Recipe: Maple Bourbon Ice Cream with Raspberry Ripple

This recipe is pretty special because we made the maple syrup and raspberry jam ourselves from trees/canes in our own yard.

I adapted Max Falkowitz's Maple Ice Cream recipe from Serious Eats, but used my own base recipe and substitutions.  

Ingredients:

• 2 cups cream
• 1 cup whole milk
• 6 egg yolks
• 3/4 cup real maple syrup (Grade A or B)
• 1 tsp vanilla extract
• 1/2 tsp salt
• 1 tbsp bourbon (optional)
• 1/2 cup (or so) of old-fashioned raspberry jam (preferably seedless). Can substitute store-bought, but look for one that has as few ingredients as possible (ideally just berries, sugar, lemon juice or ascorbic acid. Avoid low sugar varieties as they might freeze too hard).

Custard Instructions:

1. Place cream, milk, yolks, and maple syrup in a saucepan with a cooking thermometer.
2. Stirring frequently/constantly, raise the custard to 175-180F. Remove from heat immediately upon reaching 180. 
3. Chill until very cold (if using a compressor ice cream maker, this step may be omitted or shortened).
4. Place the custard in the ice cream maker and churn according to the manufacturer's instructions. Add bourbon at the end when the ice cream is the consistency of soft-serve.
5. Remove the dasher from the churn and dollop in jam and barely stir. Pack in freezer containers and transfer to the freezer for hardening off.

Substitutions for raspberry jam and other flavors:

• Candied pecans or walnuts
• Broken pieces of ginger snaps
• Peach preserves/jam ripple
• Candied ginger
• Omit the bourbon
• Increase the salt to one full tsp for a salted maple ice cream.

August 1944: Verifying Grandpa's story of befriending Americans from a downed Flying Fortress

Public Domain

    One of the coolest things that happens during research is finding evidence that corroborates a story. Here's one of my grandfather's, about meeting two members of a B-17 crew that was shot down.  He wrote this account probably in 1974.

    In the evening one of our patrols brought to the camp two American Air Force soldiers and I became an interpreter. They were crew members of a flying fortress which has bombed the bridge in Valence-sur-Rhone. The plane has been hit by flak and one man killed. All the others bailed out. One more died before reaching the ground. Three others, who were wounded, could do anything else as stay and undoubtedly became German prisoners. All the others fled in groups of two East toward the mountains and one of these groups has been picked up by our patrol. One of the two Americans was Larry Gault, first lieutenant, plane’s commander. He lived in Oregon, where he owned forests and sawmills. The other’s name was Edward Mettler, the plane’s gunner. He was before the war an art student in Chicago. 

    They were courageous, fine people. They used to volunteer for all missions. Once, when warned about a great danger of a mission, Larry Gault answered “Flying is dangerous too, you know.” They spent about ten days with us and left with the first American Intelligence officer who reached us. Edward Mettler cried then like a child. He fell in love with one of our intelligence girls, who traveled between the German occupied Rhone Valley and our mountains. The separation seemed cruel on him indeed.

    Grandpa didn't mention the date, but from other details in the text, I narrowed it down to August 15, 1944.  Today, I did an internet search for "edward mettler flying fortress ww2" because I'd love to find out if he and the intelligence girl (FFI courier) ended up together, and I found this page, and this page.

    They confirm that Lt. Gault was the pilot, and Mettler was a gunner, and it mostly confirms the events in question (that the ship had been downed by flak, and one man killed), including the date. It also provided Mettler's rank (sergeant), which is great because I'd guessed wrong (corporal), and this allowed me to correct it.

    Grandpa said another guy died, but the page contradicts that; it's possible Grandpa remembered that part wrong, or that Gault and Mettler were simply mistaken when they told him about the incident.

    Anyway, how cool is that???

    Hopefully, I'll eventually find out whether Mettler and Jeanne stayed together.  The romantic in me likes to think that they did.

1944: Marie Moreau and pop-culture coincidences

Source: Vintage Photos of Beautiful Female Partisans and
Resistance Fighters During World War II

     After my grandfather died, my mother found a handwritten account of his time in the maquis (Fourth Company, Second Battalion, Drôme FFI). He wrote at least two stories about the courageous couriers for his unit, whom he referred to as "intelligence girls."  

    Other of his stories might also have involved the couriers, but he didn't explicitly say so (he used phrases like "we found out," or, "later someone told us," that might have been referring to information from the couriers).  But he rarely identified people by either their real or code names in his stories, so I don't know if his stories referred to the same woman or more than one.  

    So, I created a composite character codenamed "Jeanne" (after Jeanne d'Arc), who became the unit's best intelligence officer and the moral heart of the group.  Jeanne became the intelligence girl of my grandfather's stories, a smart, clever, and no-nonsense woman my grandfather admired, and I reveal her "real" name toward the end of the book: "Marie Moreau." Yes, the alliteration in her initials was deliberate.

    I actually know the names of several real-life women who served in my grandfather's FFI unit, but there's no way for me to connect Grandpa's stories with their real-life counterparts, and because I didn't want to misidentify anyone, I gave the composite Jeanne a fictitious real name.

    Coincidentally, it turns out that Marie Moreau is also the main protagonist in Gen V, a spinoff of The Boys TV show.  

    Sigh.  I had to rename my character to avoid sharing with a TV show. She is now "Marie Morand."

Thoughts on the 2026 Oscar Nominations

 

    This year's movies were characterized by surprise. A big part of it is that, other than Frankenstein, I knew almost nothing about the movies before they were nominated. It was really nice going into them without preconceived notions.

• Sinners packed in a lot of surprises - who would have thought a vampire movie could pack in so much symbolism and layers of meaning? And such great music?
• Who would have thought a race car movie (F1) could be not just worthy of a best picture nomination, but also break my top five?
• Who would have thought that del Toro, who has had a lifelong fascination with the subject, could make such a disappointing Frankenstein movie? It's way better than Kenneth Branagh's version, but still.
• Sean Penn, in an acting tour de force, pulled off his character in One Battle. He made me believe that weirdo could be real. I wouldn't have thought that possible.
• Hamnet did not shy away from showing the death of a child.  That is rare.
• Bugonia had several surprises, most of which I won't discuss to avoid spoilers. But it did not shy away (or cut away) from showing a suicide. That is also rare.
• I would not have thought a filmmaker would go too far in depicting a thoroughly unlikeable cast of characters. But nearly everyone in Marty Supreme was odious.  The main character was so unlikeable that I quit halfway through.
• I never expected to see a severed leg hopping around, kicking people in a park, but The Secret Agent had that.  

