inside, and walk away to get on with the rest of their lives, wouldn’t that be a great thing?”

The short story “Everyday Horror” begins this collection, a story of Aubrey and Jeff, two brothers who are involved in cleaning out their dead father’s things. The beauty of the writer’s vision is once again conveyed to us with a passage: “Suggestions of death and dismemberment journeyed across the darkening dome of sky.  Symphonic wraiths gathered for meaningless consultations.” One of the brothers has inherited the ability to see and hear things that normal people’s senses cannot perceive. The brothers are dividing the contents of the house into a “KEEP” and “BURN” pile. [I must admit that I wanted the end of this story to be a colossal pyre, a funeral pyre, if you will, with flames crying out to the heavens; that’s just me.]

fire

fire

“Fish Scales” followed “Everyday Horror” with the poetic story of Charlie, who has fish scales on his face, and a blind wife. This memorable line lingers:  “Sometimes sorrow falls into such a deep place it cannot escape.”

This passage also caught my eye:  “When he was a kid, he imagined the night creatures might think him dead if he lay still enough, and so they wouldn’t bother him.  The logic of this now escaped him.  A dead body was easy prey.”

I smiled. When I slept upstairs, alone in my isolated attic room, and a dream re-occurred, night after night, a nightmare of a man stealthily stalking me, following me down a shadowed street (and whispering my name in ever-increasing volume), fedora hat obscuring his features, I thought that if I kept my eyes shut tight and made my way down the treacherous stairs to where there was light and company, I would be safe. The danger of falling down the stairs (since my eyes were shut) eluded me. Logic, indeed, was on holiday as it is, to a point, in this story.

Steve Rasnic Tem, young & old

The young & the old.

“Gavin’s Field” gives us the story of Blackburn’s Field and how Gavin is bequeathed a house in Vermont by his father.  Lines like, “The mist transitioned into a needle-like rain” give mood to the story of stone walls and characters like Lawyer Martinson and Whitby, the town watchdog. The gradual integration of Gavin into the Vermont town ends with, “Gavin decided not to struggle when the man-sized insect began feeding the mulch into his open mouth.  It really wasn’t that terrible if he let himself relax and accept what he was being offered.  The taste—rich and dark and nourished with death—was not at all unfamiliar.”

“An Gorta Mor” began the commentary on our world today, which continued with a story about the effects of the pandemic.  As the author notes, “People had become unbelievably cruel, or perhaps they’d always been, and he’d just failed to notice…So much of the world had become poisonous.  Poison permeated the air he breathed and the food he consumed.” All of this while waiting for food delivery and fighting a loss of interest in eating anything at all.

Steve & Melanie Rasnic Tem

Steve and Melanie Rasnic Tem.

“Black Wings,” the story of Harry and Sheila’s marriage, is more a story of Harry’s obsession with birds. Harry has made their home into a temple to birds. Sheila does not seem that thrilled with his hobby:  “Despite Harry’s protestations there had always been a stench of death and decay and negligence.   But she couldn’t expect to have survived marriage to such a man without some lingering birdish stench.” We learn that Harry was struggling to put (yet another) cabinet dedicated to his all-consuming hobby, the birds, in an upstairs room, when an unfortunate accident ensued. Or was it an accident? Meanwhile, a black bird terrorizes Sheila, and one has to ask if it is karma:  “Sheila took a step down, and her bird—all hers, it was too late to get rid of it now and too late to stop—was right beneath her shoe…As she lay there on the floor, thinking about the mess she’d made, something unexpected came over her and she heard herself making this awful sound with notes of both despair and defiance while she flapped her broken arms.” The bird theme may stem from a home that Steve and Melanie Tem bought from a bird enthusiast when they downsized from their larger family home.

“Bags” – Consumerism in all its aspects is criticized:  “You buy, you throw away, and then you buy some more.  The ‘regurgitating economy’ Dad called it. Dad was as bad as everyone else in this regard, but at least he recognized the problem.” There are other problems, health problems, for Dad. Ascites fluid must be drained. “It was hard to believe in upcoming catastrophes beyond the disaster which was already here.”

“Late Sleepers” – seemed to be a chance to revisit many memorable horror movie scenes. Theater one is closed in the small ready-to-close theater and off-limits for reasons that will become clear. “The stillness troubled him.  He didn’t hear anything, but it seemed the noise of nothing was pounding in his head.  He breathed deeply, smelling only the stale air.” The theater is closing this very night. Is that his house he sees onscreen?

“A Thin Silver Line” is “for Harlan Ellison;”  silver is the color of death. [That’s too bad for me, because I just bought a new silver car that we call “the Silver Bullet.”] “A thin silver line: color of moonlight, or morning fog, the highlight on your grandmother’s lips.  The fading borders of the dream just before you discover it is morning.  It’s a separation keeping you from the dream, the day from the night, and the fantasy from nightmare.  The division is less substantial than mist; you can cross it and not even know.” Bobby and Linda are expecting and then things go awry. Bobby’s father AND Linda are both heard screaming “Get it out of me.'” I’m in Texas writing this, so getting a ruined child out of its mother surgically is not an option in this state at this time. God help us all. Since many of the Steve Rasnic Tem works are going to eventually be warehoused at Texas A&M, this is not news to the author.

