The ten-page short story “Substitutes,” by Viet Dinh, takes place in Vietnam after the fall of Saigon.  Expectably, the Vietnamese Communists resemble Nazis and the Vietnamese people resemble Jews, with the story’s setting almost entirely limited to a classroom where a succession of teachers disappears at the hands of the new rulers.  Work over education, false propaganda over the truth—it transpires that this is what the victorious Communists represent.  With its fine premise, Dinh’s story is savvily and straightforwardly written.

So is Judy Troy’s “The Order of Things.”  Here, a Lutheran minister, Carl, ultimately thinks he must walk away from the pastorate after having an adulterous affair.  Some words by Saint Theresa, however, leave him understanding that although he has been unthinking, he has not been unloving, and perhaps this is a fulcrum for a certain spiritual renewal.  It is an absorbing tale whose setting in Wyoming feels absolutely fitting. . . Both of these pieces won PEN/O. Henry awards, and are included in the 2009 edition of The PEN/O. Henry Prize Stories.

The ten-page short story “Substitutes,” by Viet Dinh, takes place in Vietnam after the fall of Saigon.  Expectably, the Vietnamese Communists resemble Nazis and the Vietnamese people resemble Jews, with the story’s setting almost entirely limited to a classroom where a succession of teachers disappears at the hands of the new rulers.  Work over education, false propaganda over the truth—it transpires that this is what the victorious Communists represent.  With its fine premise, Dinh’s story is savvily and straightforwardly written.

So is Judy Troy’s “The Order of Things.”  Here, a Lutheran minister, Carl, ultimately thinks he must walk away from the pastorate after having an adulterous affair.  Some words by Saint Theresa, however, leave him understanding that although he has been unthinking, he has not been unloving, and perhaps this is a fulcrum for a certain spiritual renewal.  It is an absorbing tale whose setting in Wyoming feels absolutely fitting. . . Both of these pieces won PEN/O. Henry awards, and are included in the 2009 edition of The PEN/O. Henry Prize Stories.

Monday’s season finale of Jane the Virgin was sometimes silly, as in the church right after Jane got hitched, but always rich.

Near the end, the lesbian policewoman (who is actually evil Rose!) shoots Michael, Jane’s new husband, leaving us with the gripping question:  Will even a married Jane have to remain a virgin?

I’m certain Jane the Virgin is good for one more season but beyond that, who knows?  Let’s have new characters replacing old ones: that will probably bolster it.

Cover via Amazon

Another movie written and directed by Preston Sturges, the 1948 Unfaithfully Yours stars Rex Harrison as the conductor of a symphony orchestra.  After asking his foolish brother-in-law to keep an eye on his beloved wife (Linda Darnell) while the conductor is away, the chap learns that the brother-in-law hired a detective to do so.  Appalled by this, Harrison is also eventually told of circumstantial evidence pointing to possible unfaithfulness.  Refusing to give Darnell the benefit of the doubt, the conductor becomes a fierce basket case.

Bits of drama and chunks of comedy in this seriocomic romp do not gel, but amusement is certainly there.  This time Sturges is uninterested in American manners and mores, which makes Unfaithfully Yours a little less winning than his other films.  Even the romance with its gushing and glibness is less attractive.  Claudette Colbert and even Joel McCrea showed us how it was done.

Cover of Summer Hours (The Criterion Collection)

Summer Hours (2009), a film by Olivier Assayas, is gratifyingly intelligent but it bored me a bit both times I saw it.  Its fiction about a French family reveals Assayas’s concern with what threatens French culture: namely, global interests and global markets (doubtful) and the ignorance of the young (I agree).  Nothing is said about Muslim immigrants, though.

The acting in SH is first-rate.  Juliette Binoche is sheer genius with aplomb and emotion and facial activity.  From others too—Jeremie Renier (Jeremie), Valerie Bonneton (Angela), and so on—there is anything but conventionality; all offer mesmerizing freshness.  The film is quite memorable for one so static.

(In French with English subtitles)