    So, here's how Chris's and my ranking of the movies falls out:

1. Sinners (Southern gothic vampires sing the Blues; Cathy: 1, Chris: 1)
2. Bugonia (Alien-hunting conspiracy theorists; Cathy: 5, Chris: 2)
3. Train Dreams (Dreamy old logger survives ... life; Cathy: 3, Chris: 3)
4. Hamnet (The Bard's wife; Cathy: 2, Chris: 5)
5. Winner: One Battle After Another (Daddy-Daughter Revolution; Cathy: 7, Chris: 4)
6. F1: The Movie (Mesmerizing Top Gun for Formula 1 Fans; Cathy: 4, Chris: 6)
7. The Secret Agent (Strange, sweaty movie about life in fascist Brazil; Cathy: 6, Chris: 8)
8. Frankenstein (Monster-'splaning; Cathy: 9, Chris: 7)
9. Sentimental Value (Slow-paced movie about a family of actors; Cathy: 8, Chris: 9)
10. Marty Supreme (Odious ping-pong hustler no one respects; Cathy:10, Chris:10)

    This year, Chris and I only agreed on Sinners, Train Dreams, and Marty Supreme.  Where we disagreed, we were at least two apart.

     I also try to draw conclusions about interesting cross-movie themes:

• Four movies take place in modern times (Bugonia, F1, One Battle, Sentimental Value)
• Six movies are historical period pieces  (Frankenstein - early 1800s, Hamnet - late 1500s, Marty Supreme - 1952, Secret Agent - 1977, Sinners - 1932, Train Dreams - 1917-1968).
• Three movies contain a language other than English.  Frankenstein was mostly in English (a few brief scenes in Danish or French), Sentimental Value was mostly in Norwegian (maybe 1/3 in English, with a little French), and The Secret Agent was almost entirely in Portuguese (one brief scene in English).
• One actress (Kerry Condon) had supporting roles in two of the nominated movies (F1, and Train Dreams).
• Two movies dealt with child death (Hamnet, Train Dreams).
• There were two horror movies (Frankenstein, Sinners).
• There were two science fiction movies (Bugonia, Frankenstein).
• This year's movies averaged some rather low scores for relatable situations (2.85) and identifiable protagonists (2.8). Average is 3.

    I'm hesitant to offer predictions or opinions for other categories because I haven't seen all of the performances, but here are my opinions in spite of my ignorance. I underlined the one that I thought should win.  Highlight indicates the winner.

    Note: There should be five nominees per category. If I don't mention a nominee (or indicate a winner), it's because I haven't seen the performance. If I didn't mention a category, it's because I have no opinion.  

• Best Actor:  Timothée Chalamet/Marty Supreme, Leonardo DiCaprio/One Battle, Michael B. Jordan/Sinners, and Wagner Moura/The Secret Agent.
• Best Actress: Jessie Buckley/Hamnet, Renate Riensve/Sentimental Value, Emma Stone/Bugnia. 
• Best Actress (Supporting): Elle Fanning/Sentimental Value, Inga Ibsdotter Lilleaas/Sentimental Value, Wunmi Mosaku/Sinners, Teyana Taylor/One Battle.
• Best Actor (Supporting):  Benicio Del Toro/One Battle, Jacob Elordi/Frankenstein, Delroy Lindo/Sinners, Sean Penn/One Battle, Stellan Skarsgård/Sentimental Value.
• Best Casting:  Nina Gold/Hamnet, Jennifer Venditti/Marty Supreme, Cassandra Kulukundis/One Battle, Gabriel Domingues/The Secret Agent, Francine Maisler/Sinners.
• Best Cinematography: Dan Laustsen/Frankenstein, Darius Khondji/Marty Supreme, Michael Bauman/One Battle, Autumn Durald Arkapaw/Sinners, Adolpho Veloso/Train Dreams.
• Best Costume Design:  Kate Hawley/Frankenstein, Malgosia Turzanska/Hamnet, Miyako Bellizzi/Marty Supreme, Ruth E. Carter/Sinners.
• Best Director: Chloé Zhao/Hamnet, Josh Safdie/Marty Supreme, Paul Thomas Anderson/One Battle After Another, Joachim Trier/Sentimental Value, Ryan Coogler/Sinners.
• Best Film Editing:  Stephen Mirrione/F1, Ronald Bronstein and Josh Safdie/Marty Supreme, Andy Jurgensen/One Battle, Olivier Bugge Coutté/Sentimental Value, Michael P. Shawver/Sinners.
• Best Makeup and Hairstyling: Mike Hill, Jordan Samuel and Cliona Furey/Frankenstein, Ken Diaz, Mike Fontaine and Shunika Terry/Sinners.
• Best Production Design/Sets: Tamara Deverell and Shane Vieau/Frankenstein, Fiona Crombie and Alice Felton/Hamnet, Jack Fisk and Adam Willis/Marty Supreme, Florencia Martin and Anthony Carlino/One Battle, Hannah Beachler and Monique Champagne/Sinners.
• Best Sound: Gareth John, Al Nelson, Gwendolyn Yates Whittle, Gary A. Rizzo and Juan Peralta/F1, Greg Chapman, Nathan Robitaille, Nelson Ferreira, Christian Cooke and Brad Zoern/Frankenstein, José Antonio García, Christopher Scarabosio and Tony Villaflor/One Battle, Chris Welcker, Benjamin A. Burtt, Felipe Pacheco, Brandon Proctor and Steve Boeddeker/Sinners.
• Best Sound (Original Score): Jerskin Fendrix/Bugonia, Alexandre Desplat/Frankenstein, Max Richter/Hamnet, Jonny Greenwood/One Battle, Ludwig Goransson/Sinners.
• Best Visual Effects:  Ryan Tudhope, Nicolas Chevallier, Robert Harrington and Keith Dawson/F1, Michael Ralla, Espen Nordahl, Guido Wolter and Donnie Dean/Sinners
• Best Writing (original screenplay):  Ronald Bronstein & Josh Safdie/Marty Supreme, Eskil Vogt, Joachim Trier/Sentimental Value, Ryan Coogler/Sinners.
• Best Writing (adapted screenplay): Will Tracy/Bugonia, Guillermo del Toro/Frankenstein, Chloé Zhao & Maggie O'Farrell/Hamnet, Paul Thomas Anderson/One Battle, Clint Bentley & Greg Kwedar/Train Dreams.

2026 Academy Awards Best Picture Nominee - Hamnet

• IMDB link: Hamnet
• Tagline: "After losing their son Hamnet to plague, Agnes and William Shakespeare grapple with grief in 16th-century England. A healer, Agnes must find strength to care for her surviving children while processing her devastating loss."
• My Best Picture Project

    This was a beautiful movie about Anne (Agnes) Hathaway and what it might have been like to be married to William Shakespeare. It's so much from her POV, that the subtitles referred to Will as "Husband" most of the time. In fact, his whole name is only mentioned once toward the end of the movie. 

    Funny story: once, when the movie was paused, it displayed the names of the characters and actors on screen, and we had the following conversation:

Me: Agnes is Anne Hathaway

Kivi: No, she's Jessie Buckley.

Me: No, her real name was Anne Hathaway.

Chris: (looking at me like I've got two heads) It says it right there - her name is Jessie Buckley.

Me: (realization dawning) No, no, no. Shakespeare's real-life wife was named Anne Hathaway, not to be confused with the actress who is also named Anne Hathaway.

