One Story “In the Neighborhood”

Recently, it was advertised that Roxane Gay would be judging a fiction contest for the Masters Review.  There was an informative few sentences as to what kind of stories Ms. Gay likes and didn’t like.  Among the things she didn’t like: stories about writers, and stories about white couples in sad relationships.  I chortled, and decided not to enter that contest because the piece I had ready would have trended too closely to the sad relationship trope.  Then, this arrived in the mail.  I’m sorry to say that Roxane Gay’s comments were still too fresh in my mind.  It’s a story of a white couple in a sad relationship.  Even without Gay’s comments, I think I might have still compared it unfavorably to an earlier One Story about a white couple in a sad relationship.  That one–“Queen Elizabeth”–I really enjoyed.   This one, not so much.

Three sentence movie reviews: The Loving Story

This is the documentary on which Jeff Nichols based his movie Loving.  Watching it after having watched Loving, it felt repetitive, as the fictional movie follows this closely.*  I enjoyed the original media coverage and felt this was a solid documentary.**

Cost: free from library
Where watched: at home

*This is, of course, not the documentary’s fault.
**If you have no time for either the documentary or the movie, might I suggest Grey Villet’s photos from 1966?  Here’s a link.

Poster from random internet search.

Three sentence movie review: The Umbrellas of Cherbourg

I didn’t get a heads up that this is one of those films where they sing all the way through–not my favorite.  It’s a beautifully composed story, the colors pop, and it’s worth watching just for the wallpaper.*  It’s an emotional film, and quite enjoyable.

Cost: free via Vimeo. (Sometimes the subtitles blipped very quickly, so I couldn’t read them. This was annoying, but I still got the gist)
Where watched: at home

*Seriously.

I watched this so I could listen to the Next Picture Show podcast pairing this movie with La La Land.

poster from: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Umbrellas_of_Cherbourg