“Inappetence” is a term used to denote a lack of hunger. As the story puts it:  “They slipped from the shadows to monitor his decline.  Impatient, they moved forward to taste the light.  All the world was hungry it seemed, except for him.  Even the thought of food repelled him.”

“The Winter Closet” – this one was very short and dealt with the memories conjured up by the contents of “the winter closet.”

“Privacy” – “He’d come to understand that in solitude was the way people lived, even if they imagined otherwise.  They pretended a knowledge of others they did not have.  Now that he was elderly, the anxiety from loneliness had become palpable.  He had to lie in bed with fists clenched until it passed.  If a manual existed for old age, he would certainly read it.”

I second that observation.

And, “It wasn’t that he wanted to be a hermit.  All he wanted was some control over people’s access to his life.  It wasn’t that he disliked people.  He simply believed they lied about everything.”

In the year of Trump, this certainly seems true. The end of this one may be a bit over-the-top, but the idea of privacy remains paramount.

“Monkeys” – Polly and Maude in a Jack-the-Ripper setting.

“When They Fall” – “He was an adult.  He knew life was ephemeral.  Each person was given the slimmest shard of time.  But children had no idea. They dwelled in the forever now.” This one asks the poetic question:  “Are we ghosts hiding within our costumes of flesh?”

Steve Rasnic Tem

A twenty-something Steve Rasnic Tem.

“The Things We Do Not See” – “One evening he became aware of a great shift in gravitation, as if something massive had suddenly entered this world.  He could not see it, but he knew it was there.”  A character named Cathy seems to have amnesia. Some salient observations about mankind include this:  “True self-knowledge is a rare thing, an ephemeral moment of clarity out of a lifetime of confusion.  Most of us will never experience such a moment.  I wonder if it is even possible.  Because our minds latch onto pain and pain consumes us and informs our stories about ourselves.  Mental health involves countering those stories of pain with one positive ones. But they are still stories, still untrustworthy narratives of the truth that is out there…We cannot trust our memories of who we once were.  Those times, that self, are all gone now.  Look around you.  See what exists in your world right now.  Trust that.”

Dead things start showing up; the dead things keep getting large and larger. A generally open-ended  finale to a tale with wise observations.

“Within the Concrete” – Carl and Grace are in this one, which observes:  “It seemed he’d been better at solving things when he was younger.  Now his brain was like cement slurry, right on the edge of hardening, after which no thoughts might escape.”

Very astute. Certainly relatable. Imagine how lost we’d be if we didn’t have the Internet!

https://www.facebook.com/reel/497657436685488

“The Last Sound You Hear” – Connor, the grandson, visits his grandfather. They listen to their hearts using a stethoscope. This one had a “Sixth Sense” ending. Read it for yourself to find out what is meant by that.

“Into the White” – I grew up in northeast Iowa. I still live in snowy Illinois half of the year with a place in Chicago. A journey back to the days when schools would be canceled because of the white stuff. Since I ran a school of sorts for a while (and had to be the one deciding when to cancel or when to persevere) I enjoyed the descriptions of the snow and the buried carousel beneath. The language is extraordinary for its poetic brilliance:  “The sky was so intense, it became a dream scorched into his now.” Or, “His snowsuit began to shred.  The emptiness washed over him, embedding itself in his flesh.  He saw blood upon the snow.  Ahead of him the sky began to tear.  He thought at first it was the Northern Lights, but he came to believe it was something quite different.”

“The Old Man’s Tale” – I have referenced this previously, because it hit home and summoned so many memories, mostly of the Covid experience that we all just lived through (and which my mother lived through at the age of eleven, just as my granddaughters lived through it at the same age in 2020.) Steve Rasnic Tem says, “We still feel on the lip of oblivion.  I can’t be the only one…Just to see something eternal when so many people we knew were dying, losing their jobs, fracturing inside.”

I remember the Covid experience through the prism of a breast cancer diagnosis (December 2021), a podcast that I had just agreed to conduct upon my return from an Alaskan cruise, and my daughter (a flight attendant) who was laid off for the duration. She moved from Nashville to Austin to join us. While I felt the isolation from others, just as everyone did, I had my WeeklyWilson.com podcast giving me a life-line for talking to others. I received many phone calls from people I had not heard from in literally years.

For the first time in nearly 20 years, I had my entire nuclear family together in the same place for more than just a few days. Since my children were born 19 years apart and my son works from home, as does his wife, the flight attendant daughter was assigned to amuse, educate and entertain the eleven-year-old twins. It was a strange time, watching the daily casualty reports on television from then-New York Governor Andrew Cuomo, who was receiving plaudits for his daily reports to the nation. Do you remember when there was talk of Andrew Cuomo running for President, because of his high profile leading the nation at a time when we seemed to be leaderless? No? Well, that did happen, briefly.

