A short story by Sigrid Nunez, “The Plan” (2018) has as its narrator a horrid criminal—a serial murderer of women. The author harbors no sympathy for him—he wants more culture (i.e. the arts) in his life but also, on the last page, he strangles a whore because murder “was one of the things whores were for.” (He never learns anything.) Yet Nunez underscores the strange truth that a human being, like me and thee, is responsible for this wanton slaughter. Why? Is it not true that nothing human is alien to us?

“The Plan” is a propulsive fiction written with many short paragraphs. It is cruelly honest, as it should be, but does not descend to nihilism, cheap or otherwise. Maybe, just maybe, it gets close, though.

No doubt it is one of “the best American short stories” of the year it was published, found in the 2019 book of the same name.

Jasmine in Woody Allen‘s Blue Jasmine (2013) had money, but no longer. She had a husband but, an appalling swindler, he committed suicide. She had, and has, family relationships, but they do not go well. Though the fragile woman tries to reinvent herself in San Francisco, where her sister Ginger lives, the walls are closing in. Many authentic tragic elements, and sparse rueful humor, are found in the film, which glides along acceptably on sheer emotion.

As everyone knows, Cate Blanchett is wonderful as Jasmine. Notwithstanding the film is is “a quietly respectful tribute” (critic Anthony Quinn) to A Streetcar Named Desire, Blanchett’s Jasmine is not Blanche DuBois. She is an independent character, a smart bourgeois. And she is ill-served by men. Not a great picture is this, but a good one. All the same, I found it hilarious when a Village Voice critic pointed out that the Sweathogs have a San Francisco chapter in Jasmine.

Would the Soviet Union, allied with Cuba, have initiated a third world war in the rural Midwest of the United States? I doubt it, but, boy, do we all know about Russian expansionism. In the 1984 Red Dawn, the Midwest is where the communists invade, and teenaged sons and daughters are the ones who aggressively engage them. Though far from a work of art, the film harbors themes: communist hostility and the global inevitability of invasion.

As an action movie, Red Dawn is reliable. Director-writer John Milius is an avid gun collector and it shows. Firearms here are rather distinctive, an attention grabber. War violence is framed in shots of surrounding mountainous beauty. Up to a point, though, the film is silly. Milius is a conservative who, despite the strengths in Dillinger, made poor choices as a moviemaker. But I say unhesitatingly that American cinema is more fun and interesting with him than without him.

I have never read L’Innocente by Gabriele D’Annunzio, but I regard Luchino Visconti‘s Italian film of it (1976) as worthwhile. It is a lush costume drama about Tullio (Giancarlo Giannini), a free-thinking aristocrat who falls in love with his betrayed wife (Laura Antonelli) a second time, or seems to. The man is ignoble and tortured, though. And Catholic Europe of yesteryear is also “enlightened” Europe of yesteryear.

Giannini is a manly actor of quiet power. Jennifer O’Neill, an American actress dubbed, gets the job done as Tullio’s mistress, but without any real charisma. Antonelli isn’t bad but lacks personality—without lacking a comely face and body, unclothed. Antonelli died in 2015. Anyone with a body as resplendent as hers deserves a serious and lasting marriage, which, alas, she didn’t have. Ironically, when he and his wife are naked in bed, Tullio is aiming for the triumph of marital sex, as it were.

(In Italian with English subtitles)

Jon Stewart is a smart man, but his Irresistible (2020) is not a smart movie. The critical drubbing it received is justified. A political comedy, it revolves around a swinish Democratic consultant, Gary (Steve Carell), who tries to manage a military veteran/farmer, Jack Hastings (Chris Cooper), into a Democratic mayoral victory in a small Wisconsin town. Another (D.C.) consultant, Faith (Rose Byrne), strives for the defeat of Hastings.

Stewart, director and writer here, has made Faith a Republican hypocrite. She speaks obscenities, as does Gary, and has contempt for small town America. She is neither believable nor as interesting as she should be. What is worse is that we already know, emphatically and forever, that political campaigns and low tricks go hand in hand. Why such a message from Stewart? It’s because his film is naive and hollow, which explains his creation of a scene in which Hastings delivers a speech to New York Dem donors (!) and says not a word about what is most important in politics—policy. Yet the donors are impressed.

Nothing wrong with the acting, though. Carell is nigh brilliant and Cooper is pleasantly authentic. Byrne is as poised and flavorous as Lea Massari. But, although non-partisan, the movie they’re in is preposterous. Unfunny too.