BLOOMS OF DARKNESS * THE HARVEY GIRLS * MY WEEK WITH MARILYN

Blooms of Darkness by Aharon Appelfeld - A compelling book about an 11 year old boy named Hugo. In the early 1940s he and his mother live in the Jewish ghetto, and she makes a plan for his safety. The story of Hugo, although narrated, is as if Hugo is telling it himself. The language is simple and spare, yet the story is full. At some point, the story becomes existential and happens on different plains, but the reader is free to experience it a simple way or in a way that holds deeper meanings about existence, religion, and survival.

The Harvey Girls - This is a 1946 musical starring Judy Garland as a girl from Ohio who travels out west in the 1880s in order to get married. Upon her arrival she finds out that her romantic letters had been written by the owner of the local speakeasy on behalf of a goofy groom. So she decides to work as a waitress at the new Fred Harvey restaurant. Except the judge in town wants to put the Harvey House out of business because he gets kickbacks from the speakeasy. He says that once the nice Harvey girls come to town, the cowboys will stop frequenting the speakeasy in favor of marriage and church. I'm not usually a lover of musicals, but thanks to remote control fast forwarding technology, this was a delightful movie.

My Week With Marilyn - Huh? I guess it's easy to critique the critics after the fact, but seriously, although this was an OK movie, it was seriously over-hyped. It began with much promise and warmth, but as it progressed I found it to be long and even preachy. Michelle Williams plays a skinny and inconsistent Marilyn, at times ethereal but not capturing that thing about Marilyn Monroe that was solid and big, yet so unusually vulnerable. It would be difficult to do, but a larger more solid actress might have pulled it off in a more believable manner. Or maybe one has to read the book.