Melanie & Steve Rasnic Tem

Melanie & Steve Rasnic Tem.

In ”Whenever It Comes” the author writes:  “It broke my heart trying to keep our children safe.  I didn’t want to tell them the world had become a dangerous place.  As parents we made mistakes, sometimes terrible mistakes, as all parents will.  Yet our children still looked to us for answers…I didn’t understand how things worked any more. I didn’t believe anyone did.  I no longer trusted people, least of all myself.  No one knew for sure what lived inside the human heart.  No one knew how this would end…It was a long year of quiet dread.”

In “An Old Man’s Tale” the author touches upon the dilemma of homelessness, as well as on Covid. “I’m not claiming to understand what I saw.  I’m just putting it out there.  I’m a rational human being trying to deal with the irrational, these phantoms at the periphery of my vision, like someone just arrived, or someone just left, or someone’s waiting there, ready to do some damage, cause some mischief. I don’t want to say it’s related to the pandemic, but maybe everything is, if you think about it.”

“People have changed so much the past few years, don’t you think?  Things will be fine for a while, then these pockets of—I don’t know—derangement appear, and they spread through the population.”

Bee Gone

Bee Gone, the book

The character’s wife, Jane says, “It’s that awful man they elected. People now think it’s okay to say anything that pops into their heads.”

As a blog dedicated to the whims of its owner with her interest in film and national politics, (and a person five years older than Steve Rasnic Tem), I can definitely relate to his observations. I listened to a University of Chicago professor try to explain all of the unrest and chaos, (and ascribing  the change in our nation to the demographic shift from one that is predominantly white to one that is polyglot. The white males, threatened by immigrants and the loss of their preferred status (and their jobs), steeped in nascent racism and distrustful of authority, refused to support a bi-racial woman to lead our country, thereby sticking us with the other alternative, a candidate who lied and postured his way to power, much like a German autocrat of yesteryear. Shall we blame “The Apprentice?”

The lack of affordable housing and the high cost of groceries (which is bound to continue regardless of regime change) tied the vice presidential candidate to the status quo and the attempt by the geriatric incumbent to continue in office past his shelf life date doomed his second-in-command’s hopes. Whether she could have succeeded if President Biden had stepped down earlier, (as he had promised to do) is still a debatable point.

All I know is that book-ending my life with JFK at its political outset (age 15) and DJT near my demise is some sort of cosmic joke. It is these observations in a couple of the stories in “Everyday Horrors” that I enjoyed the most. When spaceships entered stories, I was less interested, but “different strokes for different folks.” The imagination of the writer still gripped me. The poetry of his language was pleasing.

As a blog that still devotes itself to discussing movies and politics, passages like this resonated with me:  “We were sitting on that couch watching when the 500,000 deaths from Covid were announced.  And we watched that George Floyd video again and again, trying to understand why it happened, and knowing it had happened many times before.  We felt helpless as we watched it, and feeling helpless made us feel ashamed….We have seen so many terrible images.  Those poor refugees.  Children abandoned in the desert, or their bodies washed up on shore.  You’ve seen those pictures too? Or am I crazy?

“He waited for an uncomfortably long time.”

Finally, someone in the distance said, “yes,” and another, “Yes, I think we’ve all seen them.”

Steve Rasnic Tem & Melanie Tem

The author and wife Melanie on their wedding day.

“The true facts of history are going to rise to the top however deeply you try to bury them.  If people’s houses are burning, they’re going to find somewhere else to live.  The way I see it, fires are burning all over the world.”

Adds Steve Rasnic Tem in words that we should all be able to relate to:  “I wish the ones in charge would do a lot of things, but they don’t.  The economy leaves lots of folks behind.  On top of that, the climate’s changing.  We pretend there’s nothing we can do. Pretty soon it will be our own family member, trying to find safety.  Maybe you.  Maybe me if I live that long.  We need to do better if we want to save ourselves.  We could start with those (homeless) folks out there…They expect people to cooperate and be on their best behavior during a crisis, but that’s not how people act.”

I enjoyed this collection to the point that I could absorb so much about misery, death and destruction right before the Christmas holiday.  [Talk about a contrast in tone!]

There is no good time to dwell on misery. But there is a necessary time. Reading “Everyday Horrors” may be that time for anyone who appreciates mastery of the insightful phrase and a keen eye for commentary, coupled with the word skills to pull it off beautifully.

Requiem for a Dream: Trump Wins; World Loses

Donald Trump

Donald Trump

I’m  sitting here on election night, watching the blue wall fall and feeling dejected, but not as “taken off guard” as I felt in 2016 after Hillary Clinton lost her much-vaunted race against Agent Orange.

