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Weekend Movie Pick: The Penguin Lessons

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Although dramatic actors often have trouble with comedy, it’s remarkable how comic actors can do such wonderful jobs with dramatic roles. Think Robin Williams, Steve Carell, Melissa McCarthy. Maybe it’s their timing, or how comfortable they are being “all in,” or how carefully they listen and react, I don’t know. But the chance to see (mostly) comedian Steve Coogan in a straight role was irresistible. You may remember him from his pairing with Rob Bryden in the hilarious “The Trip” series and the lovely The Lost King.

The Penguin Lessons was directed by Peter Cattaneo (The Magpie Murders), and written by Jeff Pope and Tom Michell, based on the book by Michell (see the trailer here). The story recounts Michell’s experience working as an English professor at an upscale boys’ school in Argentina during the harrowing time of the military overthrow and all the “disappearances” of protestors (some 30,000 of whom were never returned to their families, dead or alive). The school, run by a rigid head master (Jonathan Pryce) has a strict “no pets” policy, so when Michell finds himself in possession of a penguin, he has to hide it. But the penguin turns out to be exactly the catalyst that helps everyone to become their better selves—better students, better teachers, better family. When the granddaughter of the school’s housekeeper is kidnapped by the military, the stakes become serious.

The plot isn’t groundbreaking, but it is very soothing and never becomes sappy, as such films so often do. The performances of Coogan and the housekeeper (Vivian El Jaber) feel absolutely real. Björn Gustafsson is a clueless science professor. The penguin is charming.

If you need a break from the news of the day, this is a good one! And, it appears, audiences agree. In case it isn’t showing in your area, I think you can see the whole movie here.

Rotten Tomatoes critics’ rating: 84%; audiences: 94%.

Water Everywhere

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When I opened Janet Rudolph’s fascinating Spring 2025 collection of essays for Mystery Readers Journal—this edition her second on the theme of “London Mysteries,” I was delighted to discover the first one, by Aubrey Nye Hamilton, was “The Lost Rivers of London.” This was a happy coincidence, because my mystery book club this week was set to discuss Rivers of London: Midnight Riot, a 2011 book by Ben Aaronovitch that I listened to a few years ago.

This was one of those books I would never have chosen if I’d realized what it was about, but which I enjoyed immensely—despite myself, you might say. There has been a new book in the series every year since (plus a second in 2011), bringing the series total to 14 so far. I’ve not read another of these urban fantasies, but I did enjoy the first. In it, an apprentice wizard (and London police constable) must figure out why ordinary people are becoming vicious killers, as well as try to broker a peace between two warring gods of the River Thames and their respective families. I recall that the several River gods and their watery relatives were quite entertaining.

Hamilton’s essay describes the 600 km network of rivers that flows mostly invisibly, but sometimes audibly, beneath the city. They are the numerous tributaries of the Thames, and the River Fleet (yellow on the map), for which Fleet Street is named, is the largest. As author Melinda Mullet notes in her MRJ essay, the Charlbert Street Bridge (pictured above) is actually an aqueduct whose enclosed iron pipes carry water from the “lost” Tyburn River (purple on the map) to the lake in Regent’s Park.

Paved over and channeled into drainage pipes, the city’s “lost rivers” now aid its sewage and flood protection systems. Nevertheless, Hamilton notes, “sections of the sewer are often relatively dry and quite safe, if unpleasant, to travel.” This has made it possible for people, for whatever reason, to walk the city easily and invisibly, underground. As this and other essays in the volume attest, crime fiction writers have taken full advantage of this urban feature. In recent years, considerable effort has been directed to restoring and revitalizing these watercourses.

The map shows the lost rivers in color. The white squiggle is the River Thames. Perhaps they do all have distinctive personalities like author Aaronovitch speculates. The currents below the surface.

Theater Extravaganza!

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Last weekend we enjoyed an unforgettable theater weekend. Thanks to gifts, we did not have to remortgage the house to snag tickets for two of the hottest, most interesting shows currently on Broadway: Denzel Washington and Jake Gyllenhaal in Othello and George Clooney in Good Night and Good Luck.

For more than 400 years, audiences have found Shakespeare’s plays so perfectly capture human motives, failings, and dilemmas that they continue to offer important commentary, however far removed we are from their creation. Good Night and Good Luck, an adaptation of the 2005 film, is set some 70 years ago—an eternity in the age of texting and instant messaging—but it too lent itself painful timeliness. Do such works speak to audiences today? They did last weekend. Is their message lost on today’s audiences? Not for a New York minute.

