Daily Blague

After weeks of sunshine, we're having some dismal weather. It's warm enough for the air to feel humid rather than damp, and there's a drizzle. But I had a doctor's appointment early yesterday afternoon, so as long as I had to go out I thought I'd make something of it. Remember, I had that pass from last week's imbroglio at the Clearview Theatre at First and Sixty-Second. I was curious to see if it would be honored. It looked totally worthless, the kind of thing that used to admit everyone to everything but that is now used only at cash bars. We were told that it would be good at any Clearview Theatre, but I decided not to press my luck. And, besides, there was no reason not to repeat last week's routine, once I left the doctor's office.

This time I had lunch at the Baker Street Pub before going to the movie. Did that stop me from buying a big combo of Diet Whatever and popcorn? No, it did not. (But it did keep me from consuming much of either.) Having misread the fine print in the paper this morning, I managed to miss all of the previews. The Prize Winner of Defiance, Ohio, which opened today, turns out to be a very powerful movie. It dilates your receptiveness with some clever and arresting visual play (my way of covering moves that I don't have the vocabulary to describe), such as having a second Julianne Moore address the audience on her character's specialty, which was winning prizes by writing jingles, while the first one frowns over her notepad. (You must see the film just for the giddy delight of the supermarket scene.) Then, when your pores are fully opened, it hunkers down for a story of the mundane but serious ordeals that beset the large family of a wounded male. As a result, you feel the hardship as your own, and marvel all the more at Evelyn Ryan's strength and good cheer. As Kelly Ryan, Woody Harrelson is occasionally terrifying and almost always a bit frightening; he is no longer a callow youth but a serious actor. The real point of Prize Winner seems to be to remind us of how much fun everybody used to have in the days of rigid gender stereotyping. Simon Reynolds and David Gardner make strong impressions in smaller roles, as a nasty milkman and a useless parish priest. Laura Dern heads up a wing of the plot that quietly underscores the desolation of the Evelyn Ryan's circumstances - a desolation that the Evelyn is determined to overlook.Director Jane Anderson wrote the script from Terry Ryan's memoir, which bears the same name but adds the following subtitle: How My Mother Raised 10 Kids on 25 Words or Less. Miss Ryan, along with a few of her siblings, appears at the movie's graceful end.

Still, I was not very happy about going next door to the storage unit, which has suddenly taken on an abandoned air, as if the owners were never coming back for what's in it. I stuffed a couple of bags - worn slipcovers, felt slippers (?) and a few books into my big tote and left. I couldn't have been there for ten minutes.

I was very lucky, securing a taxi as soon as I climbed up to First Avenue.