A documentary about the United States’ withdrawal from Afghanistan after nearly 20 years. It’s heart-breaking. I have a Special Forces pal, who was over there in the earliest stages. I thought of him often. I can’t repeat his stories, of course, but they were 100% more intelligent than the dispatches coming from the media or the Washington press conferences. Anyway. Nothing about this story is good but I thought this was a beautifully done documentary. I reviewed for Ebert.
It’s hard to even express the impact she had on me as a child, through participating in her after-school Theatre program, starting at age 9 years old. I worked with her well into high school. She ran her theatre program through the school system sometimes, but it was also a local community group, ran out of the library (where I eventually had my first after-school job). Taking her classes was a huge part of my life. We did plays, of course. I remember doing Free to Be You and Me. And a production of Alice in Wonderland. But it wasn’t just about putting up plays. We did theatre games and exercises.
One of the things I really remember is she was STRICT. This was not all fun and games. She TRAINED us. It was like she was preparing us to head out to Broadway. We had to be there early (so we would be ready to go the moment the class started – she wouldn’t let you in if you came late, OR if she did let you in she would let you KNOW this was not acceptable). We had to have our pencils sharpened, we had to be ready to work the MOMENT the class started. You couldn’t chatter or fuss or fidget. You had to pay attention. She taught us how to focus. How to surrender our lives, at least for the time the class was in process. If you’ve ever been in any rehearsal process, then you know that that’s what is required. You have to be totally there, and in the moment, and forget everything else. The concentration this takes is enormous and Jan TRAINED our concentration. And I am telling you, as I moved on in my acting life as an adult, being tossed into different processes with different actor pools, and I would see people with poor discipline, or shaky concentration abilities, or … an inability to just sit still and LISTEN – and there were times when I would take a moment and thank Jan Grant in my head for drilling into us the importance of being prepared and being professional. Remember, we were 8, 9, 10 years old. We were not precocious New York theatre kids. This was just a little community theatre group but she was a professional and she WORKED on us. She made us work on our posture, diction, stage presence, emotional preparation, but more than anything else, having a professional attitude. Professional meant having respect for your peers, for the director, and for the process. So important.
All of this would have been enough to secure Jan Grant a place in my personal emotional lexicon. (Like, later, Kimber Wheelock. I have been very fortunate in my acting teachers. Angels showed up from the jump.)
But then, amazingly, about 10 years later, I actually worked with Jan Grant as a peer, I got to act with her, and alongside her, in a production of Anne of Green Gables, when I played Anne and she played Mrs. Lynde (brilliantly). Her reading of the line “Yoo-hoo! Matthew! Where you off to?” was the stuff of legend. It was more like:
“YOOOOO-HOOOOOO! MATTH-EWWWWWWWW! WHERE YA’ OFF TOOOOO?”
As funny as it was, look at how she was pointing up all those “oooo” rhymes with her pronunciation. She literally didn’t miss a beat. She didn’t miss ANYthing.
I knew I had a picture of Mitchell and Jan, backstage, screaming that line together. And I found it!
To end up getting to work alongside her in a play was so special!
That’s Jan Grant over on the right. I can be seen on the second floor, mooning around on the ladder outside my window.
There are so many memories, but here’s the main one. At the end of the play, I had to come onstage, and I’m all happy and excited about something, and I enter Green Gables and Marilla (Julie Pember) and Mrs. Lynde (Jan Grant) had to break the news to me that Matthew died. I enter the scene a happy young girl and then a moment later am forever changed by the tragedy, and etc. It’s one of those scenes that WORRY you as a young actor. Because it has to happen in real time. The first time we did the scene for real in rehearsal, Jan in her rehearsal Victorian-era garb (she always came prepared, with her own hats, and gloves, and collars, and sewing kits – she understood business!). Anyway, I entered, and she turned to me, and I was completely blown back by the sight of tears literally streaming down her face. I can see it now. STREAMING. And she said, in this long slow perfectly-articulated sob, “Ohhhh Anne.”
To this day I feel the power of it. She was IN it. (She was in it every night to that degree. It was always there for her. Her work was immaculate). Like I said, I was a young actor and I was already highly trained but I was nervous going into that scene. “What if I don’t feel it in the moment? What do I do if I can’t start crying on the spot?” You know. Young actor concerns. I was nervous about it, and I forgot there were other people onstage and that the moment wasn’t MINE but a collective one. Just be present and pay attention. You don’t have to WORK at anything. You know the story. But, whatever: young actors need to learn these lessons. And Jan helped me learn it.
Jan Grant GAVE me that moment in the play. I never had to WORK to get up the emotion about Matthew’s death. I never had to prepare myself going into the scene, tricking myself, or gearing myself up, to save it in reserve for when the news drops (all the things you have to do. Now, if the actress playing Mrs. Lynde sucked, then yes, I would have had to fall back on my own reserves. But in this case, she was there for me, ahead of me, and she just tossed the whole scene at me. I got everything I needed FROM her, and, honestly, in acting, this is the Utopia you want.) All I had to do was walk on the damn stage, and she would slowly turn around to look at me, tears pouring down her face and she’d say slowly and mournfully, “Ohhhh Anne” (the same way every. night. Every. NIGHT. It never altered. And it was always real. That’s how good she was.) I never had to DO anything to “get there”.
It was an honor to actually get to share that moment with her onstage, especially since she played such a huge role in my childhood, in my understanding that acting was a technique, a craft, and a worthy way to spend your time. Acting wasn’t a hobby, it was a calling, a valid job, and I got that early (yes, because of my aunt Regina, who was a professional actress, but also because of Jan). Jan could be intimidating! She demanded a LOT of us children in her class. She would make us speak properly, enunciate. You were not allowed to murmur, to not be heard. She demanded perfection when we rehearsed something. She would drill us over and over until we got it right. She shared stories about her own process. We hung on every word. We wanted to please her. We worked our butts off for her.
And there we were 10 years later, and I could SEE what her focus on discipline, concentration, and focus looked like in the final result (as well as in the rehearsal process, where she was constantly inventing things, trying things. Process is not passive! You have to find your way towards what you are trying to accomplish. And you have to try things BIG. You can’t “save it up” for opening night. It doesn’t work like that). So I saw, working WITH her, what all that work she put us through as kids looked like in reality. She trained us that hard because she knew that if we wanted to do this thing we needed to be ready.
I was so so lucky to have Jan in my life at such a tender young age. We are all sharing stories about her on Facebook. Jan Grant made such a difference.