Othello, you’ll remember, is the story of a vaunted Venetian general whose chief aide, feigning loyalty but secretly vindictive, sows doubt about the faithfulness of Othello’s wife, Desdemona. Suspicion builds, and this false story eventually so enrages Othello that he murders her and, in this version, the play ends with death upon death. What devastating power lies have. And, once accepted, how difficult they are to dislodge.

A major theme of the play is reputation. Iago famously says, “Who steals my purse steals trash; ʼtis something, nothing . . . But he that filches from me my good name robs me of that which not enriches him, and makes me poor indeed.” Even in his last speech, the suicidal Othello is concerned about how he will be perceived thereafter.

In Shakespeare’s time, although news of a person’s transgressions—real or imagined or maliciously crafted—might eventually reach the ears of many people or the few who mattered; today, such reports are instantly accessible to a worldwide audience and wreak havoc with the ideas of privacy and safety and innocence. Whether they are true or not seems irrelevant. The point is to hurt. In the face of this onslaught, we are “perplexed in the extreme,” as Othello says, and damaged in some cases, beyond repair.

George Clooney has had a long interest in the topic of how fear stifles political debate. In this project, he and co-writer Grant Heslov took the Army-McCarthy hearings as their subject. Senator Joseph McCarthy was infamous for his sensational accusations that various individuals were Communists based on slender or no evidence. His particular targets were the federal government, universities, and the film industry. It was a fearful time. Tremendous pressure was brought on television journalist Edward R. Murrow and his co-producer Fred Friendly to tread lightly around McCarthy, as anyone who opposed him would very likely become his next target.

Nevertheless, Murrow and Friendly produced a famous See It Now documentary using clips of McCarthy himself and his wild accusations. Commenting on the Senator’s words, Murrow said, “We must not confuse dissent with disloyalty” and warning against letting fear push the country into an age of unreason. The production definitely wants to establish parallels with current-day politics, and one of its biggest laughs comes when a newsman laments that he hasn’t quite understood what’s been happening in the past few years and says, “It’s like all the sensible people flew to Europe and left us here.”

Both plays benefit from excellent casts, including Clooney and Gyllenhaal, who are not stage actors. Othello has a spare stage that adapts to whatever configuration is needed, whereas Good Night and Good Luck has a very specific set, a 1950s newsroom, with all the chaos of a production about to go on air. Both work.

Like to Write? Just Dig In!

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Looking through my stack of old Martha Stewart Living magazines (guilty pleasure), I’ve found some gems. Not just tempting cocktail recipes (try the bourbon-Canton ginger liqueur-splash of lemon juice and garnished with star anise at the holidays), but also a lovely article on “the writer’s garden.” I don’t know how Eudora Welty, Elizabeth Lawrence, Edith Wharton, and Edna St. Vincent Millay found the time—maybe your name has to start with “E”—but their gardens were lovely. Getting away from the desk and doing something totally different, that’s interesting but doesn’t require 110 percent of your mind, nourishes creativity, I’ve found. Fresh air helps too. At least that’s what these writers seem to have learned.

Edith Wharton’s tilled the soil in the Berkshires and said “Decidedly, I’m a better landscape gardener than novelist.” Her home in Lenox, Mass., is now a National Historic Landmark, and you can visit, see all she did to develop its three acres of formal gardens, and go back to your B&B for a nap. Pictures at the website.

A little less constrained, perhaps, are and were Edna St. Vincent Millay’s gardens in Austerlitz, N.Y., where she once hosted what Living called “Bacchanalian parties.” The poet worked hours each day in a writing shack she built in a pine grove, which she planed. In her case the gardens definitely nourished creativity. Was the “shack” tax deductible?, I wonder. Her large estate, Steepletop, is open to the public. Website here.

In Jackson, Mississippi, you’ll find Eudora Welty’s home and the beautiful garden her mother originally planted and her lifelong connection to it shows up in her work. Welty, says the garden website, “mentions more than 150 kinds of plants in her stories, and the garden includes many examples of her favorite flowers, camellias. Although the carefully selected plants create a year-long “parade of bloom,” including many roses, I found a photo that features my favorite, irises.

More Thoughts on the Curse of the Curse-Word

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Is there an up-side? A few days ago, I wrote about how and why writers may choose to use curse words in their fiction, depending on plot and character. A recent Washington Post article by Sam Jones talked about the “value” of cursing under extreme circumstances. The author wrote, “If you stub your toe or slam your finger in a door, there’s a good chance the first thing out of your mouth is a four-letter word.”