    Like Shakespeare in Love, the movie did a wonderful job mixing in lines from their life into Shakespeare's plays - there is a lovely scene where Will stages a play for Agnes, starring their children as the three witches from Macbeth, and later words and phrases make their way into Hamlet as well.  Agnes is an herbalist, and her lists of herbs had to have inspired Ophelia, though that scene isn't shown, and during a particularly low moment for Will, you see the origins of the "to be or not to be" soliloquy.

    The acting and casting were excellent, and it had a nice, clear voice track, which is nice for my aging ears (I still turned on the subtitles because I didn't want to miss a single word due to less-familiar accents), and the visuals were lovely ... when they weren't too dark.  Too many scenes were filmed in the dark, and it was hard to see sometimes. I suspect (but don't know) that it was dark to reflect the times and lack of electric lighting, but I think that was the wrong choice.  The pacing was a little slow in the first half, but damn, the last half was spellbinding and heartbreaking.  

    It also does an excellent job depicting how people handle grief so differently. Will by channeling his pain into a tragic masterpiece, Ann/Agnes by surviving for her remaining children, fed by her rage at Will, then ... forgiveness.

    Bring tissues.

(Pithy Reviews; and Rankings* out of 10 nominees):

1. Sinners (Southern gothic vampires sing the Blues; Cathy: 1, Chris: 1)
2. Bugonia (Alien-hunting conspiracy theorists; Cathy: 5, Chris: 2)
3. Train Dreams (Dreamy old logger survives ... life; Cathy: 3, Chris: 3)
4. Hamnet (The Bard's wife; Cathy: 2, Chris: 5)
5. One Battle After Another (Daddy-Daughter Revolution; Cathy: 7, Chris: 4)
6. F1: The Movie (Mesmerizing Top Gun for Formula 1 Fans; Cathy: 4, Chris: 6)
7. The Secret Agent (Strange, sweaty movie about life in fascist Brazil; Cathy: 6, Chris: 8)
8. Frankenstein (Monster-'splaning; Cathy: 9, Chris: 7)
9. Sentimental Value (Slow-paced movie about a family of actors; Cathy: 8, Chris: 9)
10. Marty Supreme (Odious ping-pong hustler no one respects; Cathy: 10, Chris: 10)

The White Rose (Weiße Rose) Resistance Group

Monument to Die Weiße Rose resistance
movement, at the University of
Munich, Germany. Public Domain.

 

    So, a few months ago, I started building a timeline of WW2 events that I could connect to each chapter of Biscuit. When I could, I used resistance activities because they further an important theme of the book. Anyway, I came across the White Rose (Weiße Rose) resistance group at the University of Munich, and damn ... those were some courageous, heroic people.

    Anyway, Germany is a sort of boogieman-type villain in Biscuit (hard to write a book about an ethnically/culturally Jewish family in WW2, where Germany doesn't look pretty bad). But in this situation, there's not a whole lot of opportunity for nuance. It doesn't help that most of Arthur and Roma's interactions were with Germans in enforcer-type roles. Soldiers at roadblocks. Gestapo investigating sabotage, soldiers chasing down illegal refugees.

So when I found opportunities to make the portrayal of Germany a little more complex, I took them. One was to use the White Rose group as part of my timeline, and the other was to have a German POW show genuine remorse for his actions, and also explain why he couldn't dodge the Wehrmacht draft, despite holding anti-Nazi beliefs.

    Anyway, back to the White Rose. One of the members was a young woman named Sophie Scholl. She and her brother Hans were executed by the Nazis for distributing anti-Nazi leaflets for the White Rose, but after her death in 1943, Germany has never forgotten her:

• They placed a bust of her in the Wahalla Memorial.
• There are streets and squares named for the Scholls all over Germany.
• In 2003, Sophie and Hans placed fourth in a poll of the most important Germans, beating out Einstein, Bach, Gutenberg, etc. If only the votes of young Germans had been counted, the Scholls would have placed first.
• There have been several German TV shows and movies telling the story.

The transcripts of the Scholls' interrogations resided in East German archives until the 1990s. After reunification, the transcripts came to light, and one filmmaker used those as primary sources, along with survivor testimony, to write the screenplay Sophie Scholl – The Final Days (Sophie Scholl – Die letzten Tage). The movie was released in 2005, was nominated for and won numerous awards, and I'm planning to watch it in a few weeks:

2026 Academy Awards Best Picture Nominee - Marty Supreme

 

• IMDB link: Marty Supreme
• Tagline: "Marty Mauser, a young man with a dream no one respects, goes to hell and back in pursuit of greatness."  
• My Best Picture Project

    To quote the god of movie critics, Roger Ebert, "I hated, hated, hated this movie."  I hated it so much that I quit watching halfway through. Oh, it ticks a lot of Best Picture boxes all right:  fine acting, obviously good cinematography, lots of great old cars (it takes place in 1952).  But the story begs the question, "Just how awful can a filmmaker make the protagonist without losing the audience?"  

    Too far, in this case. Marty is an odious, odious person.  The tagline is "Marty Mauser, a young man with a dream no one respects, goes to hell and back in pursuit of greatness," but it should be, "Marty Mauser, a fast-talking young asshole no one respects, goes to hell and back in pursuit of the hustle."

    As a woman, I'm hardly qualified to expound upon manhood (though I tend to favor the idea that a "real man" is just another way to say a "grownup who is responsible, and attempts to be a good person"), but I'm comfortable saying that Marty isn't any sort of man that I can admire. He's nothing but a spoiled child, and while he's a world-class ping-pong player, he is also a hustler and a cheat who constantly whines about how unfairly he's treated.

    Ok, I did like the rather shocking scene when Marty's bathtub falls through the floor of a very, very cheap hotel, but even that was horrifying because the elderly mafioso in the room below gets hurt.  Just reading that last phrase makes me cringe, because my god, even the bystanders aren't innocent.

    I didn't like a single character in the movie.   Nearly everyone is a fast-talking liar, and the ones who aren't are cheaters or predators. The pacing was also frenetic, matching the manic main character, rushing through 3 hours of movie in two-and-a-half.  And because I identified with literally no one, I couldn't get into the movie at all, and when I realized (about halfway through) that I didn't give a damn how it played out, I decided not to waste another 75 minutes of my time. 

Seriously, given my background, you'd think I'd identify with a movie full of Jewish immigrants and a Holocaust survivor or two, but nope. I think the most admirable person in the movie is Koto Endo, the Japanese ping-pong player who won the British table tennis open in the first half.  He was a survivor of the atomic bombs dropped on Japan, which left him permanently deaf.  And there are hints that Marty suspects Koto of cheating because of his foam paddle and Asian playing style, but given that Marty is a hustler, his opinion hardly matters.

