Song of a Reformed Headhunter

Begin Again (2013), watched last Saturday, would work well on stage but the music performances would have to be much better if they are "live." Film glamorizes and idolizes, so that the mediocre acquires a kind of mystification through focus and angle. The film is worth watching for the performances of Mark Ruffalo as a has-been music producer, and of Keira Knightley, the unrecognized talent. It is written and directed by John Carney. On Sunday, I watched Les Enfants Terrible (1950), directed by Jean-Pierre Melville, based on a novel by Jean Cocteau. Everything rests on the poetry, for the story is highly unrealistic and its characters strongly improbable. But the poetry of the images is arresting. The discovery of the dead mother in her room. The siblings' own room, a ramshackle hideout, where they could enact their games of fantasy. The final image of the bamboo curtains crashing down. As Elisabeth, Nicole Stéphane is magnetic. Edouard Dermithe, who plays her brothe...

A full weekend, not just action but emotion. Bob's book launch on Friday. John Stahle's memorial service on Saturday. Matthew Hittinger and Philip Clark put together a fine roster of eulogists at the LGBT center in the afternoon. John's freshman advisor at Fordham University, with whom John remained friends for 42 years, was eloquent about John's appetite for culture and gossip. OV described John's excitement over the birth of Ganymede , the gay men's art and literary journal he edited before his death. Philip read his essay on John's eye for art. EN spoke of his last evening with John. In his description of their first meeting, he mentioned that John did not look like his photograph. John did not put his own photograph on any of his websites or Facebook page. He might have thought that he did not look attractive. He might also have thought that the gay men he courted--artists and audience--want a pretty face. The stage at the memorial service was fronted ...