I like the fact that, as at least one critic has indicated, it is not the ordinary things people do in Muriel Spark‘s fiction that ultimately matter.  Rather it is their sins and, implicitly, their standing in the cosmos that matter, although this is never examined gravely or angrily.  Spark uses wit: she does so in 2004’s The Finishing School as she concentrates on Rowland, a would-be novelist, and Chris, the 17-year-old libertine whose seeming writing ability Rowland is madly jealous of.

Rowland is married to Nina, but there is no bona fide love between them.  He may be homosexual, but this is unclear in a way his “envy of another’s spiritual good”—a catechism phrase—is not.  That’s right: Chris’s artistic writing talent, if it actually exists, is seen as a spiritual good.  And, as seen by the Catholic Muriel Spark, Rowland’s “obsessive jealousy” is “his greatest affliction.”  Without spiritual truth, both Rowland and Chris have little or nothing going for them.

The Finishing School is clever and meaningful and probably wittier than such Spark novels as The Prime of Miss Jean Brodie and The Girls of Slender Means.  It lacks, however, the viable drama of those works, and yet an irresistible intelligence saves it from any kind of hard judgment I might give it.  You did it again, Muriel.

Cover of The Finishing School

I just barely know what the FX network is, but I know The Americans is on it, and now because it’s come out on DVD I can contentedly watch Season 3.  Last night I saw the first two episodes, and learned how to stuff a naked corpse into a suitcase.  (Ugh!)  Further, it was surprising to see Richard Thomas—the Field Agent (?)—get whacked in the face by the well-trained Commie, Elizabeth.

Re The Insider (1999):

First, it is too long.  Second, a large number of closeups in a movie lasting 158 minutes gets enervating.  Third, it is somewhat pretentious.  Fourth, Lowell Bergman, the Al Pacino character, is two-dimensional.  Fifth . . . oh, never mind.  Despite all its problems I’m glad this turkey was made owing to a few choice items, such as the acting of Russell Crowe, Pacino, Diane Venora, et al.

Michael Mann‘s film is a ho-hum journalistic chronicle regarding the 60 Minutes TV series and the cigarette industry.  What satisfies is the way it exposes the ability of a powerful business to devastate an individual, and although here the business is Big Tobacco, Big Media can be just as culpable for such a thing.  Add to this some of Mann’s directorial choices and the sublime cinematography of Dante Spinotti, “one of those rare cinematographers who know how to highlight with shadows” (Stanley Kauffmann), and you have a couple of other Insider assets.  You have a movie which is artistically inviting in spite of itself.

Cover of The Insider

To a child, a favorite toy acquires a life of its own, with the child as its master.  In the 34-minute French movie, Albert Lamorisse‘s The Red Balloon (1956), it is for a child (Pascal Lamorisse) that a balloon acquires a life of its own, magically.

This simple short became famous, and has endured, because it is beautifully and enticingly put together, inevitably in color and with several excellent set pieces.  Alas, it is not very moving, but it has the kind of unfailing charm of which a director like Truffaut in his films made such a contribution.  Lamorisse proved the worth of his instincts.

(In French with English subtitles)

The Red Balloon (Photo credit: Wikipedia)

To a child, a favorite toy acquires a life of its own, with the child as its master.  In the 34-minute French movie, Albert Lamorisse‘s The Red Balloon (1956), it is for a child (Pascal Lamorisse) that a balloon acquires a life of its own, magically.

This simple short became famous, and has endured, because it is beautifully and enticingly put together, inevitably in color and with several excellent set pieces.  Alas, it is not very moving, but it has the kind of unfailing charm of which a director like Truffaut in his films made such a contribution.  Lamorisse proved the worth of his instincts.

(In French with English subtitles)

The Red Balloon (Photo credit: Wikipedia)