(Pithy Reviews; and Rankings* out of 10 nominees):

1. Sinners (Southern gothic vampires sing the Blues; Cathy: 1, Chris: 1)
2. Bugonia (Alien-hunting conspiracy theorists; Cathy: 5, Chris: 2)
3. Train Dreams (Dreamy old logger survives ... life; Cathy: 2, Chris: 3)
4. One Battle After Another (Daddy-Daughter Revolution; Cathy: 4, Chris: 4)
5. F1: The Movie (Mesmerizing Top Gun for Formula 1 Fans; Cathy: 3, Chris: 5)
6. The Secret Agent (Strange, sweaty movie about life in fascist Brazil; Cathy: 6, Chris: 6)
7. Frankenstein (Monster-'splaning; Cathy: 8, Chris: 7)
8. Sentimental Value (Slow-paced movie about a family of actors; Cathy: 7, Chris: 8)

• Marty Supreme (Odious ping-pong hustler no one respects; Cathy/Chris: Did not finish)

• Hamnet (Cathy: x, Chris: x)

* Rankings can change.

2026 Academy Awards Best Picture Nominee - The Secret Agent

• IMDB link: The Secret Agent
• Tagline: "In 1977, a technology expert flees from a mysterious past and returns to his hometown of Recife in search of peace. He soon realizes that the city is far from being the refuge he seeks."
• My Best Picture Project

    What a weird and wonderful movie that is just full of sweaty hairy-chested Brazilian men, and if they button their shirts at all, they never do so past their sternums.  It was a lot of work to watch, though (as all foreign-language films are for me these days) since they require subtitles. It's my first Portuguese-language movie, and it was like watching a Spanish-language movie (lots of shared vocabulary), but ... not.

    It opens with a wonderfully absurd scene of a man in a yellow VW bug stopping for gasoline at a gas station with a corpse lying in the parking lot. The cops show up, but they are more interested in the man in the Volkswagen than in the corpse. The movie is mostly a drama, but with some darkly funny moments.

    It's visually beautiful and well-acted, but there are also lots of oddball themes, like Jaws, severed legs recovered from shark bellies, and just incredibly corrupt cops, businessmen, and assassins. 

    I was very confused, though, when a newspaper reported on a story about "the hairy leg", and then we see the severed leg from the shark hopping around, kicking people, mostly individuals engaging in public sex in a park.   Was it South American magical realism? Was it just an oddball, surreal moment? Was it folklore?  Turns out it was a literal (though surreal) embodiment of 1970s-era newspaper codespeak referring to police brutality, particularly against the gay community.

    Another odd moment was when the local police chief took Marcelo (the main character) to meet an elderly German man, to show off the man's scars. The policeman assumes the old man was a Wehrmacht soldier in WW2, and I, too, assumed he was a Nazi hiding out in Brazil, but it turns out the opposite is true. He was a Holocaust survivor, and the scars came not from being a soldier but from being the victim of those soldiers.   A cautionary moment warning us not to assume we know someone's past?

    The movie leaves many questions unanswered. What happened to Marcelo's mother?  What happened to the villain who destroyed Marcelo's life? Why are the people in modern-day Brazil researching him? (That may be obvious to someone who knows the culture better than I do, though.)

    The pacing is good, and it's a slow build from oddly normalized weirdness to a crescendo of satisfying violence that is worthy of a Quentin Tarantino movie.

(Pithy Reviews; and Rankings* out of 10 nominees):

1. Sinners (Southern gothic vampires sing the Blues; Cathy: 1, Chris: 1)
2. Bugonia (Alien-hunting conspiracy theorists; Cathy: 5, Chris: 2)
3. Train Dreams (Dreamy old logger survives ... life; Cathy: 2, Chris: 3)
4. One Battle After Another (Daddy-Daughter Revolution; Cathy: 4, Chris: 4)
5. F1: The Movie (Mesmerizing Top Gun for Formula 1 Fans; Cathy: 3, Chris: 5)
6. The Secret Agent (Strange, sweaty movie about life in fascist Brazil; Cathy: 6, Chris: 6)
7. Frankenstein (Monster-'splaning; Cathy: 8, Chris: 7)
8. Sentimental Value (Slow-paced movie about a family of actors; Cathy: 7, Chris: 8)

• Hamnet (Cathy: x, Chris: x)
• Marty Supreme (Cathy: x, Chris: x)

* Rankings can change.

The Skinwalker in the Closet - Chapter 1

Editor's foreword: I spent the day with my 9-year-old granddaughter yesterday, and we wrote the following story together. The creativity and story are entirely hers. I did the typing, some coaching, and implementation (like using details in different places to provide foreshadowing), and editing under her supervision.

Chapter 1: Is it real?  

    I had just arrived at Aunty Melissa’s house, and right away, I slipped quietly up the stairs to Rory’s room, but the lights were off, and the door was ajar.  The sound of talking was coming through the door.  I wasn’t sure if Rory was there or not, if that was her Furby.  

    I knocked, and the door swung open.  It was Bertie, the youngest of my cousins, and she had shoved the door all the way open.

    Bertie was standing in the doorway, and Drew and Rory were sitting on the bed with their eyes closed. 

    “If it touches you, you freeze,” Drew said. “But only if it touches your skin directly.”

    Lincoln was holding Rory’s camera, swiping through the camera roll. 

    “What are you doing?” I asked.

    “I’m looking to see if we got any pictures of the skinwalker.”

    “What’s a skinwalker?” I asked. That’s weird, I thought to myself.

    Rory said, “My brother thinks it’s living in his closet, and we don’t know what to do with it.”

    “Yeah, but is it a skinwalker?” I asked again. They hadn’t answered my question.

    There was a long pause. Finally, Rory said, “It’s the dead white skin of a person, but it can walk. Drew saw one moving in his closet last night.”

    “We are trying to investigate it,” Lincoln said. We snuck into Drew’s room and opened the closet door just a crack, and took pictures through the gap, and then quickly slammed the door closed again so it couldn’t get out.”

    I was still standing in the doorway when Drew jumped out of Rory’s bed, snatched the camera out of Lincoln’s hands, and ran past me into his room. He opened the closet door a little bit and started taking pictures.   Then he dropped the camera and backed away, and before he made it to Rory’s room, Drew froze in place. 

    Rory, Lincoln, Bertie, and I ran into the hallway and dragged Drew, who was rigid, back into Rory’s room. I ran into Drew’s room, picked up the camera, and threw the closet door wide open. I loved my cousins, but I wasn’t sure I believed in skinwalkers.  I stepped into the closet, and something grabbed my arm.  I gasped and yelled, “Guys, help me!”

    I tried to pull away, and my cousins ran into the room and grabbed my other arm and yanked hard, and it let go, and I fell to the floor.  My arm really hurt. I pushed up my sleeve and looked at where the skinwalker had grabbed me, and my arm was red and starting to bruise in the pattern of a hand. I could make out a thumb-shaped bruise and finger marks. 

    I started believing in skinwalkers that day.

--by Cathesa, edited by Cathy B. Weeks

Editor’s note: the thing in the closet may actually be a Windigo rather than a Skinwalker, but in the heat of a terrifying moment in a dark space, it can be hard to tell.

(Stay tuned for Chapter 2: The Labyrinth)

2026 Academy Awards Best Picture Nominee - Sentimental Value

• IMDB link: Sentimental Value
• Tagline: "An intimate exploration of family, memories, and the reconciliatory power of art."
• My Best Picture Project

    This was a difficult movie to review.  There was so much that was good about it, but the pacing was problematic enough that what could have been a great movie ended up merely OK.  The movie was about 2/3 in Norwegian and 1/3 in English, so we turned on subtitles.