Every year John Waters does a Top 10 Movies list for Art Forum, and it’s one of the most highly anticipated lists among movie-lovers, critics, etc. His taste is eclectic, to say the least, and he doesn’t focus on the usual suspects. You can already almost tell what’s going to win everything. He stays true to his own tastes, something I always try to do in my own end-of-year lists. What I love about John Waters’ lists is how wide-ranging it is, how disinterested in consensus. It’s like consensus doesn’t even exist. This is my goal, 100%. His list is pure personal taste, perverse even (if you think like the status quo) and I LOVE that. It’s easy to feel pressure to like certain movies. Because, make no mistake, your end-of-year lists WILL be mocked, dragged through the coals, pierced by nay-sayers, interrogated for ideological reasons. I love when people just have fun with this stuff.
Well, his 2022 list came out, and there are many there I have seen, more I have NOT seen, and I was THRILLED to see that at number 7 was Dinner in America, a movie I beat the drum for HARD when it first came out, here, on Insta, on FB, on Twitter. I reviewed for Ebert, first of all, but then continued to write about it on my site. I’ve seen it four times by now. Dinner in America is going to be one of THOSE. I’m quoted on the poster!
I’ve already made up a couple of Top 10s for different sites – yes, I switch the lists up, depending – in general, I hate lists – but Dinner in America has a permanent spot in my top 10. And, as John Waters said, “nobody noticed”. I do want to correct him and shout, “I NOTICED.”
Thankfully, a couple of people I know have sought out the film purely because John Waters called it out – and I know for a fact a couple of people watched it because I recommended it, so I am very proud to be this John-Waters-adjacent!
Here’s the trailer for Dinner in America. See it, dammit! John Waters loved it!
The chilling telegram from the morning of December 7, 1941:
Here is a cool fact about my home state, little Rhode Island:
There are only a handful of newspapers in the United States that come out on Sunday afternoon/evening, (as opposed to Sunday morning) and one of them is the local paper for Westerly, (a small town in Rhode Island), called The Westerly Sun.
Because The Westerly Sun comes out at the odd time of 3 pm on Sunday, it hadn’t gone to press when word of the attack came, and so it was the only newspaper in the entire country to report the bombing of Pearl Harbor on the actual day of the attack, Sunday, Dec. 7, 1941.
I am picturing that tiny clapboard newspaper office in Westerly, off route 1 … a newspaper with a miniscule circulation. It is a Sunday morning and the staff of the newspaper, who normally report on school committee meetings and the local police beat are all there, on the forefront of a national catastrophe, putting the front page together on that historic day.
On December 8, 1941, President Franklin Delano Roosevelt made what one of his most famous speeches. The speech originally read “a date which will live in world history”, but Roosevelt crossed that out and put in “infamy” instead. Similar to the editing of the opening phrases in the Declaration of Independence (where “life, liberty and property” turned into “life, liberty and the pursuit of happiness”, much much better), “infamy” put a moral condemnation into the language. Roosevelt’s notes and edits are preserved in the National Archives:
The speech, as it was read:
Yesterday, December 7, 1941 – a date which will live in infamy – the United States of America was suddenly and deliberately attacked by naval and air forces of the Empire of Japan.
The United States was at peace with that nation and, at the solicitation of Japan, was still in conversation with its Government and its Emperor looking toward the maintenance of peace in the Pacific. Indeed, one hour after Japanese air squadrons had commenced bombing in Oahu, the Japanese Ambassador to the United States and his colleague delivered to the Secretary of State a formal reply to a recent American message. While this reply stated that it seemed useless to continue the existing diplomatic negotiations, it contained no threat or hint of war or armed attack.
It will be recorded that the distance of Hawaii from Japan makes it obvious that the attack was deliberately planned many days or even weeks ago. During the intervening time the Japanese Government has deliberately sought to deceive the United States by false statements and expressions of hope for continued peace.
The attack yesterday on the Hawaiian Islands has caused severe damage to American naval and military forces. Very many American lives have been lost. In addition American ships have been reported torpedoed on the high seas between San Francisco and Honolulu.
Yesterday the Japanese Government also launched an attack against Malaya. Last night Japanese forces attacked Hong Kong. Last night Japanese forces attacked Guam. Last night Japanese forces attacked the Philippine Islands. Last night the Japanese attacked Wake Island. This morning the Japanese attacked Midway Island.
Japan has, therefore, undertaken a surprise offensive extending throughout the Pacific area. The facts of yesterday speak for themselves. The people of the United States have already formed their opinions and well understand the implications to the very life and safety of our nation.
As Commander-in-Chief of the Army and Navy, I have directed that all measures be taken for our defense.
Always will we remember the character of the onslaught against us. No matter how long it may take us to overcome this premeditated invasion, the American people in their righteous might will win through to absolute victory.
I believe I interpret the will of the Congress and of the people when I assert that we will not only defend ourselves to the uttermost but will make very certain that this form of treachery shall never endanger us again.
Hostilities exist. There is no blinking at the fact that our people, our territory and our interests are in grave danger.
With confidence in our armed forces – with the unbounded determination of our people – we will gain the inevitable triumph – so help us God.
I ask that the Congress declare that since the unprovoked and dastardly attack by Japan on Sunday, December seventh, a state of war has existed between the United States and the Japanese Empire.
30 minutes after Roosevelt finished his speech, Congress declared war on Japan.
On the day before the 2016 presidential election, I took a tour of Pearl Harbor (both the U.S.S. Arizona memorial and the U.S.S. Missouri). It was a somber and patriotic day, and I am glad I did it when I did it. It was surreal, though. I have always wanted to visit Pearl Harbor. I am not a “tropical island” kind of person. Even though Hawaii is beautiful I’m not sure I ever would have chosen it as a spot for a holiday. But while I was in Hawaii for the Film Festival, it was not even a question: I had to go to Pearl Harbor and pay my respects. It was the only tourist-y thing I did. Well, I visited Ernie Pyle’s grave, too. I did the full WWII tour: Pearl Harbor, and then onto the military base afterwards to tour the impressive U.S.S. Missouri, where the surrender was signed on the deck (now known as the “surrender deck”) in Tokyo Bay.
The U.S.S. Arizona memorial, by the way, was funded by a concert Elvis gave in Hawaii in 1961. He donated all of the proceeds of the concert to the planned memorial, and to this day Elvis fan clubs from around the world send donations for the upkeep of the memorial.
