The power of the movie Spotlight 

I loved the movie Spotlight, about a group of Boston Globe reporters who uncovered and reported on the alleged abuse and rape performed by Catholic priests and its ensuing cover-up. The movie's ensemble cast, including Mark Ruffalo, Michael Keaton, Rachel McAdams, Live Schreiber, John Slattery, Brian d'Arcy, and Stanley Tucci, has been nominated for six Oscars and won the Screen Actors Guild Award for outstanding performance by a cast in a motion picture, among others. The movie is so well-written, acted, directed. Really what more can I say? Well there is more. Spotlight was highlighted in the LA Times today because it was screened at a Vatican commission on clerical sex abuse. Here's what LA Times correspondent, Tom Kington, wrote: A Vatican commission on clerical sex abuse gathered Thursday for a private screening of Spotlight, the Oscar-nominated film about abuse by Boston priests, even as Pope Francis came under fire for failing to act on the crisis. The … [Read more...]

End of year movie binge

When I was a little girl my parents took me downtown Chicago to see movies that had a stage show as an opening act. I remember seeing Nat King Cole and Frankie Laine (not my favorite), but I found the movies the most exciting. Sometimes I'd go with my older brother, and I never minded that I had to watch his cowboy and war movie choices. As I got older I went with my friends and got to pick what I wanted to see recommendations right out of the stacks of movie magazines I read from cover to cover. So I was a well-trained movie freak and that hasn't changed at all. In fact, movies became one of my biggest diversions after my son died in 1999 - something I wrote a lot about in my memoir, Leaving the Hall Light On. I could sit in the theater and forget about all the pain in my heart. I always love to go at this time of the year when the new movies come out to compete for all the up and coming awards: Golden Globe, Screen Actors Guild, Writers Guild, Academy Awards you name … [Read more...]

What happened in November

Since returning from our three-week trip to Central America, Raleigh NC, and New York City on November 6, I've been intent on getting back into my daily writing routine. Here's what I did in November to start moving in that direction. Please note that I didn't spend this month just writing. I think reading and seeing movies, opera, and plays are all grist for the mill and great learning devices. In November I: Wrote a poem every day to fulfill Robert Lee Brewer's November 2015 PAD challenge wrote the last one today Wrote a journal entry every day to fulfill my personal writing challenge Wrote a piece for Naturally Savvy I have a blog there called Savvy Over 60 Wrote a piece about how I got my book published for an Authors Publish anthology - not accepted yet Read: The Handmaid's Tale by Margaret Atwood, Marilyn by Gloria Steinem, Go Set A Watchman by Harper Lee, and Room (the second time) by Emma Donoghue Started to read: The Art of Memoir by Mary Karr, … [Read more...]