    Let's start with the good:  The acting was great, really great.  I didn't know Stellan Skarsgård was such a good actor. I mean, I've always liked him, and in general, if he's in it, I'm probably going to like the movie. But in this, I felt he brought an amazing depth to his character, a washed-up elderly actor-turned-director who writes a beautiful script that captures all the regrets of a father who was neglectful, knows it, and regrets it, but doesn't know how to fix it.  There's a neat place where a young Gustav appears, and the filmmakers recycled footage from a movie Skarsgård made as a young man.

    The two young women who play his daughters, Renate Reinsve and Inga Ibsdotter Lilleaas, do a lovely job capturing what it is to be the children of a neglectful artist parent, and the struggles they face with intimacy, trust, and anxiety. Elle Fanning does a great job playing an adopted daughter of sorts, hired by Gustav when his older daughter refuses.

    The cinematography was lovely, and I loved the house where the movie takes place (it's used as a framing device). There's a really cool montage toward the end of the movie, of the faces of the four main characters superimposed over one another, and I liked the movie-within-a-movie, and how the story weaves together scenes from their family history.  I also liked the rather dark Ikea joke which I will not spoil.

    I did like the ending, which shows the filming of the movie that Gustav has been trying to get made throughout the actual movie

    I like slow-paced movies that take their time and bring the audience for the ride, allowing the acting and scenery to take precedence over the action and special effects. But there's an extraordinarily fine line between interesting and boring when the movie's pacing is slow.  Unlike Train Dreams, which was slow-paced and kind of mesmerizing, this movie was slow-paced and a little boring. It wasn't without compelling scenes, but I did find myself glancing at the time more than I like.  The movie was like a long string of ellipses punctuated with exclamation points and question marks until ending on a high note: 

  .....?.....!.....!?......!.....""""

(Pithy Reviews; and Rankings* out of 10 nominees):

1. Sinners (Southern gothic vampires sing the Blues; Cathy: 1, Chris: 1)
2. Bugonia (Alien-hunting conspiracy theorists; Cathy: 5, Chris: 2)
3. Train Dreams (Dreamy old logger survives ... life; Cathy: 2, Chris: 3)
4. One Battle After Another (Daddy-Daughter Revolution; Cathy: 4, Chris: 4)
5. F1: The Movie (Mesmerizing Top Gun for Formula 1 Fans; Cathy: 3, Chris: 5)
6. Frankenstein (Monster-'splaning; Cathy: 7, Chris: 6)
7. Sentimental Value (Slow-paced movie about a family of actors; Cathy: 6, Chris: 7)

• Hamnet (Cathy: x, Chris: x)
• Marty Supreme (Cathy: x, Chris: x)
• The Secret Agent (Cathy: x, Chris: x)

* Rankings can change.

Recipe: Banana brown sugar ice cream with peanut brittle chunks

    This was just such a revelation, I decided to share the glory that is fresh banana ice cream. It's wonderfully smooth and delicious, and tastes like bananas and not like yellow Laffy-Taffy. 

I adapted Dana Cree's Banana Ice Cream in Hello, My Name is Ice Cream, but used my own techniques and substituted brown sugar for regular sugar. I got the idea for the flavor from Ice Creams, sorbets, and Gelati: The Definitive Guide, but I didn't follow their recipe.

Ingredients:

• 4 very ripe bananas (yellow with lots of black marks), peeled and cut into 1" chunks
• 2 cups cream
• 1 cup whole milk
• 6 egg yolks
• 1/4 cup liquid sugar (tapioca syrup, glucose, corn syrup)
• 3/4 cup dark brown sugar
• 1 tsp vanilla
• 1/4 tsp salt
• 1-1.5 cups of peanut element, broken into small pieces (see below for recipe)

Instructions:

1. Peel and slice the bananas and set aside.
2. Place cream, milk, yolks, and sugars in a saucepan with a cooking thermometer.
3. Stirring frequently/constantly, raise the custard to 175-180F. Remove from heat immediately upon reaching 180. 
4. Quickly add the banana chunks, and weigh them down with a plate or lid, to keep them submerged.
5. Cover and let steep for at least two hours, but up to overnight.  If leaving for more than 2-3 hours, place custard in the refrigerator after 2 hours.  Give custard a jiggle every so often.
6. Using a slotted spoon, remove the banana chunks, or pour custard through a mesh strainer.  Add vanilla and salt.
7. Freeze ice cream according to manufacturer's instructions. 
8. Add peanut brittle at the end of the churn.
9. Enjoy!

    Bananas: Once you remove them from the custard, you might consider making them into banana bread, or cut them smaller and add to pancakes.

    Peanut elements: 

• Peanut Brittle: you can use any recipe that you like. Break enough of it into small pieces to make 1.5 cups. The remaining should be devoured because it's delicious when it's fresh.   I made a half recipe of Spruce Eats Old Fashioned Peanut Brittle. 
• Candied peanuts: This is a little easier to make, and less messy, and there's no need to break them up. I use this recipe.
• Mazapan: This Mexican candy is a great addition to ice cream. If you overprocess it (as I do, as we prefer it that way), it's a little like the center of a Reece's peanut butter cup.

2026 Academy Awards Best Picture Nominee - One Battle After Another

• IMDB link: One Battle After Another
• Tagline: "When their evil enemy resurfaces after 16 years, a group of ex-revolutionaries reunite to rescue the daughter of one of their own."  
• My Best Picture Project

    At its heart, this movie is a really excellent action/chase movie with a lot of tension, great acting, and engaging characters, and I liked it wildly more than the last Leonardo DiCaprio movie I saw (Killers of the Flower Moon).  It's full of dark humor and is a wonderful thrill ride.

    But.

    It is not without flaws. The immigration theme is a thin veneer that forms a backdrop to the movie, but it's not well integrated into the story. You can swap out ICE agents for Zombies, tweak a few details, and it would work just as well.  Or you could use the story as the basis for another Ocean's Eleven movie (one in which things go really, really wrong).  Immigration is a theme, but it's not what it's about.  

    Because the ICE/Revolutionary conflict is just a backdrop, that theme ends up feeling kind of performative and shallow. And what is the message? If I had to guess, it's "Pro-ICErs are ruthless, evil, and violent, and Anti-ICErs are stupid, paranoid, and violent."  

    And boy, are they stupid at times. The protagonists take unbelievably stupid risks for no gain, usually for laughs (stopping for sex when they should be escaping, or monologuing while walking on countertops), but these things didn't feel like something revolutionaries would actually do.  I would imagine they are more businesslike.   Even worse, they rat out their friends just unbelievably easily, yet we are supposed to believe that a completely paranoid organization wouldn't practice information hygiene to protect against that?  Every person who is caught knows WAY more about their friends than they should, and they endanger each other repeatedly.