During the course of the war, First Lady Eleanor Roosevelt kept a scrap of paper with a poem on it in her purse:
Dear Lord
Lest I continue
My complacent way
Help me to remember somehow out there
A man died for me today
As long as there be war I then must
Ask and answer:
Am I worth dying for?
My visit to Pearl Harbor
At the back of the USS Arizona memorial: The names.
The submerged USS Arizona. Oil still leaks from the ship. You can smell it in the air.
The submarine USS Bowfin
The entrance to the USS Arizona Memorial.
The USS Arizona memorial. The mood was quiet. People whispered.
My tour bus arrived at Pearl Harbor at 6:45 a.m. Sunrise over Pearl Harbor.
The USS Oklahoma memorial. Every marble pole has a name on it. This memorial is on the military base, right near where the USS Missouri is docked. No fanfare: it’s at the side of the road.
The oil slick in the water around the sunken USS Arizona. A mass grave. Veterans of the attack are still interred there, once they die, with ceremonies attended only by the families. No press. Their ashes are placed below. They join their fallen shipmates.
You take a boat out to the USS Arizona memorial.
One of the missiles standing in the yard at the Pearl Harbor visitors’ center
Looking up through the open roof of the USS Arizona memorial
From Melvin Tolson’s “Rendezvous with America”:
I have a rendezvous with America
This Seventh of December.
The maiden freshness of Pearl Harbor’s dawn,
The peace of seas that thieve the breath,
I shall remember.
Then
Out of yonder Sunrise Land of Death
The fascist spawn
Strikes like the talons of the mad harpoon,
Strikes like the moccasin in the black lagoon,
Strikes like the fury of the raw typhoon.
The traitor’s ruse
And the traitor’s lie,
Pearl Harbor’s ruins
Of sea and sky,
Shall live with me
Till the day I die.
Here,
Now,
At Pearl Harbor, I remember
I have a rendezvous at Plymouth Rock and Valley Forge
This Seventh of December.
If you’ve been reading entertainment news then you already know: Yesterday, all the members of the NYFCC met up at Lincoln Center to vote on this year’s awards. It was so good to see people – friends I rarely get to see – Keith, Dana, Stephanie, Tomris – and it was a long day, as voting sometimes is (although nothing was longer than our Covid vote via Zoom). I am very pleased with our award winners and very much look forward to celebrating all of them – and WITH them – at our awards ceremony on January 4th. Proud of our list. There are some surprises. I’m proud when our list doesn’t look like every other list out there. It speaks well of our group, I think. I also love the Special Awards we chose, one of which is close to my heart. (Members come with suggestions, and then we vote.) Here are our winners:
Best Picture
TÁR, directed by Todd Field
Best Director
S.S. Rajamouli, RRR
Best Screenplay
Martin McDonagh, The Banshees of Inisherin
Best Actress
Cate Blanchett, TÁR
Best Actor
Colin Farrell, The Banshees of Inisherin and After Yang
Best Supporting Actress
Keke Palmer, Nope
Best Supporting Actor
Ke Huy Quan, Everything Everywhere All at Once
Best Cinematographer
Claudio Miranda, Top Gun: Maverick
Best Animated Film
Marcel the Shell with Shoes On, directed by Dean Fleischer-Camp
Best Non-Fiction Film (Documentary)
All the Beauty and the Bloodshed, directed by Laura Poitras
Best International Film
EO, directed by Jerzy Skolimowski
Best First Film
Aftersun, directed by Charlotte Wells
— Jake Perlin, curator, distributor and publisher in recognition of his indispensable contributions to film culture.
— dGenerate Films for its invaluable work bringing independent films to China.
— Jafar Panahi, for “dogged bravery as an artist, and for the humanity and beauty of a body of work created under the most oppressive circumstances.
We also give two student scholarships, one to an undergraduate student, one to a grad student. There’s a cash prize as well as an invite to the dinner. I was on the committee that chose these two, so congratulations to both. You’re fine writers and thinkers!
Undergraduate, Nico Pedrero-Setzer
Graduate, Greg Nussen
Something in the Dirt (2022; d. Aaron Moorhead, Justin Benson)
I really liked this. If you like losing yourself in conspiracy theories – without being, like, a QAnon-type ready to shoot up a pizza parlor – then this is super fun. I reviewed for Ebert.
Argentina 1985 (2022; d. Santiago Mitre)
Argentina, 1985 is my kind of movie and I really liked it. I’m biased towards it already due to its subject matte: military dictatorships, courtroom/investigative dramas, the catastrophe of the “disappeared” in Latin America, as well as an underdog public prosecutor facing death threats going up against a strong institutional edifice (the military, the juntas, the whole shebang), the lies people tell themselves, the lies people insist on believing in, because if they actually admitted the truth, they would have to acknowledge the horrors they helped support. Based on a true story. Like I said, I’m already biased towards something like this – but I felt it was really good, and moving, really good acting, etc.
Unforgotten (2018-2021)
Mum told me about this one. I decided to watch at least the pilot, and then, whaddya know, I binged the whole thing in a couple of days. It is EXCELLENT.
Eight is Enough, Season 5, episode 13, “Vows” (1981; d. Irving J. Moore)
This was a revelation. I put up my post about Ralph Macchio on his birthday, where I write about an episode of Eight is Enough that saved my life. Knowing what I know now (that bipolar swarmed my brain at age 12, alongside my first period, cuz that’s how it happens for girls, good times) … I don’t think “saved my life” is an exaggeration. It’s amazing to me that I only saw the episode once – maybe one more time in re-runs? It’s not like Eight is Enough is in constant syndication rotation. It’s also not out on box set. I was never a big fan of the show, but I tuned in because of RALPH. And this one episode BURNED INTO MY SOUL. I posted about it on Instagram and – amazingly – a woman said that mp4s of each episode have been uploaded – and she provided a link. So I was able to watch it again! The Ralph Macchio post was written totally from memory: look how much detail remains in my head. Incredible: Watching the episode again, I was amazed at how much I remembered. It’s all accurate. That’s how much of an impression it made on me. The rest of the episode was like walking into an altered reality and it made me think, “……….. This was a hit show?” It’s wild because … there’s a laugh track. And CLEARLY there isn’t an audience there. It’s very strange. And why are all these ADULTS hanging around the house?? And they all appear to be the same age! Anyway, it was truly amazing to watch this episode again. Thank you random stranger on the internet!! I watched the silliness and had a moment where I said – to the episode – “Thank you for being there when I needed it.” Not kidding.