I am convinced that Donald J. Trump (and cohorts) have bought the presidency (Thanks, Elon!, she said ruefully) and misogyny, racism and incompetents in office are going to be the order of the day. Think about RFK, Jr. running Health Care. No, don’t think about it, if you can put that aside, which any sane, thinking individual cannot. It will just depress you further.

At least Vance is ostensibly a smart guy and has certainly learned how to suck up to power. He will be the future of the GOP/Trump Maga cult. Eat your heart out, Ron DeSantis!

FEARS

Donald Trump

Donald Trump

I never felt that Harris had it “in the bag.”  I sent a copy of a very insightful article about why not to a friend, which was pulled from a book that was written by Democratic strategists in 1970, pointing out where the Democratic party had lost its way, as far as determining the mood of the country. Just showing up at my local gym, run by young Black athletic types, told me how they viewed the geriatric Trump as way superior to Biden (then the candidate), and they definitely would not have been keen to vote for a woman to be Boss—even though it is past time.

I would not put anything past Donald Trump. He would order “hits” on people if it meant keeping himself out of jail and that is what this election meant to him. If Kamala Harris had been able to prevail, DJT would face consequences for his crimes and misdeeds, but now he’s going to be like a bull in a china shop. I wonder if I can take up a hobby that allows me to transport myself to another dimension in order to forget that we might face 4 years of DJT (unless he is successfully impeached, which looks unlikely now that Republicans are seizing the Senate) or worse.

DISGUST

I don’t feel sad so much as I feel disgusted. How dumb is the average rural voter that they can’t tell that the man is a congenital liar and you can’t believe a word he says? It seems to be rural voters who have prevailed to place him back in office. (Shame on you, Iowa!) Now we U.S. citizens will have to hang our heads in shame, worldwide. Richard Gere sold his house in the U.S. just in time. He is moving to Spain with his Spanish wife. [Good move, Richard!]

Many more savvy analysts than me will be analyzing this election for years, but I will just give you some thoughts off the top of the head of the woman who was named Yahoo Content Producer of the Year for Politics in 2008.  I knew that Obama was going to win in 2008 because I traveled all over following him. He represented change. We were sick of Bush and company and endless wars. The pendulum has a way of swinging and it has swung. I was not traveling the country with this year’s candidates and, therefore, had no “gut” feeling for who would win this thing. In fact, after 2016, I was concerned. As it turns out, I was concerned for good cause.

CHANGE

Barack Obama

Barack Obama

People saying that “change” (even if it is change from an honorable person to a convicted criminal) is a powerful vote getter at all times. You had a man who lied constantly during his appearances and ranted on about how “bad” the country was doing—even though it wasn’t. He failed to mention what a terrible manager he was for Covid, but talked about higher grocery and gas prices (When did things NOT go up over time?) He failed to mention that we need to address climate change and, instead, called it a hoax. Good luck to us during this period of climate catastrophes brought on by people like DJT and good luck to the Ukraine!

Obama’s win represented change. The backlash to a Black man being elected to the White House is part of the racism that has now propelled a man (convicted way back in the 70s of refusing to rent to Blacks) into office again.

So, Change, Misogyny, Racism, and a guy who was literally running for his life, because if he lost, he probably could have gone to jail for his incitement of the January 6th coup.

MONEY TALKS

Let’s not forget the Big Money Donors (Elon Musk, anyone?) who got behind DJT. Or those like Jeff Bezos who did not have the courage to try to help the better candidate prevail (even though she is a woman. That, in and of itself, is difficult to overcome). Get ready for rich people to get richer, and poor people to get poorer.

DAVID AXELROD & VAN JONES

David Axelrod

 Photo by Lauren Gerson.David Axelrod

“She handled herself well. She tried to appeal to the better angels of people’s nature.” (from David Axelrod) He went on to say that her debate performance was one of the best ever and that was why Trump did not want to debate her a second time. My sister and I agreed, noting how the Democrats way back in 2000 showed the gracious way to behave during an election, even one that was probably handed to the opponent by the opponent’s Governor brother. The Trumps of life fight dirty and have no compassion or empathy or respect for science. “Drill, baby, drill!” is not the rallying cry that will save the planet, but rural America did not like the thought of giving up their gas-guzzling vehicles in favor of electric ones.

Van Jones thinks that Kamala’s own words beat her and mentions the phrase “Nothing comes to mind” used by the GOP in their attack ads. That WAS a bad ad. Van also brought up the Israel issue, which I felt was going to lose Harris the Michigan vote.  “I can’t think of anything offhand” was disastrous, says Axelrod. She should have just said she was grateful to him and talked about the future and not criticized her mentor. I agree.

The Republican on the debate says that the “green new deal” was not what the American public wanted to buy. (“They were selling what the American public did not want to buy.”)

TRUMP’S REMARKS

West Palm Beach, Florida at 2:31 a.m.

“I’m proud to be an American” is playing in background. (Lee Greenwood)

Melania looks like the cat that swallowed the canary.

J.D. Vance is smiling smugly.