    

    One of my favorite characters was Col. Lockjaw, played by Sean Penn.  He did a fabulous job creating a character that was Inspector Javert (but without the heart) mixed with Norman Bates or perhaps Travis Bickle. He walks weirdly, is a racist who fetishizes black women, and he's just ... off.   He was too weird even for the movie's Klan group (in a delightfully sly, ironic moment, Lockjaw is awarded the Bedford Forrest prize for excellence). Another neat parallel: the movie's two main villains are both played by Jewish men, echoing the casting and the actors' intent in Casablanca.

    I want to call out three actors who played small but important roles.  The first was Kevin Tighe who played paramedic Roy DeSoto in Emergency!  In this, he played a delightfully cantankerous elderly grand-dragon-type character. The other was Eric Schweig, who played Uncas in Last of the Mohicans.  In One Battle, he played a far less noble character, a Native American bounty hunter who works for the very people who hold him in contempt.   The last one is James Raterman who plays the ICE interrogator throughout the movie. He isn't (usually) a professional actor. He is a security consultant and former Homeland Security Investigator. He did a great job portraying an entirely competent agent. His character wasn't the slightest bit clownish, and ended up being one of the most frightening because of it.

    Finally, a note about politics.  The movie-makers were careful not to tie the movie to any specific POTUS in either of its two time periods, fifteen years apart. It could take place during any presidency starting with George W. Bush (ICE was formed in 2003), but it ended up feeling a little mistimed, given the real-life ICE conflicts happening right now.  For 15 of the last 22 years, I've lived an hour outside the Twin Cities. I'm still in Minnesota, but a little farther away now, and the situation in Minneapolis is incredibly tense, no matter which side of the conflict you are on, and for me, seeing a movie that uses that tension for frivolous entertainment value is a bit like poking a bruise.  The movie was made and released before Operation Metro Surge, but it hit awfully close to home.

    So, yeah, I really liked the movie—it was funny, tense, fast-paced, well-acted, and utterly engaging—and I definitely recommend it.  But you should go into it understanding that it reflects current events more than you might like.

(Pithy Reviews; and Rankings* out of 10 nominees):

1. Sinners (Southern gothic vampires sing the Blues; Cathy: 1, Chris: 1)
2. Bugonia (Alien-hunting conspiracy theorists; Cathy: 5, Chris: 2)
3. Train Dreams (Dreamy old logger survives ... life; Cathy: 2, Chris: 3)
4. One Battle After Another (Daddy-Daughter Revolution; Cathy: 4, Chris: 4)
5. F1: The Movie (Mesmerizing Top Gun for Formula 1 Fans; Cathy: 3, Chris 5)
6. Frankenstein (Monster-'splaning; Cathy: 6, Chris: 6)

• Hamnet (Cathy: x, Chris: x)
• Marty Supreme (Cathy: x, Chris: x)
• The Secret Agent (Cathy: x, Chris: x)
• Sentimental Value (Cathy: x, Chris: x)

* Rankings can change.

2026 Academy Awards Best Picture Nominee - Frankenstein

• IMDB link: Frankenstein
• Tagline: "Dr. Victor Frankenstein, a brilliant but egotistical scientist, brings a creature to life in a monstrous experiment that ultimately leads to the undoing of both the creator and his tragic creation."
• My Best Picture Project

    I have something of a complicated relationship with Frankenstein.  I admire it as the spiritual mother of science fiction, and when I was 19, I read it in one sitting for a literature class in college and loved it, but now, at 56, not so much.  Damn novel reads like it was written by a dramatic, emo teenager, which, I suppose, it was.  

    So far, my favorite rendition of Frankenstein is Frankenstein - Playing with Fire by Barbara Field, which I saw at the Guthrie Theater in 2018.  And after seeing the Guillermo del Toro exhibit at the Minneapolis Institute of Art a few years ago and his lifelong obsession with Frankenstein, I expected to like this movie.  Don't get me wrong: this version is by far the best movie adaptation I've seen and the truest (though not entirely true) to the source material. It's simply gorgeous, but del Toro couldn't resist tinkering with the story in ways that didn't improve it.

    Note: I'm assuming you know the story, and will be discussing spoilers. If you don't, you should probably stop reading now.

   

    Let's start with Elizabeth. I liked that she has more to say in this version, but directors just can't just seem to leave poor Elizabeth alone. In the Kenneth Branagh version, Victor turns Elizabeth into a bride for the monster (whut?), and in this version, Victor accidentally shoots her (again, whut?) when she is about to marry his brother (third whut).  In the book, Elizabeth and Victor were childhood sweethearts and the Monster kills her on their wedding night.   Seriously, that is more of a gut punch than the weird love triangle in this movie.

 

    The book makes it clear that Victor's creation was quite brutal, killing children (Victor's brother William) and women (Elizabeth) just to punish Victor. A Sesame Street monster, he was not. So when Mary Shelley shows you that Victor is even worse, well, she's really saying something.  On the other hand, del Toro softens the monster, limiting his violence to moments of self-defense. He doesn't hesitate to kill people who are trying to kill him, but he is tender and protective of innocents and those with sympathy toward him (like Elizabeth).  

    

    While softening the Monster, del Toro dials up Victor's monstrousness.   He loses the oh-me-oh-my-WhatHaveIDone of the book (which, to be honest, got a little tiresome at times) and makes him selfish, crazy, and just plain mean.  He outright beats the monster before abandoning him to burn to death in a rather spectacular crescendo of fiery destruction (I liked that part, actually).  In the book, Victor was young, maybe 20 or 22, and you can chalk his lack of wisdom to his still being a kid.  This Victor was in his 40s, and he just came across as a deranged asshole.

    In this version, William, who in this version is allowed to grow up and become Victor's office manager, informs his brother in what del Toro clearly intended to be A PIVOTAL SCENE, "You are the monster, Victor."  No shit, Sherlock.  It was the most bald example of directorial condescension I've ever seen.  Del Toro was .... monster-'splaining.  

    To be fair, the acting was excellent, the storytelling and cinematography, sets, and costumes were amazing, but I think Oscar Isaac was miscast, and I wish the director had stayed closer to Mary Shelley's version.

(Pithy Reviews; and Rankings* out of 10 nominees):

1. Sinners (Southern gothic vampires sing the Blues; Cathy: 1, Chris: 1)
2. Bugonia (Alien-hunting conspiracy theorists; Cathy: 4, Chris: 2)
3. Train Dreams (Dreamy old logger survives ... life; Cathy: 2, Chris: 3)
4. F1: The Movie (Mesmerizing Top Gun for Formula 1 Fans; Cathy: 3, Chris 4)
5. Frankenstein (Monster-'splaining; Cathy: 5, Chris: 5)

• Hamnet (Cathy: x, Chris: x)
• Marty Supreme (Cathy: x, Chris: x)
• One Battle After Another (Cathy: x, Chris: x)
• The Secret Agent (Cathy: x, Chris: x)
• Sentimental Value (Cathy: x, Chris: x)
• Train Dreams (Cathy: x, Chris: x)

* Rankings can change.