The article points to academic studies showing that that class of taboo words and phrases “has long held a unique and colorful status in language behavior.” (“Language behavior” typifying the unique and uncolorful style of academic writing.) 

But although swearing is a near-universal feature of language, it is still considered taboo by many. This universality suggests that there are benefits derived from using the words, and one of those benefits is this: an increase in pain tolerance and decreased perception of pain. Swearing is “a drug-free, calorie-neutral, cost-free  means of self-help,” said Richard Stephens, a British psychology researcher. I’d add that it also attracts attention, so if you’re there bleeding or clutching your broken arm, someone is more likely to come help than if you mutter, “Ouch. That hurt.”

Swearing also “has been linked to bolstered social bonds, improved memory, and even an alleviation of the social pain of exclusion or rejection,” as well as increased strength. (All I can say is that the characters in the Academy Award-winning movie Anora must have the memories of elephants.) The increase in strength makes sense, because when someone swears because they’re in pain, their heart rate increases, adrenaline surges, and blood diverts to your muscles in the “fight or flight” response.

If you’re an author debating whether your character should be swearing so much, or if you’re a reader wondering the same, think about whether the circumstances are such that swearing is more than a habit; it’s a coping mechanism. Next maybe they’ll research whether constant swearing reduces the physiological impact and, for those who swear constantly, weakens that potential source of help just when they need it most.

Oscars Live Action Shorts

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We squeezed in a trip to the local movie house to see the live action shorts the day before the awards ceremony. They were all fresh in our minds, and we both felt the Oscar went to the least interesting of them! Nevertheless, there’s something watchable for people of widely varying tastes. A characteristic common to four of the five nominees was that the ending was notably ambiguous. What happens next? We don’t know. Also, this year, none of them was particularly long. They’re in theaters so briefly, in case you missed them, here they are and how you can see them.

A Lien (USA)

A terrifying look at how America’s immigration crackdowns wield law and policy in unfair and dehumanizing ways. It involves a young couple—she’s American; he’s from Central America and has lived here for decades—visiting an immigration center with all their paperwork so he can get the green card he’s absolutely eligible for. What’s scariest is that you feel that such things happen not because the system is broken, but because it’s operating exactly as intended. (Watch it here.)

Anuja (India, USA)

Nine-year-old Anuja must choose between going to work in a sewing factory with her older sister and taking a test that may get her into a tuition-free school for gifted students. It’s a choice between the demands of the here-and-now versus the possibility of greater benefit in the future. The sisters—played by real-life street children—are charming. (Available for viewing on Netflix)

The Last Ranger (South Africa)

At a South African wildlife preserve, rangers engage in the dangerous job of protecting rhinoceroses from poachers. Stealing the horn is a lucrative business, and the film never lets you forget how noble are the rangers and how evil are the poachers. A young girl goes with the ranger one day. She’s charming, and the scenery is spectacular. (Apparently not available for streaming)

The Man Who Could Not Remain Silent (Croatia)

In 1993, a passenger train crossing Bosnia-Herzegovina is stopped by armed paramilitaries. They board, demanding to examine people’s papers. This conjures memories of every “escape from Nazi Germany” movie you ever saw. The people sharing a compartment with a man who admits he has no papers have to make choices, silence or courage. Based on the real-life Štrpci massacre and the death of Tomo Buzov, a former Yugoslav army officer. The film won the Short Film Palme d’Or at Cannes in 2024. (Watch it here.)

And now the winner: I’m Not a Robot (Belgium, Netherlands)

We see the action from the point of view of a woman working in the music business who fails her CAPTCHA test so many times her computer concludes she’s a robot. The absurdity of the situation spirals downward, as her grip on reality loosens. I wasn’t convinced. (See it here.)

“Big Chief Wears a Golden Crown”–Take 2

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Masking Indian

In 2018, Princeton University’s Lewis Center for the Arts hosted a panel discussion with two leaders in the tradition of New Orleans Black Masking Indians. Darryl Montana, great-grandson of one of the tradition’s founders, and Demond Melancon, whom Montana calls the “world’s best beader” described masking’s origins and modern significance. This is a post I wrote a few days after the event, reprinting it now, as so timely—and colorful!—for Mardi Gras.

Masking—familiar to viewers of the television series Treme, (to my regret, only four seasons long!) in which Clarke Peters played Big Chief Albert Lambreaux—is a nearly two-hundred-year-old tradition that has various origin stories. In part it may have begun as resistance to early rules prohibiting negroes from wearing feathers, in part as a shout-out to the Native Americans who helped runaway slaves, and in part as a strong expression of individuality and pride in an era of repression.

