Rule #24 for films and television

After a parent says good night to her/his kid in the kid's room, the parent will have one hand on the door when the kid will speak up about an important topic.

Here is the complete list of rules.

Shirley (2020)

Elisabeth Moss turns in a terrific performance as Shirley Jackson, portrayed here as an acerbic, agoraphobic, alcoholic writer of horror stories in 1964 Bennington, Vermont. Jackson was a real person and her family was not happy about the portrayal. Her most famous story, The Lottery, was originally published in The New Yorker in 1948 and the magazine reran it in August of this year, around the time of the movie's release. Read and/or listen to it here.

The supporting cast also shines, including Michael Stuhlbarg as Jackson's ebullient husband and Odessa Young and Logan Lerman as the young couple who stay with them.

This won a Sundance Award as well as a few other nominations for director Josephine Decker. Sarah Gubbins adapted Susan Scarf Merrell's 2014 novel.

Since we watched this two months ago, I have little recollection of the set dressing and cinematography. I'm sure it was fabulous. I do sort of remember the mid-century wardrobe so I'll give a shout out to Amela Baksic.

The soundtrack by Tamar-Kali can be found on YouTube, Apple Music, and more.

Moss was last blogged for Her Smell, Stuhlbarg for Call Me by Your Name, Lerman for Indignation, and Tamar-Kali for The Assistant. Young isn't new to acting and this is Decker's fifth feature, but both are new to me. I've enjoyed all of Gubbins' previous work–writing and producing the serieses Better Things and I Love Dick. The former is a must-see.

Rotten Tomatoes' critics are in line with us, averaging 87% while its audiences, not so much at 56.

You can stream this on Hulu by subscription or rent it on Amazon Prime, Apple TV, and more.

Lucky Grandma (2019)

We loved this story of a Chinese woman who wins big at a casino not far from her home in NYC's Chinatown. The script is clever and hilarious, mostly in Chinese dialect with subtitles, picturing the melding of traditional ways with the modern world. Note: there's a little tiny bit of violence.

Directed and co-written by Sasie Sealy and co-written by Angela Chen in their feature debut, it stars Tsai Chin in the title role. She will be 87 next month, is the daughter of an actor, was the first Chinese student to study at London's Royal Academy of Dramatic Art and has dozens of credits, including You Only Live Twice (1967), The Joy Luck Club (1993), Memoirs of a Geisha (2005), and Now You See Me 2.

The soundtrack by Andrew Orkin is available on Apple Music, Soundcloud, and more.

Rotten Tomatoes' critics' average is 94% (right) and its audiences' 67 (wrong).

The best way to watch this, as Jack and I did in early September, is by supporting your favorite independent cinema. Go to this link and find your favorite (sorted by state). The theatre will get a commission on your rental of the movie.

Bad Education (2019)

Jack, Amy, and I really liked this based-on-a-true story of fraud in a wealthy Long Island public school district in the early 2000s, adapted from the New York Magazine article The Bad Superintendent. We watched it on HBO in May (it's also available on Hulu and Amazon Prime). The stars include Hugh Jackman, Allison Janney, Geraldine Viswanathan, Annaleigh Ashford, and Ray Romano. Cory Finley directs from the screenplay by Mike Makowsky, who attended Roslyn High School in New York, which is in the district where the story is set.

At the time I made a note that I liked the classical music by Michael Abels.

Not to be confused with Almadóvar's searing Bad Education (2004 - La mala educación), this one is averaging 94% from Rotten Tomatoes' critics and 83 from its audiences.

Jackman was last blogged for The Front Runner, Janney for Tallulah, Viswanathan for Blockers, Romano for The Big Sick (I didn't mention him for The Irishman), Finley for Thoroughbreds, and Abels for See You Yesterday. Ashford is a Tony-winning and -nominated stage actress and singer (we saw her on Broadway in Kinky Boots)–my favorite of her screen roles is her 37 episodes of Masters of Sex.

13th (2016)

This powerful documentary comparing the US prison system to slavery, thereby negating the 13th Amendment to the constitution had been on my radar since it first came out but I didn't see it until Jack, Amy, and I watched it on Netflix in June. Directed and co-written by Ava DuVernay, it was Oscar-nominated and won a pile of other awards. 

Highly recommended. You don't have to take my word for it–Rotten Tomatoes' critics' average is 97% and its audiences' 91.

Pandemic productions: Coastal Elites (2020) and Father of the Bride 3 (2020)

Jack and I loved these, both shot zoom-style, with single cameras on single actors.

Coastal Elites is five fictional monologues, 87 minutes total, starring Bette Midler, Dan Levy, Issa Rae, Sarah Paulson, and Kaitlyn Dever. They all play NY or LA residents, talking one at a time about politics and COVID. It's an HBO original, directed by Jay Roach and written by Paul Rudnick.

The haters at Rotten Tomatoes rate this only 55%. There is no audience rating, possibly a casualty of the pandemic. See above. We loved it.

Father of the Bride Part 3 (ish). is the official title. I read director/writer Nancy Meyers' New York Times article first and then eagerly watched the 26 minute segment on YouTube (it was a benefit for World Central Kitchen–we made a donation–and now the short is on Netflix). She reassembled the original cast  playing their original parts and it's expertly edited together, with clips from the first two Father of the Bride Movies (1991 and '95). Happily it has none of the distracting sound problems such a big zoom call would normally have. Starring Diane Keaton, Steve Martin, Kimberly Williams-Paisley, Kieran Culkin, George Newbern, Robert De Niro, Martin Short, and some surprises. I'm counting this as a movie, but apparently Rotten Tomatoes does not so I can't give you a rating.

Midler was last blogged for The Addams Family, Rae for Little, Paulson for The Post, Dever for Booksmart, Roach for Bombshell, Meyers for Home Again, Keaton for Book Club, Martin for The Jerk (which I watched in 2017), Culkin in Wiener-Dog (years before his Emmy nominated turn in Succession), De Niro for The Irishman, Short for Inherent Vice.

Levy is best known for creating and starring in Schitt's Creek; Rudnick wrote, among others, both Sister Act movies (1992 and '93), In & Out (1997), and The Stepford Wives (2004); Williams-Paisley, married to the country singer Brad Paisley, has plenty of credits since the original movies but I've seen none; and Newbern, busy as well, is best known to me as psychopathic hit man Charlie on 69 episodes of Scandal.