The founding fathers put in a good word for Christianity, knowing it is a civilizing force. Even so, they usually preferred Unitarianism and deism (and secular living) to Christian fervor and traditionalism. Did Jefferson and Adams believe in the Incarnation? No. It paved the way for all kinds of heretical and secular thought. Small wonder that Republican Party thinkers of the late 1800s warmed to Darwinism and German philosophy. Christianity, however, was hardly ignored. Think of Dwight Moody. . .

Cover of Lolita

I have read only a chunk of Nabokov’s novel, Lolita, and thus cannot comment on it.  If it’s perverse, which I doubt, the 1962 Stanley Kubrick movie is not.  Sue Lyon‘s Lolita is fifteen or sixteen, not twelve, hence Humbert Humbert (James Mason) is not really a pedophile.  He is a debonair fool with whom we seldom sympathize, and it’s even slightly odd that he murders the abominable Clare Quilty (Peter Sellers).

The movie has nothing to say, whether the book does or not, although it is a human-condition tale.  And it holds our attention.  Sequences such as that in which Charlotte (Shelley Winters) perforce turns on Humbert are very sturdy.  Lolita is visually attractive and the acting is absorbing.  Mason, Winters and comically grotesque Sellers are genuine interpretive artists, and Sue Lyon is convincing as a rebellious lass willing to “love.”

Kubrick’s film is fine by me.

Cover of Lolita

I have read only a chunk of Nabokov’s novel, Lolita, and thus cannot comment on it.  If it’s perverse, which I doubt, the 1962 Stanley Kubrick movie is not.  Sue Lyon‘s Lolita is fifteen or sixteen, not twelve, hence Humbert Humbert (James Mason) is not really a pedophile.  He is a debonair fool with whom we seldom sympathize, and it’s even slightly odd that he murders the abominable Clare Quilty (Peter Sellers).

The movie has nothing to say, whether the book does or not, although it is a human-condition tale.  And it holds our attention.  Sequences such as that in which Charlotte (Shelley Winters) perforce turns on Humbert are very sturdy.  Lolita is visually attractive and the acting is absorbing.  Mason, Winters and comically grotesque Sellers are genuine interpretive artists, and Sue Lyon is convincing as a rebellious lass willing to “love.”

Kubrick’s film is fine by me.

Without being quite perfect, Tune in for Love (2019) is a very good romantic drama—nigh wonderful, in fact. A Netflix feature made in South Korea, it concentrates on a very young woman, Mi-soo, who is regularly deprived of the opportunity to be with the young man, Hyan-woo, she is infatuated with. Often miles away from her, Hyun-woo himself has feelings for Mi-soo.

Ji-woo Jung, who directed and wrote this, cares about his characters and directs with the deepest sensitivity to the film’s content. Lyricism gathers at the margins. I don’t care for Tune‘s pop tunes, but I do like the “natural” acting of Jung Hae-In, a handsome dude, and Kim Go-eun, a delicate beauty. The movie’s last scene is sublime in a way—sublime for a small artwork.

(In Korean with English subtitles)

For the story “The Mail Lady,” author David Gates created what he perceives to be a Christian character, and the elderly Lew comes very close to being just that. Lew is enduring the effects of a terrible stroke, his wife Alice a busy caregiver by his side. Yes, a man of faith he is, but one who is now forced to aver, “If I am of use at all anymore, it can only be as an example of patient endurance.”

This trenchant tale raises the subject of what it means when a death-in-life prevails in a Christian’s, or any religious person’s, existence. By and by Lew wishes to escape this death-in-life. A certain rescue from literal death takes place in the story, but Lew simply wants spiritual not physical salvation. . . Gates’s psychological realism is absorbing. Included in the book The Wonders of the Invisible World (1999), “The Mail Lady” is probably one of the most remarkable pieces about severe disability that one could read. Too, not a religious story, it is a dark one.