The Sessions

I forst saw a blub review of this film by David Denby in the 19 Nov 12 issue of NYer by David Denby (Easily the most highly sanctified movie about sex ever made. John Hawkes plays a fortyish man in the nineteen-sixties, a polio victim who lives mostly in an iron lung. He’s never had sex, and he’s desperately horny. After talking it over with his priest (a morose William H. Macy), he hires a sex surrogate, played by a brisk, frequently naked Helen Hunt (looking great, for the record, at forty-nine). Hawkes is inventive and charming, and the writer and director Ben Lewin makes him ruefully funny; the actor is easy to take. The filmmakers know that their therapeutic approach to lust is a bit creepy, and they try to joke their way out of it. They don’t succeed: the sex scenes and the long discussions with the priest—an unhappy voyeur—are all a bit queasy, yet you can’t laugh. The movie is so clammily sensitive and tame that it stifles any strong response. Based on the life and journalism of the late poet Mark O’Brien.)

I did not find Macy morose; on the contrary, he showed a range of emotions, including gloom. He played a priest who, despite his misgivings, talked with a parishioner about sex outside of marriage. As a friend.

Roger Ebert begins his 3.5 stars review: At a time when sex is as common in the movies as automobiles, his need and his attempt to fulfill it requires an awesome dedication. The film is a reminder of how unique sexual intimacy is, and even how ennobling.

And he ends it: "The Sessions" isn't really about sex at all. It is about two people who can be of comfort to each other, and about the kindness that forms between them. This film rebukes and corrects countless brainless and cheap sex scenes in other movies. It's a reminder that we must be kind to one another.

Stephen Holden in the NY Times also liked it: Arriving in a culture steeped in titillation, prurience and pornographic imagery, “The Sessions” is a pleasant shock: a touching, profoundly sex-positive film that equates sex with intimacy, tenderness and emotional connection instead of performance, competition and conquest. There are moments between the client and his surrogate that are so intensely personal that your first instinct may be to avert your eyes. But the actors’ lighthearted rapport allows you to rejoice unashamedly in their characters’ pleasure.

A chance to win

Having finished One shot at forever, I wanted another baseball book, and this one looked good. Challenging, too: inner city kids and baseball. It is far more than that, and far less than about baseball. Oh, it is there, baseball, but so are drugs, losers, broken families. This is more a sociological ract than a baseball book. Not that there is necessarily anything wrong with either sociology or a tract about the inner city, but it was not the book I wanted. I stayed with it, but could not finish it. I gave up. I guess I have that luxury. To me, it is just a book.

Liberal Arts

Very good film. No special effects. No wanton sex. Very cerebral (characters read books!). In other words, a mature film —which, of course, had terrible box office. Ebert quite liked it, as did I.

Josh Radnor's "Liberal Arts" is an almost unreasonable pleasure about a jaded New Yorker who returns to his alma mater in Ohio and finds that his heart would like to stay there. It's the kind of film that appeals powerfully to me; to others, maybe not so much. There is a part of me that will forever want to be walking under autumn leaves, carrying a briefcase containing the works of Shakespeare and Yeats and a portable chess set. I will pass an old tree under which once on a summer night I lay on the grass with a fragrant young woman and we quoted e.e. cummings back and forth.

The  entire review is worth quoting, really.

"Liberal Arts" has been criticized in some quarters as a sitcom, in part because Radnor stars in a famous one, "How I Met Your Mother." Those who see it that way are well-guarded. God forbid that they would ever "fall for anything." I strive to leave myself vulnerable.
There is a word to explain why this particular film so appealed to me. Reader, that word is "escapism." If you understand why I used the word "reader" in just that way, you are possibly an ideal viewer for this movie.

Merci beaucoup .

Safe house

Incredibly violent. In my eyes, even Denzel could not save this form being a worthless piece of shit. A waste of time. I wish I could get the two hours back.

Maggie Smith

One of my very favourite actors. A couple of weekends ago I was in the mood to watch an old favorite of mine, in which she stars, so I got My house in Umbria. Still delightful. I've watched so often, I know much of the dialogue — even some in Italian.

Last weekend, Saturday, specifically, I needed a film to watch. Looked through TCM's list, and picked out a couple. Watched Travels with my aunt — after five minutes, zzzz! Awoke an hour later, and turned it off. Oh, well.

A small town, an unlikely coach, and a magical baseball season

Saw it on display on a table at PN, and took it. A gem. Ballard goes back to 1970, in Macon, IL, and looks at the baseball team. Managed by an unlikely coach, a nonconformist who allowed the players to call their own practices, their own signals, their own games, the team makes a run at the Illinois state championship before being disqualified (and that by the initiative of its school's principal, who di dnot like the coach). In 1971, the team goes back to the state championship, and loses the final game. Along the way, the young men develop an abiding respect and love for their coach.
Ballard then finds the men, grown up, and traces their life's trajectory. Two did play pro ball, and one is in the majors, as a coach (or was, in 2010).
Well written, nicely paced, thoroughly enjoyable. My only complaint: it ended too soon; I could've read another hundred pages.

This Bird don't soar

Bird!

After reading this review of Crouch’s book, I was excited, and reserved the book. Why? Don’t I know enough about Charlie Parker? Of course I do; I’ve been listening to Phil Schaap for decades. DO I need to know more? Of course not. But … this is Bird. So I took the book. I read to page 41, and, disappointed, and annoyed, I shut the book. And returned it. Crouch relies on metaphors, similes, cliches, and other grammatical tricks, tries to come up with a cadence that he supposes, I suppose, will make the reader feel Bird’s music … But, it don’t work.

    Example: discussing Coronado’s exploration of the territory above the Rio Grande led by Marcos de Niza. Included in the group was an African slave named Estevan. This Arab Negro, Crouch writes, died up there, Niza said, for some foolish and arrogant act; the promotion from slave to scout had yeasted his head to self-destructive proportions. You know, give them an inch. (41) What?

And: But the things his fellow band members were thinking was of no consequence to Charlie Parker. He had his mind on other matters. How does Crouch know? Conjecture? Sure, it is easy to suppose Parker wanted to score dope before playing music, but that can not be assumed, not in a biography. In fiction, sure.