The Glass Key (1942; d. Stuart Heisler)
Alan Ladd and Veronica Lake, together again. They had such amazing chemistry, particularly because he was so tight-lipped, tough, taciturn, wary. Here, he’s not as sociopathic as he is in This Gun for Hire, but compelling nonetheless. I love her. And Brian Donlevy is great too.
Conversations with a Killer: The John Wayne Gacy Tapes (2022; d. Joe Berlinger)
The next installment of Joe Berlinger Serial Killers on Tape docuseries. I mean, it’s not an official series, but … I watched the Jeffrey Dahmer one last month, there was the Ted Bundy one, and now there’s the John Wayne Gacy one. I think this is my second time with this one. Amazing interviews: people who knew him at every stage. The guy was truly terrifying, a monster in our collective dreams. The tapes are chilling.
Blue Dahlia (1946; d. George Marshall)
More Alan Ladd and Veronica Lake. A haunting California noir: up and down the Pacific Coast Highway, from LA to Malibu and back, on dark nights … Amazing mood and setting. It’s post-WWII – JUST – and there is a LOT of anxiety, particularly about servicemen coming home to wives they haven’t seen for years. What have the women been getting up to? NOTHING GOOD.
Capturing the Killer Nurse (2022; d. Tim Travers Hawkins)
In the season where everyone is watching all these great films – and I am too – I do want to recommend the new Netflix doc with the sensationalistic and yet truthful title “Capturing the Killer Nurse” about the investigation that finally led to the arrest of “nurse” Charles Cullen, who acted as an angel of death through multiple hospitals until finally one brave nurse/co-worker not only figured it out but worked to help capture him and trap him. You know how docuseries now and everything else are so drawwwwwn out and everything is 4 episodes long? Dammit, learn how to tell a story in an hour and a half like your ancestors. It’ll be better, I promise. Anyway, this one does its job and horrifyingly well in an hour and thirty. There are a ton of questions that the doc doesn’t address (who IS this guy, and why did he do it?). Cullen admitted to killing 29 patients – but detectives believe he could have killed up to 400, there’s enough evidence point to it. There’s some pablum included about how he felt “unsafe” in his house as a kid and blah blah oh boo hoo. There’s a ton of audio footage of him talking to investigators, because once he was found out, he caved, and just admitted to everything, almost like it was a relief to just be who he really was, a heartless executioner. The doc really isn’t about him. It’s about the hospitals, his co-workers, and his victims. You get to know the victims and the pain this psycho caused. Even though I wanted a psychological profile, this really was the best choice I think to put the focus on 1. the victims 2. the nurses who worked with him who had no idea and who also saw little red flags but didn’t put it together because … how could you? and 3. the two detectives who finally decided to go after this guy and how they did it. It’s a very good story showing the very admirable work of two New Jersey detectives who had no idea about all the medical stuff, couldn’t even read a chart – but knew enough to get the help they needed to interpret all this data for them. They they had to get the “smoking gun” and/or syringe in order to make this thing stick, and they WORKED this very difficult case in the face of sinister hospital cover-ups and their own incomprehension in terms of medical language. One brave nurse – at great risk to herself – dug into the records, printed stuff out in secret and helped the detectives SEE what she saw in those damning charts. It’s grisly stuff and terrifying but the doc isn’t just interested in the scandal. The director really goes at the moral terror a case like this causes, and it allows for that moral and ethical horror to emanate. I watch a lot of these docuseries and most are so-so and/or make me think “is there any reason you couldn’t tell this story in an hour and a half?” Here’s the killer with the two detectives responsible for putting this case together – Tim Braun and Danny Baldwin.
Tár (2022; d. Todd Field)
What a film! There are so many movies that self-consciously (and sometimes self-importantly) address “how we live now” and reviewers call them “timely” or “prescient” or whatever – but, imo, the majority of those movies will sink like a stone and be forever forgotten, attached only to their own time. Just you wait: in a couple years, words like “gaslight” will be like “Oh wow, that’s so 2018.” You’ll be able to nail stuff down to almost a particular MONTH. A movie like Casablanca was designed to be entertaining, but it REALLY was about the plight of refugees, clustering in Morocco, trying to get to Portugal. Now THAT is a successful way to slide in a relevant message, without sacrificing the movie’s intent. Tár is the story of a brilliant famous conductor (Cate Blanchett) whose life unravels in a matter of months, due to a couple of accusations – one from a former protegee who ended up killing herself – and then there are students who record her lectures, and splice “inflammatory” comments together, to make Lydia look terrible. She’s famous but she is not well-liked. It’s the story of her – yes – and her girlfriend (played by the superb Nina Hoss) but for me … it’s ABOUT how we live now, with the constant threat of accusation. People are fired because of the accusation. No due process. No opportunity to learn or grow, or even apologize and course-correct. You must vanish forever. But … people can’t vanish forever. They’re still alive. There’s a ritual to all of this: a ritual of denouncements, and even if the person is your friend, you must denounce them. Scandals follow people from job to job, and etc. EVEN IF the person apologized, the scandal doesn’t die. (Look at what just happened with Letitia Wright. She apologized. Two years ago. The internet will never ever let her forget.) Tár is not explicitly trying to make points about how we live now. It’s more like “how we live now” has seeped into the pores of the film itself: it’s a mood, an atmosphere, an electrical buzz in the air we breathe. Lydia is famous. She is not some random citizen with 200 Instagram followers who wore an inappropriate Halloween costume in high school and now can’t get into grad school because of it. Lydia IS difficult, she DID behave badly with her protegee, and she DID make those comments in the lectures, although imo they weren’t that bad. They were off-the-cuff comments, maybe a little cranky and imperious, but … enough for an entire life to be trashed? (At one point, one of her students says to her, “As a BIPOC pangender person, I won’t listen to Bach because of his patriarchal attitudes and how poorly he treated women.” Her response is along the lines of what you would imagine. The clips go viral. But again, the movie isn’t ABOUT that: it’s more about what this free-floating sense of indiscriminate PERSECUTION actually feels like on a daily level. Because make no mistake: it is something new. Being “canceled” is not new – see, Scarlet Letter, see the village stocks, see … the history of humanity … but the internet super-charges the situation. You can’t even move to another town and try to start again. Tar unfolds almost like a horror movie, and Lydia’s rapid deterioration comes out of this free-floating indiscriminate sense of threat, AND from the feeling that no matter what you do or say, no apology will be sufficient. It’s all there, in the cinematography, the exquisite sound design, the colors allowed in the palette (the palette is very strict), the sense of psychological dread … even if Lydia isn’t aware of it, we in the audience ARE. Let me point you to Glenn Kenny’s excellent review.