“Incredible movement….a movement like nobody’s ever seen before. The greatest political movement of all time. Never been anything like this before in this country. Help our country heal. We have a country that needs help and needs it very badly. We’re going to fix everything about our country, We overcame obstacles that nobody thought possible Look what happened. Is this crazy? It’s a political victory that our country has never seen before,” from Trump.

“I will fight for you and your family. Every single day I will be fighting for you. I will not rest until we have delivered the strong, safe America. Will truly be the Golden Age of America. It will allow us to ‘make America great again. ’“We’re going to make you very happy and proud of your vote.”

North Carolina, Georgia, Pennsylvania and Wisconsin.  Predicting 315 electoral votes for himself. Also glad to have won the popular vote.

Unprecedented and powerful mandate: control of the Senate.

Right now, 266 to 195 (Trump to Harris).

“What happens to a dream deferred? Does it dry up, like a raisin in the sun?” When Al Gore failed to fight for the position in 2000, we lost 25 years of preparation against the catastrophes of climate change. We are now reaping that poor election choice, 25 years later. I can only assume that climate change will get worse, under Trump, before it gets better, because he has called climate change a hoax.

Good luck to us all. 

 

 

 

Finnish Film “Long Good Thursday” Screens at 60th Chicago International Film Festival

 

Long Good Thursday" Finnish film

Saimi (Jaana Saarinen) ja Mielensäpahoittaja (Heikki Kinnunen), Mielensäpahoittajan Rakkaustarina, Solar Films. Credit: Solar Films.

The Finnish film “Long Good Thursday” screened at the 60th Chicago International Film Festival on Wednesday, October star 23rd, with star Jaana Saarinen in attendance.  Director Mika Kaurismaki is not the first to tell the story of the Grump, portrayed by Finnish comedy star Heikki Kinnunen. There are a series of novels concerning the character, who has become a national icon in Finland.

The Grump, as he is popularly known, is “more of a sour milk kind of guy” (as one of his own son’s describes him). As the film opens, brothers Hessu (Likka Forss) and Pekka (Ville Tihonen) are touring a nursing home with their father. He is not impressed or amused.  In fact, he flees the scene and goes to a favorite hillside to talk privately with his wife, dead from Alzheimer’s disease. Even on their way to the nursing home the Grump  chides his grown sons about speaking directly to him. “You can talk directly to me. I’m not a house plant yet.” Sadly, this idea of younger folk talking past you or over you is real life; age-ism is alive and well in the U.S. and, apparently, in Finland, as well.

THE PLOT

Jaana Saarinen

Jaana Saarinen on October 23, 2024, at the showing of “Long Good Thursday” at the 60th Chicago International Film Festival.

Heikki’s character of the Grump, outfitted in an animal hat that rivals that of the MAGA fanatic who took over Congress on January 6th, is plain-spoken and a hard worker. When told to take it easy he says, “I haven’t taken it easy since I was 9 and my father took me to cut trees in the forest.” Looking at pictures of son Hessu’s holiday with his family, the Grump sees nothing but suffering. He gives a list that mentions sun burn, among other holiday afflictions. The Grump hasn’t danced since the early 70s.

One day at the local supermarket, he is attracted by a wonderful scent that hints of chainsaw oil, pine bark and sawdust. He follows that scent to the check-out lane, where the owner of the pheromone that has attracted him is in a bit of an embarrassing situation. She has forgotten her wallet while trying to check out with her groceries. The Grump offers to pay for the damsel-in-distress’s purchases. This leads to the Grump becoming friends with the free-spirited Saimi (Jaana Saarinen).

Heikki still talks regularly to his deceased wife and tells her “in terms of eternity, nothing will change” but, for the here and now, he would very much like to spend more time with the attractive Saimi. When there is no answer to his musing, he says, “Silence was always a sign of consent for us.”

Jaana Saarinen and  Heikki Kaurismaki

“Long Good Thursday” from Finland at the 60th Chicago International Film Festival.

The pair go camping on the Jawa motorcycle with side-car and, coincidentally, meet a celebrity in the woods.  They encounter Finnish Sportsman of the Years 1972 and 1976, Lasse Viren, one of the Flying Finns, and Heikki says, “This is the best day of my life.” However, Heikki reassures his wife that he is still going to join her in eternity and that “ordinary is enough” will remain their life motto. The Grump is experiencing happiness and joy because of the sunny disposition of his new female friend, Saimi. He praises her wonderful aroma, which she acknowledges as perhaps the “most real” compliment she has ever received.

Saimi, who is a photographer, takes numerous photos of the Grump. They become the basis for a Helsinki art gallery show, to which she invites the Grump. She never suspects that he will take offense at her use of his image in her art. This causes them to go their separate ways, as Heikki flees the exhibit and takes a bus home, saying, “I am not some circus animal to be laughed at by the art circles of Helsinki.”