The Chiefs of New Orleans’s nearly 40 black masking tribes make one suit a year. Each suit has multiple parts, can weigh up to 150 pounds, and takes about 5000 hours to construct. Because masking is a “competitive sport,” Montana said, the costumes are generally made in secret, their design and significance revealed only when the Indians come out on Carnival Day (Mardi Gras).

In recognition of Melancon’s artistic skills, in 2012, the elders of the Mardi Gras Indian community dubbed him Chief Demond Melancon of the Young Seminole Hunters, with his very own tribe in the Lower Ninth Ward. Increasingly, the creation of suits is considered a significant contemporary art form, and its best practitioners keep pushing the envelope of creative possibility. Melancon’s suit on display at the Lewis Center tells the story of an enslaved Ghanian prince brought to New Orleans in the 1830’s. He lost an arm after a dispute with police, and was thereafter called Bras Coupé. Every beaded element of this stunning suit carries symbolic significance.

Montana is the Big Chief of the Yellow Pocahontas Hunters Black Masking Indian Tribe and made the lavish lavender suit pictured. Completion often involves family members and select friends.

Montana explained that he does not want “to take what I learned from the Chief to the grave with me,” and now makes a concerted effort to engage the next generation in the masking tradition. “You have to keep (young people) busy,” he said, and he believes that through the intensity of the suit-making process, the time commitment, and the camaraderie of working on a culturally meaningful project, he’s found a way to do that.

Cocktail Party Conversation Stopper

In case this slipped by you, the Big Chief mentioned the massive amount of Mardi Gras beads deviling New Orleans’s storm drains. Last fall 93,000 pounds-worth were excavated from merely a five-block stretch of St. Charles Avenue! Of course, they were wet, which must have contributed to the weight!.

Intrigued? Here’s More + Pictures!

The House of Dance and Feathers: A Museum by Ronald LewisMardi Gras Indians by Michael Smith
From the Kingdom of Kongo to Congo Square: Kongo Dances and the Origins of the Mardi Gras Indians – Joroen Dewulf’s new theory about the origins of the black masking Indian tradition
For a short story about the Indians and their costumes, see this post from yesterday: https://vweisfeld.com/?p=11344

The March of Television

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This spring promises several new television seasons and series that should be worth watching. But first, let me praise the extremely quirky Interior Chinatown, which we’ve watched over the last few months. It’s based on a 2020 novel by Charles Yu, which won the 2020 National Book Award for Fiction. A couple of episodes in, I realized I’d actually read this book. I did not get it at all. My reaction: “Huh?”

But someone must have, and the transition to the small screen is terrific. Jimmy O. Yang plays Willis Wu, a background character in a police drama set in a fictional city. His parents, especially his mom, have some hilarious moments, as does his fellow waiter, Fatty Choi, who thrives on insulting the restaurant’s customers. The plot is essentially indescribable, but Wu is on a quest to find out what happened to his older brother, whom the TV show calls “Kung Fu Guy.” Many hilarious and heartfelt moments. Watch it on Hulu.

On TV this spring, I’m looking forward to the televised version of Liz Moore’s Long Bright River, a book I enjoyed immensely. In it, a cop who works in Philadelphia’s rough Kensington neighborhood, scene of a series of prostitute murders, never escapes the fear that one day what she’ll find is the body of her renegade sister. Amanda Seyfried plays the police officer, Mickey Fitzpatrick. Excellent family interactions in the novel; I hope they’re preserved. Coming on Peacock March 13.

Damian Lewis will reprise his role as Henry VIII in Wolf Hall: The Mirror and the Light, the third book in the late Hilary Mantel’s riveting series about Tudor political shenanigans involving the King, Thomas Cromwell (Mark Rylance), and Cardinal Wolsey (Jonathan Pryce). The books were great, and the acting in this series, first aired in 2015 as Wolf Hall, is exceptional. Wolf Hall was the ancestral home of Henry’s third wife, Jane Seymour, the one (out of eight) he presumably most loved. It’s premiering March 23 on PBS.

Another season of Dark Winds arrives March 9 on AMC. This crime series, set on Arizona’s Navajo reservation, is based on Tony Hillerman’s popular books featuring Sheriff Joe Leaphorn and his deputy Jim Chee. Leaphorn is played by Zahn McClarnon, an actor I came to admire in the Longmire series, and Chee by Kiowa Gordon. The rest of the mostly Native American cast is also strong. And you can’t beat the beautifully stark Southwestern landscape.