The Post (2017; d. Steven Spielberg)
Love it. Have seen it about 5 times by now. It’s comfort food. I needed it this month.
There There (2022; d. Andrew Bujalski)
Speaking of movies trying to address “how we live now” – There There was filmed during COVID, with none of the actors – or director or cinematographer – being in the same place at the same time. It felt more like an experiment than a movie – that’s not necessarily a bad thing, but it didn’t work for me. I reviewed for Ebert.
Lady Chatterley’s Lover (2022; d. Laure de Clermont-Tonnerre)
I’ve seen so many adaptations of this. It’s hard to make it seem fresh. It’s hard to make it, in general. This is really good! I reviewed for Ebert.
Saturday’s Children (1940; d. Vincent Sherman)
John Garfield and Anne Shirley star as a young married couple struggling to make ends meet. Claude Rains plays the girl’s father, in a wonderfully warm performance. Garfield has to play a shy tongue-tied man, perhaps a bit of a stretch, but he makes it work. I loved the section where they were dating but not dating … they were just “hanging out” … they were friends … Uh-huh. “Friends”. And she kept insisting they were just hanging out, but she didn’t realize she was really falling for him, and he was too shy and polite to make a real move. Her family can see what’s going on before she can. A very realistic film, about regular people living regular lives, which – of course – are not regular at all.
The House on Telegraph Hill (1951; d. Robert Wise)
This film is so disturbing. So much anxiety in it. Anxiety in every frame.
EO (2022; d. Jerzy Skolimowski)
For me, there are two best films of the year: Jafar Panahi’s No Bears and this one. I was overwhelmed by EO. It hit me way harder than I was prepared for. It’s a movie about a donkey. Okay. I love donkeys. Who doesn’t love donkeys? The film is told from the POV of the donkey, known as EO … he is first seen performing in a circus. Then the circus is shut down and he finds himself in another place. And then another place. The universe is unpredictable, capricious, whimsical in sometimes sinister ways, as seen through an animal’s eyes. My favorite review of this special film by a Polish master is my friend Stephanie Zacharek’s review in Time. Please see EO!
And here’s the trailer:
Barbarian (2022; d. Zach Cregger)
Allison had seen this so she made me watch it, and then filmed me as I watched it. Freaking out. This is how we like to watch movies. We have never before explored our mutual love of horror movies so this was a lot of fun. Justin Long is so good. Interesting fact: I got curious about the director of this, especially when the “barbarian” appeared. I wondered: okay, this person who made this is REALLY grappling with some stuff and I wonder what’s going on. I don’t know anything about Cregger, so I looked him up. He’s super young. He comes from the world of comedy. I instantly understood. If this was made by a young woman, it would have “made sense”, or at least a certain kind of sense. But that this was made by a young man tells me that he is fully aware of what has been happening, he is interrogating his part in it (coincidental and otherwise) AND he is attempting to enter the mindset of women, to understand what life must be like. Because it’s DIFFERENT. If you imagine the roles reversed in Barbarian: if she was there first, and he showed up? No way would she have let him in. This isn’t unfair. This is … how we’re built, based on millennia of learned experience. From the youngest pre-verbal age, you start to absorb messages and moods and feelings. Biology plays a part too. So much so you’re not aware of it, it’s inside of you, it IS you. I speak from experience. Don’t tell me my experience of living in my own body isn’t valid. I would never do that to someone else. Ever. I read an interview with Cregger who said he read Gavin de Becker’s The Gift of Fear – !!! – and it made him aware of the level of threat women live with, walk around with, every day, all day. (I would recommend all men reading that book! It helped me enormously. A cop gave it to me when I was 25, basically like: “Listen to when you feel fear. It’s a gift. You’re under threat. Trust it.” Game-changer for me. I recommend it for everyone, though.)Every moment involves a threat assessment, even with openly friendly men (maybe even especially with openly friendly men). It’s wired into us. I don’t even think about it. And so Cregger decided to make a movie about this, and incorporating every “red flag” he could possibly think up. So smart. The “barbarian” is fascinating: Allison said she hadn’t thought much about it on her first watch: it was just this scary creature. Second watch though: she got it. This movie is really ABOUT something. It’s also scary as shit. Very well done. Incredible that this is Cregger’s first film.
The Babadook (2014; d. Jennifer Kent)
And so after Barbarian, I returned the favor and showed Allison The Babadook, which she had never seen. I’ve said this before: it’s one of the scariest movies I’ve ever seen, and my first time watching it, about half of the way through, I remember thinking, wildly, “I honestly don’t know how much more of this I can take.” Beyond the scary factor, the film is one of the most insightful and fully sustained metaphors for mental illness I can think of. It’s along the lines of The Shining, which also works as fully sustained metaphor. What REALLY puts Babadook into the canon of films-about-mental-illness is the final scene. I couldn’t fully absorb the final scene the first time I watched it. I don’t think I realized the import. But since then, I have thought of it often. That final scene is a perfect metaphor for what it is like, living with a mental illness. It really is a monster in the basement. And it’s very scary. But you have to find a way to live with it. And soothe it. You can’t run. Anyway, it was so fun watching this with Allison. It starts slow. Maybe a little creepy but nothing too alarming. Allison said at one point, “So I guess the terror will eventually ascend?” I kept my mouth shut. I wanted to say, “Oh just you WAIT ….” 20 minutes later, Allison is literally screaming bloody murder, so much so that her poor dog Harper came over and sat next to me, absolutely petrified at what was happening to Her Person. Allison was moaning and crying, “NO NO NO” and it was totally glorious.
Three Wise Men and a Baby (2022; d. Terry Ingram)
Then Allison showed me one of “her” movies. I absolutely loved it. Wrote about it here.
God Forbid: The Sex Scandal That Brought Down a Dynasty (2022; d. Billy Corben)
What a truly gross story. I remember following this one in the news, although much of it is new to me. These people are so disgusting. Not a particularly well-made documentary. It can’t really decide on a tone.