2026 Academy Awards Best Picture Nominee - Bugonia

• IMDB link: Bugonia
• Tagline: "Two conspiracy-obsessed young men kidnap the high-powered CEO of a major company, convinced that she is an alien intent on destroying planet Earth."
• My Best Picture Project

    I kinda hated this movie.  My husband and daughter loved it, so maybe I'm being unfair, but just as the heart loves what the heart loves, it also hates what it hates. But there were things I loved about it, too.  Going into it, I was disposed to like it because I loved another Yorgos Lanthimos collaboration with Emma Stone (the delightfully obscene Poor Things), so it surprised me when I didn't like it.  But there are some rather shocking events in the last half, and because I refuse to spoil the movie, this review must be neutered by definition.

     The acting was spectacularly good, particularly by the three main characters.  (Note: the character of Don was played by newcomer Aidan Delbis, who is neurodivergent in real life).  The cinematography was great. Except for the pacing, which had some problems, storytelling was very good.  The production design did a great job carrying visual motifs throughout the movie (there are honeycomb motifs all over the place). The movie is going to haunt me for a long time.

    From a movie-making perspective, the only real problem is the aforementioned pacing.  The first half of the movie was slow and kind of boring; the second half was like a train speeding toward a crescendo of weirdness.  The second half is worth the wait, though.  It is also described as darkly comedic, but I almost never found it funny.   

    Given what I said above, it seems odd to hate it, but hate it I did.   I have a quirk - I don't like stories where no one is likable, where I can't identify with the characters.  Okay, Don, the sweet, easily manipulatable character, was decent, but I don't identify with him. Michelle, the CEO, was ... rich, scornful, paying lip service to employee rights (ok, her wishy-washy suggestion that her people leave at 5:30 was kind of funny), and Teddy was a deranged, violent manipulator.

    I quit reading Cormac McCarthy's gorgeous Blood Meridian halfway through for the same reason -- it is filled with people with no redeeming characteristics at all.  I don't require stories be populated with saints -- I just need for them to have characters I can identify with, if only a little.   In my opinion, 

The best stories have complex heroes and villains who are, at the core, regular people.  Where the main difference between them is the path they chose to take. With Bugonia, I never felt like I was watching regular people.

    Note: because the movie doesn't explain it, the title refers to the ancient Greek concept of bees spontaneously emerging from animal carcasses.

 

(Pithy Reviews; and Rankings* out of 10 nominees):

1. Sinners (Southern Gothic Vampires Sing the Blues; Cathy: 1, Chris: 1)
2. Bugonia (Alien-hunting Conspiracy theorists; Cathy: 4, Chris: 2)
3. Train Dreams (Dreamy old logger survives ... life; Cathy: 2, Chris: 3)
4. F1: The Movie (Mesmerizing Top Gun for Formula 1 Fans; Cathy: 3, Chris 4)

• Frankenstein (Cathy: x, Chris: x)
• Hamnet (Cathy: x, Chris: x)
• Marty Supreme (Cathy: x, Chris: x)
• One Battle After Another (Cathy: x, Chris: x)
• The Secret Agent (Cathy: x, Chris: x)
• Sentimental Value (Cathy: x, Chris: x)

* Rankings can change.

2026 Academy Awards Best Picture Nominee - Train Dreams

• IMDB link: Train Dreams
• Tagline: "Based on Denis Johnson's beloved novella, Train Dreams is the moving portrait of Robert Grainier, a logger and railroad worker who leads a life of unexpected depth and beauty in the rapidly-changing America of the early 20th Century."
• My Best Picture Project

    This movie reminds me a lot of A River Runs Through It, but slower-paced. Lovely places, interesting people, and more ... dreamy, and given the title, that makes sense.  It is also more tragic, but I don't want to spoil the movie.  I haven't read the novella, so I can't speak to how well the movie adapted the source material.

    The movie is about an orphan who becomes a logger, and eventually marries, has a child, and he encounters a lot of strange people and strange events.  He witnesses the anti-Chinese racism of the early 1900s and encounters loggers of all ages.  At the start of the movie, he is young and notices the old loggers; later, he becomes an old logger and is taught to use early chainsaws by the young loggers.

    There was also a hint of Rip Van Winkle in the story - he occasionally comes out of the woods to see how the world is changing.  He sees TVs for the first time on one of those jaunts and finds out men have gone to outer space.  Another time, he rides in an airplane, and he ponders how everything is connected.

    I don't exactly identify with the main character - he's a logger, and I'm not. But he likes his cabin in the woods, and given the chaotic political events happening right now, I totally get that.   He's also a genuinely good man, and such people are rarely depicted on screen, perhaps because they aren't especially interesting. The movie makes up for that by making everything around him weird.

    

    The acting is excellent. William H. Macy played an old demolition expert in a standout, funny, and sad performance.  Cinematography is also great - the woods of the Pacific Northwest are almost a character in their own right.  

    It's a good movie, and I do recommend it, but expect the strange and tragic odyssey.

(Pithy Reviews; and Rankings* out of 10 nominees):

1. Sinners (Southern Gothic Vampires Sing the Blues; Cathy: 1, Chris: 1)
2. Train Dreams (Dreamy old logger survives ... life; Cathy: 2, Chris: 2)
3. F1: The Movie (Mesmerizing Top Gun for Formula 1 Fans; Cathy: 3, Chris 3)

• Bugonia (Cathy: x, Chris: x)
• Frankenstein (Cathy: x, Chris: x)
• Hamnet (Cathy: x, Chris: x)
• Marty Supreme (Cathy: x, Chris: x)
• One Battle After Another (Cathy: x, Chris: x)
• The Secret Agent (Cathy: x, Chris: x)
• Sentimental Value (Cathy: x, Chris: x)
• Train Dreams (Cathy: x, Chris: x)

* Rankings can change.

2026 Academy Awards Best Picture Nominee - Sinners

• IMDB link: Sinners
• Tagline: "Trying to leave their troubled lives behind, twin brothers return to their hometown to start again, only to discover that an even greater evil is waiting to welcome them back."
• My Best Picture Project

    Ohmygod. This movie was spectacular.  Seriously, do yourself a favor, and if you haven't seen it, pop some popcorn, grab a beer, and sit back and enjoy the story, the creepiness, the acting, and most of all, the music.  This was a horror movie with history, symbolism, and unexpected themes; a near-perfect example of entertaining and riveting storytelling that tells a simple story with complex and multi-layered meaning.

    Now, how to talk about this movie without giving too much away?   

    Director Ryan Coogler set the movie in 1932, and the main characters are WWI veterans-turned-Capone gangsters-turned-southern-speakeasy owners. Michael B. Jordan plays twins Smoke and Stack (get it?) who return home after years away, intending to open their own club.  It's sometimes hard to tell the twins apart -- one memory hint that might help as you watch the movie is that Smoke wears a blue hat (smoke is often blue), and Stack wears a red hat (chimney stacks are often made of red brick).  Anyway, they enlist their cousin, a gifted blues musician, to be their opening act.

