Films and Feelings

    The modern push for the movie musical tends to favor a modern sound--songs with undertones of rap or rock. It must have taken director Joe Wright a special kind of tenacity, then, to throw his heart and soul into a musical project (itself a bold undertaking) that surrenders to pure classicalism with his new film Cyrano . Whatever his thought process, it's hard to argue with the results. With its heavenly design, vulnerable performances, and gorgeous musical numbers, the last musical offering of 2021 (or perhaps the first of 2022) is endlessly enchanting.     Cyrano de Bergerac's small stature makes him easy prey for the scorn and ridicule of the high-class Victorian society, but there has yet to be a foe that he could not disarm with his sharp mind and even sharper tongue. The person who could ever truly reject him is Roxanne, his childhood friend for whom he harbors love of the most romantic variety. Too afraid to court Roxanne himself, he chooses to use the handsome but t

  I had an experience this last fall when I was working at a residential treatment facility for boys with behavioral issues.  My boys had been dying all week to watch Black Widow. These boys very seldom got to watch new movies while they were with us except for special field trips or when on home visits, and this movie  had only just become available on Disney+. The staff all agreed to let them have a special viewing as a reward for their deep cleaning leading up to Parents' Weekend.  I was really proud of my boys for their enthusiasm. I took it as a token of their evolving social awareness that they were as excited for a female-led superhero pick as they had been for Falcon and the Winter Soldier. My boys were becoming little feminists, or so I thought.  Imagine my disappointment when we finally watched the film and they spent the entire runtime catcalling Natasha and her sister. An entire film dedicated to a powerful heroine moving heaven and earth to liberate others like her, an