Pepsi, Where’s My Jet? (2022; d. Andrew Renzi)
Allison and I tripped over this one and decided to watch it. We were absolutely swept away by it. It’s a 4-part doc about the kid who noticed a loophole in a Pepsi-points commercial, and started the process of trying to acquire the fighter jet he believed Pepsi had promised him. You wouldn’t think that this arcana would warrant 4 parts but … the way Renzi has structured it, it’s an absolutely fascinating look at not just the situation, but all the people involved. He got interviews with everyone. And it’s not just the information that is interesting – we were so drawn in to the characters. Every single person is so interesting. Michael Avanatti shows up. The man is everywhere. I don’t know if I can put into words why this works so well. Allison and I kept talking about it. It’s the APPROACH that makes it, and that’s all on Renzi. We absolutely loved this. It even manages to be legitimately moving. And … it made me love people. Now that’s something you can’t say every day.
Navalny (2022; d. Daniel Roher)
I’d been dying to see this. Allison and I watched. One of the documentaries of the year. I had been following along with Navalny and his opposition group before he was poisoned on the plane. A brazen act. Alexei Navalny is now in prison, high-security, serving out a nine-year bogus sentence. The whole thing is a sham. Taking place in broad daylight. Putin does not give a fuck. He acts with impunity, he does not wait for cover of darkness. When Navalny was poisoned, like many I watched the footage of him moaning and howling on the plane. I am well versed in Putin-KGB-Russian treachery, and yet I still somehow was shocked. I remember thinking “Oh my God, they didn’t DARE. Holy SHIT.” But they did dare. This documentary is not told from a distance and this is one of its distinguishing characteristics. Navalny did not die from the poison attack. Germany literally sent a plane to get him out of the Siberian hospital where he was under lock and key. Thank you, Germany. So the documentary crew is embedded with Navalny and his family in the year following the attack, Navalny living in exile, running his opposition group through the internet, and planning his return to Russia. He knew what would happen if he returned. But he had to return. He is aware that he is a SYMBOLIC person. Symbols matter. He had to return. I have been an admirer of Alexei Navalny for a long time, and what is happening to him is outrageous and disgraceful. And, not to be mean, but when I hear people calling America the worst place to live, and how oppressive it is here, and how we have no freedom of speech here … (people literally write op-ed columns in major newspapers complaining about how there is no freedom of speech in this country. HOW can you have ZERO cognitive dissonance when you are PUBLISHING a piece about how you have no FREEDOM OF SPEECH?) … anyway, when I hear this, I think of Iran or Russia or Turkmenistan or … pick your poison. It’s important to address injustices in America, of course, but it is also important to not be too American-centric in your critique, and realize that there are many people- millions – who have it way way way worse, and THEY need our support. They are also a cautionary tale, of what it can look like when things get REALLY bad. This is a heartbreaking and very important film.
The Fabelmans (2022; d. Steven Spielberg)
First West Side Story, then this. He keeps getting better and better. Honestly, this might be one of my favorite Speilbergs. He’s always personal. But this is personal personal. It’s deep and empathetic and detailed. Wonderful performances.
20/20 Tainted Love (2022)
This was a crazy story. Allison and I relax by watching 20/20, Dateline, or 48 Hours.
Holy Spider (2022; d. Ali Abbasi)
Will also be on my top 10, which I have been adding to, subtracting from, making tough choices, over the last month. But this has a permanent spot.
Saint Omer (2022; d. Alice Diop)
Another one I had been itching to see, particularly since it played at Indie Memphis and I couldn’t go this year, but followed along with all the posts. (Saint Omer screened there, and won big there.) Diop is a filmmaker to watch. She attended the trial in 2015, of a Senegalese woman – who had immigrated to France – accused of leaving her baby on the beach to drown. Why would she do such a thing? Diop was fascinated by the story and all of its intersections: emigration, assimilation, isolation, womanhood, the whole nine yards. The two lead actors – who barely have half a credit between them – are absolutely extraordinary. I can’t say enough good stuff about this one. This is Diop’s narrative feature debut. Here’s the trailer:
Decision to Leave (2022; d. Park Chan-wook)
I had been dying to see this one. Unlike everyone and their mother, I wasn’t crazy about The Handmaiden, although I recognize the skill of its approach and that crazy structure. Decision to Leave – a noir-esque film, with a possible femme fatale, and an obsessed miserable detective who can’t let it go – is a much stronger film. I found it enchanting, intriguing, charismatic, gorgeous to look at. Riveting.
All the Beauty and the Bloodshed (2022; d. Laura Poitras)
Lots of great docs this year. This is the best. Or, my favorite, let’s say that. A portrait of photographer Nan Goldin’s life – first of all – and it’s been a crazy life – as well as her campaign to take down the Sackler family, responsible for the opioid crisis. The Sacklers will not face jail time. But because of the efforts of Nan Goldin – and the New Yorker writer Patrick Radden Keefe (“Empire of Pain”) – interviewed for the doc – as well as people like Courtney Love – and the series Dopesick – seriously, it’s been a concentrated campaign of character assassination, and in this case, I am fully on board – because of all of this, the Sacklers name is now mud. They cannot hide anymore. Goldin’s activism comes out of her Act Up days in the nightmare of AIDS: very very smart protests, symbolic, peaceful, but powerful. Great film. Here’s the trailer:
The Eternal Daughter (2022; d. Joanna Hogg)
I reviewed for Ebert!
Women Talking (2022; d. Sarah Polley)
This one isn’t out yet, but I’m a critic so I get a screener. Based on a book, which is based on a true (and horrifying) story. I’ll be reviewing this one so I’ll save my comments for then. Here’s the trailer.
No Bears (2022; d. Jafar Panahi)
Another one of Panahi’s illegal films, made and produced following the lifetime ban on making movies (handed down in 2012). I don’t even want to say this out loud but it might be Panahi’s final film. He was arrested – again – in July. He is being held in the notorious Evin Prison. I am very VERY concerned. The film is one of his best (and with him, that’s saying a lot). With each of the films he’s made – secretly – under the ban (This Is Not a Film, Closed Curtain, Taxi, Three Faces – and now this) – he has gotten more and more bold (although he was always a bold filmmaker). His life is an act of boldness. No Bears takes place on the wild borderland of Iran and Turkey. You can literally look across the wildlands and see the other country – freedom, escape. But it’s very dangerous. Just the mere fact that Panahi filmed the film in such a place speaks volumes. My heart is breaking. I can’t bear the thought that this might be the last time we hear from him. Here’s the trailer.