Jaana Saarinen of "Long Good Thursday"

Jaana Saarinen of “Long Good Thursday”

Here’s a timely historical precedent for this plot. Remember when Jennifer Lopez publicly released the film version of her romance with Ben Affleck as “The Greatest Love Story Never Told?” Remember what happened next? Somehow. J-lo didn’t anticipate that taking every single private love note or e-mail ever sent her by Ben Affleck (who, over the years, had saved them and put them in a book as a gift for her) if publicly shared  would offend her new (4th) husband. Lopez claims it was a case of “I didn’t see THAT coming.”  Everyone else  did. And that’s not even factoring in her investment in an alcoholic brand when her new husband is on the wagon and a recovering alcoholic.

In this film, something comparable happens, but there is more after the supposed break, just as there is more in the Grump/Saimi story.

 

 

Q&A

Asked whether any of the lines in the film were improvised, Saarinen acknowledged that some were. She pointed to a scene with the couple walking through a field, where she points to a dark spot and declares it to be a certain kind of mushroom, only to be contradicted by the Grump who says it is “deer shit.” Jaana also admitted that, in one scene, she did not actually cut down a tree with a power saw. In regards to her character of Saimi, she said, “I’d like to be more like her, more accepting. That was the most valuable lesson for me.” Jaana also said that the water in the swimming scene was not that cold and the yard 30 or 40 kilometers from Helsinki where they shot the film was exactly as we see it onscreen. The unusual car belonged to the owner of the house and worked.

The film has wonderful music from a Japanese composer who contacted the director and asked if he could contribute his music. Tetsuroh Konishi’s contribution is wonderful, and the cinematography that took place in the area just outside of Helsinki contains lovely pastoral images from cinematographer Jari Mutikainen.

CONCLUSION

Connie Wilson & Jaana Saarinen of "Long Good Thursday" in Chicago

Connie Wilson & Jaana Saarinen of “Long Good Thursday” in Chicago on 10/23/2024.

This was a funny movie that suggests that it’s never too late to be happy in your old age. The 69-year-old director has been directing since at least 1978; it shows. The actors truly embody their roles and the film strikes just the right balance between humor and drama. As the lead actress’ daughter told her mother, “It doesn’t drag; it lingers.” It was a lovely character study of love and affection continuing to exist in maturity.  The somewhat open-to-interpretation ending leaves you wanting another episode so we can learn what happens between the Grump and Saimi. Even the young cast members, said Jaana Saarinen, put down their cell phones during filming. “Everyone watched while we were filming.” That tells you a lot about the quality of a film when viewers under 30 will put down their electronic devices long enough to watch real life unfold.

 

“Long Good Thursday” was a real find, for me. If you can find this poignant Finnish film from accomplished director Mika Kaurismaki (with Heikki Kinnunen and the beautiful Jaana Saarinen co-starring) streaming, it will be a wonderful find for you.

“Nightbitch” Screens on October 21, 2024 at the 60th Chicago International Film Festival

Marielle Heller walked the Red Carpet outside the Music Box Theater on Monday, October 21st at the 60th Chicago International Film Festival in support of “Nightbitch,” which she co-wrote and directed. The screenplay is based on the book by Rachel Yoder. Heller’s previous directing forays include “Diary of a Teen-aged Girl” (2015), “Can You Ever Forgive Me” (2018) and “A Beautiful Day in the Neighborhood” (2019). Amy Adams and Scoot McNairy play a husband and wife parenting a toddler, played by twin tow-heads Arleigh and Emmett Snowden.

“I’m never going to be smart, happy or thin ever again. And I’m pretty sure I’m turning into a dog,” says the Mother character. That line sums up the plot. All mothers in the audience will be able to relate—up to the dog part, anyway. The theme of a hassled Mom trying to cope with daily life at home with kids reminded me of Jason Reitman’s 2018 film “Tully,” but Charlize Theron had three kids and there was no werewolf-ian metamorphosis involved.

Marielle Heller

Marielle Heller on October 21, 2024, at the 60th Chicago International Film Festival.

As she took the stage to accept her Visionary award, Marielle Heller said, “This is one of my most personal films. I’m just thrilled to be bringing it here tonight.” The 98-minute film’s tag line? “ Motherhood is a bitch.” The IMDB classification lists Body Horror, Comedy, Horror, and Dark Comedy. If you liked “Can You Ever Forgive Me” which earned Melissa McCarthy an Oscar nomination, you’ll like this one. If you’re a Mom, you’ll like it twice as much. (Amy Adams won a TIFF acting award for her role.)

Q&A

After the film screened, Heller shared some insights into the production. The feeling that this could be “any city” and “any Mom” was intentional. Specifics are missing on purpose, including names. Heller is delineating the marital playbook where the wife gives up her career and her dreams to stand by her man. She is thinking, “How many women have delayed their greatness while the men around them didn’t know what to do with theirs?” Adams’ character was a successful artist and worked in an art gallery before she and her husband decided to have a child. Now, as the script says, “The whole concept of motherhood that we’re sold is basically bull-shit.”