I’ll also give a try to the British detective drama Ludwig, which aired on the BBC in 2024, but will be available on BritBox starting March 20. The title character (played by actor-comedian David Mitchell) is a puzzle-maker, and Ludwig is his pen name. His identical twin brother (I know, I know, beware of twins) is a Cambridge police DCI who’s gone missing. Ludwig poses as his brother to get access to police information about the disappearance. He is, of course, taken for the detective, and becomes caught up in the department’s investigations. Puzzle-solving should come in handy.

Washington’s Birthday Week

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As thoughts of the Presidency and Presidents fill the news in 2025, it’s interesting to think back on our country’s first president, born 22 February 1732—almost three centuries ago. Although there are many legends associated with him (I need to bake that cherry pie!), some more dubious than others, he without doubt was a prime reason the Continental Army was victorious in the American Revolution.

The battles of Trenton in late December 1776 and in Princeton January 3, 1777, were a turning point in the Revolutionary War. Only a few miles away, Washington and his troops had crossed the Delaware—memorialized in famous artworks—on the night of December 25-26.

Artist Charles Willson Peale, painted several similar versions of Washington and the Princeton battle that are owned by the Princeton University Art Museum. In the one above, Washington holds a rapier aloft, the battle is still under way. Three people can be seen on his left side (viewer’s right), one of whom was Washington’s friend, Virginia neighbor, and Revolutionary War hero, Hugh Mercer, who died of his battle wounds. This painting is called “Washington at the Battle of Princeton,” (1783/84) and the building in the far distance is Princeton’s Nassau Hall.  

This painting remains on display in Nassau Hall today. Its fancy gilded frame originally held a portrait of King George II “decapitated” during the battle by an American cannon ball, reportedly fired by the artillery company commanded by Alexander Hamilton. When Washington’s portrait replaced that of the monarch, the crown that had adorned the original frame was removed. Nassau Hall (pictured below) was built in 1756 and, in 1783, it served for four months as the US Capitol, being the largest academic building then in the colonies. Damaged to its exterior from another January 1777 cannonball remains, unrepaired.

The second painting, versions of which are in various museums and institutions around the country, including Princeton University, replaces the three men with a horse, a groom, and a cannon, the British flag crumpled at his feet. That version is titled “Washington After the Battle of Princeton” (painted between 1779 and 1782). Having grown up in the Midwest, where history didn’t seem so immediate, these connections to Washington are very precious.

Sympathy for Academy Awards Voters

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Academy Award, Oscar

I’m sure glad I don’t have to pick the Best Picture winner in this year’s Academy Awards pool of ten. The four nominees we’ve seen are excellent films with brilliant acting, interesting stories, and cinematic flourishes. Assuming votes are cast based on people’s true assessment of excellence, not corporate loyalties, they have their job cut out for them.

We skipped Anora when it was in the local theater because the preview was so off-putting. Now that was a mistake. Several of the others haven’t come to Princeton yet. But here’s what we’ve seen.

The Brutalist—a moving story about mid-twentieth century Jew (Adrian Brody), whose excellence as an architect doesn’t protect him from the Nazis. He survives to create a new life and new work with his wife (Felicity Jones) about twenty miles from where I live in a fictional version of Doylestown, Pa. What happens to him thereafter makes you wonder whether the movie title refers to his architectural style or certain characters in the film.

A Complete Unknown—Bob Dylan’s career up until the legendary set he did at the Newport Folk Festival about which much has been said and written. The producers made the excellent decision to include lots of music, and Timothée Chalamet sings the songs himself. A wonderful trip into forests of nostalgia—for the music, for the times, for the hope embedded therein.

Conclave—based on a novel by the excellent Robert Harris (my review of his Precipice is here), with a can’t-go-wrong cast of Ralph Fiennes, Stanley Tucci, John Lithgow, and Isabella Rossellini. It’s about the election of a new pope (awkward timing) and the ostensibly stodgy proceedings that result in earthquakes.

Dune: Part Two—Loved the books; so willing to cut the movie some slack with respect to Austin Butler’s alien makeup. The acting and scenery were fantastic. Ditto the special effects which were so good they were distracting. (How’d they DO that?!) Timothée Chalamet again, Zendaya, Rebecca Ferguson, and Javier Bardem.

Coming soon: The Nickel Boys. Looking forward to it!