Blanche Dubois, scene 1, in Streetcar Named Desire:
“They told me to take a street-car named Desire, and then transfer to one called Cemeteries and ride six blocks and get off at – Elysian Fields!”
Tennessee Williams lived in New Orleans while finishing Streetcar, originally called The Poker Night. Kenneth Holditch, who gives literary tours in New Orleans, said:
[Williams] said from that apartment he could hear that rattletrap streetcar named Desire running along Royal and one named Cemeteries running along Canal. And it seemed to him the ideal metaphor for the human condition.
Tennessee Williams on Irene Selznick, who was chosen to produce Streetcar:
She is supposed to have 16 million dollars and good taste. I am dubious.
Irene Selznick, Tennessee Williams and Elia Kazan consulting backstage at Streetcar
More – much more – below the jump.
I love writing about Joanna Hogg – her work has such a depth and richness – and so I was pleased to review her latest, The Eternal Daughter, where Tilda Swinton plays a dual role – mother and daughter. You can follow the Joanna Hogg tag on this post to see all the other stuff I’ve written about her, including my Film Comment cover story on The Souvenir, my Ebert review of The Souvenir Part II. And I wrote about The Souvenir AGAIN for Ebert. Like I said, Joanna Hogg is fun to write about. And – as a master director who made her first full-length film at the age of 47 – an inspiration.
In 2016, I went to the annual 4th of July party hosted by my godmother Geddy and my uncle Doug. Great-aunt Joan was there and we sat in chairs at the side of the road and watched the parade go by. It was really my last time having extended time with her – as well as with my aunt Geddy, who died in 2020, and we all still miss her. Not everybody gets to have a close relationship with a Great-aunt and I feel very lucky. So here’s a post about my great-aunt Joan.
My dear great-aunt Joan passed away on Sunday – my birthday – at the age of 96. She was a towering intellect – an adventurer – an author (The Transformation of Hera; Creation Myths from Mesopotamia, Israel and Greece; and a book on Antigone. She was a professor of Classics for 30, 40 years.). She was a rebel, a Dominican nun (who left the order in the late 60s), and someone who played a huge part in forming me, although I wasn’t really aware of it as a kid, adolescent, young woman. Her example was there as a possible path, guiding me towards the unconventional, the rebellious, the do-what-you-want, the don’t-worry-about-what-everyone-else-is-doing, devoting your life passionately to your interests, cerebral and otherwise. In many ways – without the nun part, of course- hers is the path I have chosen. (Turns out, I wrote about Great-aunt Joan and Great-aunt Mary in my review of the documentary Radical Grace.)
I have a couple of favorite Great-aunt Joan stories. And I love the stories about her life (I’ve posted the tribute written by my aunt Katy at the bottom).
About 15 years ago, I took a writing class at the 92nd Street Y. One of our writing assignments was basically a writing prompt. Write a story and it has to take place in the ’60s. Whatever that means, whatever comes up. The 1960s. Go. I decided to write a story about the era of Vatican II, as experienced by Catholic college girls (based on my mother and aunts). Joan, as a nun in full habit, was on the Vatican II front lines (and the nuns were the ones called upon to get the word out, to go out into the parishes and rally the troops, explain the new dispensations, and get the crotchety recalcitrant priests on board). I called up Great-aunt Joan and interviewed her about that time. She sent me a couple of books which I still have. Some of the stories she told were amazing. In the early 60s, Joan and a fellow nun, a good friend, were sent to Ireland to basically get the priests on board with the new program. They bicycled around from parish to parish, meeting up with these guys. For years, for generations, these priests had been puttering around lazily in their gardens, murmuring Latin masses, rotely, and devoting their time to obscure hobbies, as opposed to serving communities. For the most part, these Irish priests were NOT happy to see these nuns bicycling towards them up the road. They were like “who are these two bossy American nuns, and why are they telling me what to do.” Joan said she and her friend would come back to their lodging every night, put up their feet, have a pint, and LAUGH at the absurdity of their experiences during the day, and making fun of the priests, complete with imitating their Irish accents. (Joan’s parents were immigrants with Irish brogues. So she was allowed.) The image of these two feisty windblown nuns, drinking beer and laughing at priests … You can’t get details like this in a book.
But here’s my favorite memory: I was in a production of an adaptation of James Agee’s Death in the Family in Chicago. It had been nominated for a couple of awards. Joan was a professor at the Southern Illinois University, and had been for decades, so she drove up to see the play. One of her best friends also drove in from … Michigan, I think? I can’t remember. So it was 1. a way for Joan to see her great-niece in a play and 2. an excuse for a nice trip with a dear friend. The two of them were in their early-mid 70s. coming to see a play in a little storefront theatre.
When Joan got home after seeing the play, she wrote to my parents (who hadn’t been able to come out and see the play because my dad was ill that summer) and gave them a detailed review of the show, walking them through every aspect: directorial choices, the lighting, the set, the adaptation (because of course Joan had read the book, because she read everything), the performances … I had no idea Joan had written this letter until years later I found it in a box of my dad’s. It was then I realized that on another level, Joan went to see the play FOR my parents because my parents couldn’t go. Reading her detailed hand-written review to my parents was incredibly moving.
I treasure this memory. I was 26 years old, and there they both were. We went out afterwards to talk about the play and catch up. It had probably been a couple of years since I saw her. Because I was young and wild and had barely thought this through, I took the two of them to a dive bar right down the street from the theatre. I just wasn’t equipped at the time to think, “Maybe I can find somewhere more age-appropriate to sit and discuss the play? Maybe a place that at least …. serves food?” But I hadn’t planned at all. I took them to the bar because it was three doors down. That’s how much planning I put into it. I hesitated at the door, suddenly realizing what I was doing. It was a dive, a local, with a dartboard, a couple of tables, and a bar. It wasn’t packed, but there was a crowd of drunken yahoo boyz. I said, “Is this …. okay?” It SO didn’t look okay to me, suddenly. I did have the presence of mind to be slightly embarrassed but thinking on my feet was not (and is not) my strong suit. Joan didn’t blink an eye. “This looks perfect.”
We went inside and we caused a bit of a stir. The people there were my peers in terms of demographics. I lived in dive bars at the time, lol. Joan and her friend were literally 50 years older than most of them. (In Ireland you see multi-generational crowds in bars all the time. Not so in America.) The three of us sat at the bar. Perched on bar stools. The young guy bartender was almost courtly with Joan and her friend – and this cracked my heart. He asked for their IDs, causing general hilarity. It was very charming. We ordered draft beers (not a pitcher, just glasses), and we sat there and discussed the play and James Agee and the theatre company I was with and everything. It was so much fun. I had never been “out” with Great-aunt Joan alone before.