SCRIPT
One scripted exchange between the couple has her husband saying, “What happened to the girl I married?” to which Amy Adams responds, “She died in childbirth.” The absence of specific names for our married couple is intentional. One scene (that others wanted to cut) was “the kale salad scene.” Heller described it as a difficult one for Amy Adams to play and “the heart of the film.” As she explained, “It’s that feeling of becoming more and more invisible as you age.” (Tell me about it. No, don’t. I live it daily.)

In the scene, the waiter seems to disregard Amy’s order of a kale salad on more than one occasion. The actor playing the waiter asked the director why the waiter doesn’t seem to respond to Amy Adams repeated request for a kale salad, as she dines out with former work colleagues. Heller told him, “Your ears are not tuned to the sound of any woman over 40.” Adams declares herself a “sand cow” and says, “The woman that I used to be, she’s down here in my intestines, buried in kale.”

SETS/CASTING

Marielle Heller

Marielle Heller on the Red Carpet outside the Music Box Theater in Chicago during the 60th Chicago International Film Festival on October 21, 2024.

One interesting fact was that the team looking for a house to use for filming looked at over 60  of them. Heller said, “There was more effort to make the movie seem effortless than you could imagine.” (She stumbled upon the house at 2 a.m. on Zillow). She explained that the house they were seeking should demonstrate a certain level of good taste, but “with a layer of baby crap over the good taste.” The most difficult casting was that of the BookBaby Moms. Best BookBaby Moms scene is where each confides an anecdote about their failures as keepers of the household’s pets, whether a bird, a fish or a cat. The sharing occurred after Adams said, in response to inquiries from her BookBaby friends about the couple’s recent separation, “I just had to break out of it. And I killed the cat this week, which made me aware that I’m not doing well emotionally.”

HUMOR

It is dead-pan delivery of lines like the one about the cat that will amuse anyone with a sense of humor— especially any woman who is a new mother struggling to keep her head above water. The script (a collaboration between the author of the book and Heller) is particularly good. It conveys laughs that are truisms that hit home, as when Adams says, “I needed to dig around in the dark and just find myself again.” She salutes all women who have given birth, citing “That shared bond of all you’ve given up for the continuation of the species.”

One of the best and most humorous techniques that Heller uses throughout the film is to show the socially correct response, contrasted with the actual REAL response. One such exchange occurs in the produce aisle of the grocery store in response to a work colleague who asks Amy about being home all day with her new child. (REAL response, unsaid:“I would like to feel content, but instead I feel like I’m trapped within a prison of my own making.”) Instead, she trots out the socially and politically correct response. Scott McNairy as the husband finally admits, “I didn’t see all that you were giving up by being at home.” (An apology is tendered, which Heller said made some people feel uncomfortable. As for herself: “We need to see more men apologize in movies.”) Responding to the platitude “choose happiness” with a strong slap would be the real response. “I’ll try” is what women are conditioned to respond.

DIFFICULT SCENES

There are multiple dogs in the film. When asked about the difficulties of working with animals, Heller said, “With every dog there is a trainer who is talking off-camera. I didn’t know how chaotic that would feel.” She also embraced more unscripted spontaneity than in past films,
because of the small child (actually two twin boys) whose immediate responses needed to be captured. The twins were wonderful in their part and any mother of a small boy will be able to relate to the antics of the toddler.

Asked about one of her favorite scenes, Heller singled out the scene that was her favorite scene to watch with an audience. It involved Amy’s increasing feeling that she is somehow changing and becoming more animalistic. Heller’s brother, Nate, (who played the singing male leader of the Book Babies club) accused his sister of liking gross things. In the scene Amy Adams examines some changes her body is undergoing and takes action. As someone who has a friend who absolutely loves the “Dr. Pimple-popper” television segments, I’ll leave the specifics up to you to discover when you see the film in December (it premieres December 6th), but suffice it to say that it hasn’t been done on film in any movie I’ve seen.

Marielle Heller

Marielle Heller, Director of “Nightbitch,” onstage at the Music Box Theater during the Q&A at the 60th Chicago International Film Festival on October 21, 2024.

CONCLUSION
You’ll want to put this one on your “Things that make you laugh and cry at the same time,” —especially if you’re a Mom (as I am). If you’ve ever found yourself saying, “I don’t want anything or anyone else needing me or touching me,” then this is the film for you. Remember this scripted line if you’re still just giving the politically correct response to those questions about life with a new baby, “Insist on your joy. Time is short.”
Words to live by and a good reason to see “Nightbitch.”

 

 

Walz versus Vance on CBS in VP Debate on 10/1/2024

 

J.D Vance & Tim Walz

J.D. Vance and Tim Walz debated on 10/1/2024 as Vice Presidential candidates on CBS.

I just watched the Vice Presidential debate between J.D. Vance and Tim Walz.The Talking Heads are suggesting that Walz may have been “in over his head” in debating the slick and chameleon-like Vance, who seems to have made a career of being all things to all people. Vance described Donald J. Trump as “America’s Hitler” in e-mail pronouncements of yore and severely criticized Trump’s performance in office, but tonight he was all in on supporting DJT.

