Critic David Edelstein has called the new flick, Mary Poppins Returns, which I probably will not see, “a bit of a dud.”  I see the original Mary Poppins (1964) the same way, except for the songs.  The agreeable score deserves a better, tighter story.  Again, what Edelstein wrote about the new Poppins is true of the old one:  “the plot is ungainly.”  Wasn’t the first time a Disney film was ungainly.

Lida Baarova, a Czechoslovakian movie star of yesteryear, goes from being the mistress of a German actor to being the mistress of Joseph Goebbels, the Nazis’ propaganda minister, in The Devil’s Mistress (2016).  Directed by Filip Renc, the film is clearly marred by heavy-handed music, which Renc may think befitting of a semi-soap opera like this.  But it would be better without it, notwithstanding the film is deeply enjoyable, an uncomplicated triumph for screenwriter Ivan Hubac.

Someone was bound to film this true story about Baarova’s illicit romance with a reprehensible anti-Semite.  Man is a sorry creature.  While the Nazis in the picture are, naturally, major pigs, the Czechoslovakian people can be minor pigs.  (This excludes Baarova.)  Beautiful Tatiana Pauhofava is well cast as a European star with unsurprising sophistication.  Even better is Karl Markovics as Goebbels.  Both costumes and cinematography are winning.  There is a memorable scene in which Baarova lets an adoring stranger, a much-needed deliverer, stroke her breasts without the use of nudity or even explicitness, and yet the scene is truly erotic.

The Devil’s Mistress—the original title, Lida Baarova, is preferable to the banal one—is available on Netflix, with subtitles.

For the third year in a row, life expectancy in the U.S. has declined, mainly because of drug overdoses.  Probably a further decline will occur in the years ahead as people commit suicide out of fear of Alzheimer’s.  To be specific, the fear of being in a nursing home with Alzheimer’s and 1) not having any children to check on them, and 2) not having sufficient means for paying the bill.  Medicaid money?  I doubt it:  Medicaid will be broke.  (What kind of welfare state should we have when there’s an insanely high federal deficit?)  But even if it isn’t broke, the fear of neglect and of loss of autonomy will run rampant, will be as great as the fear of pain that leads to fatal opioid use.

For the third year in a row, life expectancy in the U.S. has declined, mainly because of drug overdoses.  Probably a further decline will occur in the years ahead as people commit suicide out of fear of Alzheimer’s.  To be specific, the fear of being in a nursing home with Alzheimer’s and 1) not having any children to check on them, and 2) not having sufficient means for paying the bill.  Medicaid money?  I doubt it:  Medicaid will be broke.  (What kind of welfare state should we have when there’s an insanely high federal deficit?)  But even if it isn’t broke, the fear of neglect and of loss of autonomy will run rampant, will be as great as the fear of pain that leads to fatal opioid use.

Australia’s Bruce Beresford did a perfect job of filming Don’s Party (1976), a play by David Williamson, and of guiding his actors to a sound representation of a message—that marriage and hedonism do not mix.

An Australian political race between the liberal Labor Party and the conservative Liberal Party is coming to an end, and a party of drink and naughtiness is taking place.  Don (John Hargreaves), the married host, and the other men here hold on to politics as their “intellectual” pursuit and sex as their toy and refuge.  The former will stimulate them for a while—and most of them are unthinking Labor voters—but it’s the latter that REALLY stimulates them.  (Another message:  Australians are morally unworthy of their democracy.)  And how vulgar they are!  Indeed, how vulgar—and hedonistic—the women can be!

Rated a hard R, the film is frank and rueful and humorous and harsh toward its characters.  It ain’t Claude Goretta.  Such actors as Ray Barrett (Mal), Pat Bishop (Jenny) and Clare Binney (Susan) understand the satire and have wonderful instincts.  But then all the actors are natural and knowing.  Bravo!