    From there, everything goes to hell, as the movie sneaks its way from a wonderfully moody period drama into a monster movie with carefully crafted visuals and hints that observe all the rules of vampire lore (though it does speed up the turning process, from hours to minutes). Coogler also sneaks in other lore (hoodoo), and visual homages to other monsters - there is a scene of the undead singing that reminds me a little of Michael Jackson's Thriller video.

    The acting is excellent.  As always, Jordan creates a powerful presence on screen, but the entire cast is stand-out, including Delroy Lindo, Miles Caton, Halee Steinfeld, Li Jun Li, Jayme Lawson, and Wunmi Mosaku. They rounded out the story nicely. 

    I also want to call out Jack O'Connell, who played an important villain; he slipped between Irish and southern accents seamlessly (it makes sense, I swear).  I kept wondering how the actor could do such a perfect Irish accent, but then I found out that it's his natural accent, and the convincing, skillful part was the rural American South in his voice.  The movie also uses Irish history as an important theme. The main vampire is Irish. They drink Irish beer at the speakeasy, and it's more than just a thematic element; it's also a plot device (I can't say much about that - that would give too much away). It goes even deeper; Bram Stoker, the author of Dracula, was Irish, but more than that, Irish history mirrors African American history very closely. Coogler layers in the parallels and connections beautifully.  Even small details like inclusion of the Choctaw are important (the Choctaw raised money to help the Irish during the Irish potato famine of the 1850s. 170 years later, the Irish raised money to help Native American communities hardest hit by the COVID epidemic). 

    There were only a few minor things that bothered me: one that isn't really the movie's fault, and two that are.  Not the movie's fault: I have some hearing loss, so dialogue tracks in movies need to be really clear for me to understand them, and I'm having more and more difficulty with accents other than my own as I get older. Between the rural Southern dialects and the fact that Michael B. Jordan doesn't move his lips much in this movie (this isn't true in his other roles, so I think it was a character trait that fits the character), I had some difficulty understanding what people were saying. I turned on subtitles, and that solved the issue. 

    Now for the two that ARE the movie's fault - movies today are being made with muddy dialog tracks, and it seems to be a deliberate stylistic trend; I think the moviemakers are trying to be realistic and immersive. That is true of this movie.  I know it's not just my hearing - I can turn on movies made 30 and 40 years ago and have no trouble understanding them, but I do have difficulty with a lot of modern dialogue tracks, regardless of dialect (the TV show Coroner, which takes place in Ontario, is a particularly egregious example).  The rest of the sound design is excellent, though.

    The final problem is that the credits start to roll ... but the movie is not over. There is a VERY extended outtake with another 5 or so minutes of movie that you should absolutely not miss. As we were turning off the movie, my daughter noticed that there were many more minutes left, so we went back in, and I'm glad we did. So, note to Mr. Coogler: don't start rolling the credits until the movie is genuinely over, particularly in non-Marvel movies like this one, where outtakes aren't expected. It's only because of my daughter's quick thinking that we didn't miss the real ending of the movie. The outtake isn't just a small easter egg; Buddy Guy, the real-life blues musician, plays an important part.

    One final note. The tagline includes the phrase, "an even greater evil is waiting to welcome them back." Chris and I gave the movie a much higher "important message" score than we might normally give a monster flick because it addresses the virulent racism of the early 1930s.  

(Pithy Reviews; and Rankings* out of 10 nominees):

1. Sinners (Southern Gothic Vampires Sing the Blues; Cathy: 1, Chris: 1)
2. F1: The Movie (Mesmerizing Top Gun for Formula 1 Fans; Cathy: 2, Chris 2)

• Bugonia (Cathy: x, Chris: x)
• Frankenstein (Cathy: x, Chris: x)
• Hamnet (Cathy: x, Chris: x)
• Marty Supreme (Cathy: x, Chris: x)
• One Battle After Another (Cathy: x, Chris: x)
• The Secret Agent (Cathy: x, Chris: x)
• Sentimental Value (Cathy: x, Chris: x)
• Train Dreams (Cathy: x, Chris: x)

* Rankings can change.

1939: Schopenhauer's Cheap Pride

Arthur Schopenhauer
By Johann Schäfer - Frankfurt am Main
University Library, Public Domain.

    There's this thing that happens, where I come up with an idea that I think is just dandy, smart, and incisive, and then I find out someone else came up with it long before I did.  [Big, gusty sigh]

    A few weeks ago, I rewrote the third chapter of Biscuit, and, in an attempt to understand why the Germans supported Hitler, I wrote the following scene between my Grandma Roma, great-grandmother, and great-aunt:

    There was a lull, and then her sister asked with quiet befuddlement, “I don’t understand what the Germans see in him. He’s a sweaty little man with a tiny mustache and a bad haircut that flops into his face.  And he shrieks up on that stage like he is having an apoplexy.  In his letters, has Kuba ever said anything about why people like Hitler?” 

    Roma nodded.  “Jake says it’s because Hitler offers them cheap pride at a time when… how did he put it? Oh. Yes. When they were jobless and starving for empty dignity.”

    “Cheap pride?” Lola asked.

    “You know how people naturally take pride in things they work hard for?” When Roma saw that her mother and sister understood where she was going, she continued. “Well, what if you have nothing like that? No job, nothing to work for, nothing to point to that’s worthy?”

    Teofila put it together first. “Hitler gave them something easy to be proud of, didn’t he? Maybe the only thing in their life for which they never had to struggle.”

    “Yes, Mama,” Roma answered. “You don’t need any personal accomplishments, nor even useful skills.  All you have to do is be born Aryan.”

    Lola finished the idea. “And if you weren’t born Aryan, well then, tough luck.”

    The women were quiet for a long time.

 

    I was really proud of my cheap pride concept.  Germany had been harshly punished for WW1, and the Great Depression hadn't helped matters. Between the reparations and the mass joblessness due to the depression, the people were desperate for something to believe in.  I have always felt that the Treaty of Versailles, which pinned the fault for WW1 on Germany, is what led to the rise of Hitler and the cause of WW2.

    Then, today, the following quote by the German philosopher Arthur Schopenhauer came across my Facebook feed:

“The cheapest sort of pride is national pride; pride in his own nation suggests he has no qualities of his own for which he can be proud, otherwise he would not reach for what he shares with so many millions of his fellowmen.  He who possesses significant personal merits will see clearly the ways in which his own nation falls short, since its failings will be constantly before his eyes. But that poor beggar who has nothing in the world for which he can be proud, as a last resort, latches onto pride in the nation to which he belongs, and is ready and glad to defend tooth and nail, all of the nation's errors and follies, thus reimbursing himself for his own lack of accomplishments."

—Arthur Schopenhauer, 1788-1860

    Well, okay, then.   Looks like I didn't come up with the idea first; Schopenhauer did, more than 100 years before I was born. [Another big, gusty sigh].  I suppose I shouldn't be surprised, though. The Ecclesiastes principle states that "there is nothing new under the sun," and Mark Twain might have said, "There is no such thing as a new idea. It is impossible. We simply take a lot of old ideas and put them into a sort of mental kaleidoscope."   While I might not have come up with the idea first, this does tell me that human nature doesn't really change.