Most people consider it a situation where the more experienced debater (Vance) performed better on style, but Walz did just as well (a tie) on substance.  Vance’s statements were often duplicitous and that of a chameleon who takes the position that he says what he thinks people want to hear. It reminded me of the recent Supreme Court candidates who answered Congress the way they thought would win them lifetime seats on the Court and then went ahead and did exactly what they planned to do all along, overturn Roe v. Wade.

I did my usual copious note-taking. I want to resurrect a couple of moments in the debate that stood out to me, just as the “eating dogs and cats” remarks in the last Harris/DJT debate stood out.

THE 2 WORST MOMENTS: WALZ & VANCE

VANCE 

J.D. Vance

J.D. Vance (GOP candidate for VP) and eyeliner.

For me, the worst moment from J.D. Vance was his failure to admit that Donald Trump lost the 2020 election. As Tim Walz said,“A President’s words matter. It is not right to deny what happened. 2020 was the first time that a President tried to overturn the peaceful transition of power. The winner has got to be the winner.” Walz called it “a damning non-answer.” He was right.

WALZ

For Governor Walz of Minnesota, his weakest moment was when he was called out on having said that he had been present in China during Tiananmen Square. Rather than wade into that murky water and admit that he misspoke or was caught in a situation that caused Brian Williams to be removed from his post as chief anchor (and end up much less visible on our TV screens), he gave an answer that David Axelrod said would have been more comprehensible if given in Chinese.[When  Vance at the outset after Question #1 was cornered, rather than answer the very first question that he was asked about Iran, he dodged and weaved and gave us 2 minutes about himself without answering the initial question.]

Tim Walz

Tim Walz, Governor of Minnesota and Democratic candidate for Vice President on 10/1/2024.

In the summer of ’89 Walz traveled to China, he told us. He also told us that he started a program to take kids to China.  “My community knows who I am. I’ve tried to do the best job I can. I was elected to Congress  12 times. Governor of Minnesota twice. To make sure that I make this right. (*Wasn’t the question about whether he was at Tiananmen Square protests? So far Walz hasn’t explained the discrepancy.) 

ABORTION

Vance said he “never supported a national ban,” a lie, because  he DID support a national abortion ban. In 2022 in an interview when he was running for the Senate he said, “I certainly would like abortion to be illegal nationally.” On his website, he said he was “100% pro-life” and GOP ” has got to earn people’s trust back.”   Tonight, he talked about how the GOP needed to “reach out,” which made no sense at all. This “softening” of his intractable anti-abortion stance was part of the plan to try to make DJT seem more “sane” and reasonable.

Here are a few lines that struck me beyond the ones mentioned above:

Walz on the Middle East and nuclear weapons: “Iran is closer to a nuclear weapon because Donald Trump nixed the plan we had and left nothing in its place.”

Walz on Climate Change and our changing weather patterns (especially as they apply to farmers):Our #1 export cannot be topsoil from these massive storms.”

Walz on statements that foster divisiveness: “This is what happens when you don’t want to solve it. The remarks about eating cats and dogs vilified a large number of people in Springfield, Ohio, who were in the country legally. The Governor had to send National Guard to escort first graders to school.”

I also enjoyed Walz’s response, “Just mind your own business. Things worked best when Roe v. Wade was the law.” Another good one-liner was when Walz gave an incredulous response to DJT’s “I have a concept of a plan” response about an overhaul of the Affordable Care Act that he now has had 9 and 1/2 years to develop. Walz  said, ““I have a concept of a plan. That cracked me up. I have a fourth grader who wouldn’t have given me that.”

Margaret Brennan

Margaret Brennan (“Face the Nation”) who moderated along with Norah O’Donnell on CBS.

After the scripture quote from Matthew (”What we do unto the least of our brethren,” etc.) by Walz, Vance commandeered the time  and ranted on virtually uninterruptedly. The female moderators (Nora O’Donnell and Margaret Brennan on CBS) finally cut his mike. You go, Girls! Vance’s Ivy League polish showed; the man’s not a dummy. The split screen favored him, not Walz, even though Walz is without a doubt the more genuine and truthful of the two.

About the Democratic party:  WALZ – “We’re pro women. We’re pro freedom.  We are pro freedom for women to make their own choices.” He cited the Democratic Party’s $6,000 child tax credit and Amber Thurman, who was made to drive 600 miles to get health care in North Carolina. 

Two Big Lies that Vance made were to say that DJT gave up power peacefully and that DJT saved Obamacare. Vance’s nose must have grown a foot, at least, after those remarks.

One good thing that everyone seemed to appreciate was the relative civility of the debate, “like the old days.” However, when one realizes that it was Vance’s Master Plan to lie to the public, just as happened with the testimony of the Supreme Court appointees who then went ahead to do what they had said, under oath, they would not do re Roe v. Wade, well—–

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