Menawhile, behind us, the drunken yahoos played darts, but they also made it a point to say hello to the two elderly women. It was like everyone was aware the women were there and the place made a space for them. You could feel it. The dart-players were raucous. We were not paying attention to them, or disturbed by their noise, they were part of the scene like we were. At one point, one of them screamed “oh FUCK” when his dart flew wildly off the board. We had no sense that anyone should change their behavior just because we were there. Also, Joan was no polite little biddy. She bicycled around Egypt on archaeological digs, and camped alone in Greek ruins, and went to the Soviet Union at the height of the Cold War, and etc. and etc. She had heard worse, seen worse. But to this guy she was a nice little old lady, and he suddenly remembered we were there, and transformed into a shamefaced adolescent, kind of leaning himself into our trio, saying, “I’m so sorry for swearing.” Not in a boorish sarcastic way. He was legitimately sincere. We all started laughing and told him it was okay. Why is this so charming to me?
We were there for an hour or so, enjoying each others’ company, talking about the play and other things, and then we got up to go. Both women had a long drive to their respective homes the following morning. Every single person in the bar said, “Bye!!” to them. It was like the womens’ presence had blessed the bar or something. A surprising element had come into the familiar and sweetened the air. The bar – as in the group of people there – were aware of the blessing being bestowed upon it. It’s not every day an intergenerational moment like this occurs, and in a weird way everyone – even in their raucousness – were soft and open, and made the women feel welcome, because when we’re old we want to feel welcome too. The moment when we got up to leave felt something like that.
Joan was a towering person (literally and figuratively), and a common and invigorating presence for the entirety of my life. She was 96. I am not sad she is dead, not exactly: she is at peace now, she lived fully and long, a life filled with fun and learning and experiences and openness to new things, but I am in mourning because she meant so much. And mostly I am grateful and thankful to have known her.
The O’Briens. From left to right: my great-uncle Frank, my grandmother (“Mama” to me and my cousins), my immigrant great-great grandparents (I remember very vaguely meeting my great-grandmother when I was teeny tiny) and finally my great-aunt Mary and my great-aunt Joan – both of whom became Dominican nuns, both of whom left the order in the late 60s, going on to have vibrant careers as professors, scholars, and then world-travelers, peripatetic adventurers, etc. They’re all gone now, Joan was the last one, but they are together now, and live in our hearts and it is because of them that we are all here.
Here is the tribute written by my aunt Katy:
Joan V. O’Brien, Professor emerita in Classics from Southern Illinois University, author of The Transfomration of Hera, In the Beginning: Creation Myths from Ancient Mesopotamia, Israel and Greece and The Guide to Sophocles’ Antigone, died peacefully in her sleep at the age of 96.
Born in Meriden, CT, she graduated from Albertus Magnus College in New Haven, then taught in Hamden, CT for two years before entering the community of Dominican Sisters of St. Mary of the Springs as a novice in 1949. She began her teaching career in 1952 at Dominican Academy on East 68th Street in New York, where she taught Latin and Greek by day and slept in her classroom at night. Every morning, she and her colleague would scurry around to clear the classroom of any traces of their personal belongings. She always told of the day the students found her stockings and other paraphernalia hanging in the bathroom.
She received her Ph.D in Classics from Fordham University in 1961 and taught at Albertus Magnus College. In 1967 she left the Dominican community and joined the Classics department at Southern Illinois University in Carbondale, Illinois, where she spent the next thirty years bringing the ancient Greek playwrights to vivid life, leading the students in the staging the plays of Sophocles and Aeschylus. Joan was a master teacher. She cried at the thought of retirement.
She led many student groups to Rome and Greece, opening their eyes to the treasures of antiquity there. In researching her book The Transformation of Hera, Joan spent several summers bicycling to archeological digs on the island of Samos.
She traveled widely, from Greece and Italy to the USSR and Egypt, swimming in the beloved ocean whenever possible, whether it be the Atlantic, the Mediterranean, the Adriatic or the Ionian!
Joan did not wish to be called Doctor. She much preferred Joan. She was devoted to the Catholic Church and her commitment to the underdog was unwavering. She donated large portions of her income to the poor. She was always there to provide a listening ear to anyone in need. She dressed simply, paying no attention to the fashion of the day. She was very partial to her camouflage-design porkpie hat and for the last several years she sported a fleece hat with fur trim (a gift from a dear friend) that stopped people in their tracks. She looked like Russian royalty.
Her attire was so odd that over the years she was stopped several times by the cops, who thought she must have wandered away from some nearby asylum. Once, when she was staying in a motel to officiate at her niece’s wedding, she decided to take an early morning walk from her hotel to find the local grocery store. A police cruiser stopped and the cop asked her what she was doing walking along such a busy road. This was not her first traffic stop. She answered, “I’m looking for a banana.” He gave her a ride to the grocery store in the cruiser.
Music was at the heart and soul of Joan O’Brien. She began piano lessons at age five and never stopped, playing Mozart, Grieg and her beloved Beethoven well into her 90’s. She hosted numerous informal gatherings of faculty and friends at her home in Carbondale, which always featured food (potluck — Joan was no cook), laughter, piano-playing and singing — everything from ‘When Irish Eyes Are Smiling’ to church hymns to The Hut-Sut Song. Every church choir she ever joined (and she joined plenty) was delighted to add her strong tenor voice. Singing was central to her life.
She had many friends, former students and a band of friends from her Dominican days that never broke apart. They were all devoted to one another until the end.
Her Catholic faith was her guiding light. She was devoted to the church, but at the same time very involved in the push for change, for the ordination of women. She was there for some of the first meetings of The Voice of the Faithful in their push for transparency about child abuse by priests.
In her last years, she moved to Newburyport, MA to be near her niece. There, she quickly become a beloved figure, known simply to townsfolk as “Aunt Joan”. She walked to Immaculate Conception Church for daily Mass, rain or shine, winter or summer. Traffic stopped when she crossed the street: lucky thing, because she often neglected to look both ways!
She will be missed by her many nieces and nephews and her devoted community of friends, but she will have a joyous reunion with her God and all the saints who have preceded her!
