Bout the Birds and the Bees I’m sure many of you read the horrifying news in a recent New York Times Magazine that young people are learning about sex from porn that they see on the Internet. Yikes! Fellas! (And girls!) It’s not like that! It’s not anything like that! I’m not saying don’t watch … Continue reading Let Me Tell Ya
Monthly Archives: February 2018
Clint to a T
The 15:17 to Paris a film by Clint Eastwood. With Alek Skarlatos, Anthony Sadler, Spencer Stone, Judy Greer, Jenna Fischer. *** This review will be loaded with spoilers, but the event which inspired it was well-publicized when it happened, and has been spoken of plenty in the publicity for the movie. The three men who … Continue reading Clint to a T
The Deep Blue
Manhattan Beach by Jennifer Egan. Scribner. 438 pp. ***1/2 I was wildly enthusiastic about Jennifer Egan’s previous novel, A Visit from the Good Squad. That book was aesthetically stunning, every chapter from a different point of view, a narrative that was wildly distorted in time, a set of characters that only vaguely related to one … Continue reading The Deep Blue
She Got Her Man
Phantom Thread a film by Paul Thomas Anderson. With Vicky Krieps, Daniel Day-Lewis, Lesley Manville ***** It’s tough to like a movie when you can’t stand the protagonist. But I absolutely loved Phantom Thread. It’s a candidate for my favorite movie of the year. Reynolds Woodcock—who has a hard name to live up to—is a … Continue reading She Got Her Man
Unlikely Hero
Deepest Practice, Deepest Wisdom: Three Fascicles from Shobogenzo with Commentaries by Kosho Uchiyama. Translated by Daitsu Tom Wright and Shohaku Okumura. Wisdom Publications. 318 pp. Last week at our temple a priest gave a talk about Kodo Sawaki’s famous remark “Zazen is good for nothing,” which is startling the first time you hear it. We … Continue reading Unlikely Hero
Sex in Heaven
Call Me By Your Name a film by Luca Guadagnino. With Armie Hammer, Timothee Chalamet, Michael Stuhlbarg, Amira Casar. ****1/2 First the things I don’t like: Everybody is so good looking. They’re all so intelligent, and talented. This is the kind of movie where people are lying around their Italian villa in the sun, not … Continue reading Sex in Heaven