Sometimes the smallest moments have the biggest impact, so I like to write about the tiny things that felt huge to me.
Also, I love sharing my grandmother's journals, tiny books full of a life that was of huge importance to me.
The movies I saw in April were a very mixed bag, with the first being pretty dang perfect, the second pretty disappointing, and the third pretty much a complete waste of time.
The pretty dang perfect one was Sinners, starring Michael B. Jordan as Smoke and Stack, twin brothers who buy an old saw mill in 1930s Mississippi and spend one very eventful day turning it into a juke joint. Like a more musically inclined From Dusk Till Dawn with a pinch of Footloose and a handful of Mississippi Burning mixed in, this movie both looks and sounds great, especially one sequence that effortlessly blends many decades worth of music and dancing styles together into one masterful and gorgeous minute of cinema.
Also impressive was the job Jordan did portraying subtle differences in the twins' personalities, but even more impressive was how the filmmakers made it appear as if there were actually two of him on screen without relying on any of the cringe-worthy effects usually deployed when one actor plays dual roles.
The pretty disappointing movie was The Accountant 2, though likely mostly because of my own expectations. I loved the first movie so much that seeing the trailer for its sequel made me squeal out loud in the theater, and I can't remember being more excited for a second installment since maybe The Empire Strikes Back.
But while Empire is easily argued to be even better than the original Star Wars movie, I found nothing about The Accountant 2 that was even as good as the first, let alone better, as one trailer promised. But if you liked the relationship between the brothers that Ben Affleck and Jon Bernthal play in both movies, their few good scenes together could be enough to recommend this movie. Otherwise, the best thing it has to offer is Bernthal strutting around in his underwear.
As disappointing as The Accountant 2 was to me, however, it was a cinematic masterpiece compared to Havoc, a Netflix original starring Tom Hardy and Timothy Olyphant. The movie sounded so promising that it achieved the near-impossible feat of getting both my husband and me to agree on watching it, but the promise faded so quickly that we almost turned it off. And by the end I felt like I sat through a violent video game that I wouldn't want to play, let alone just watch being played.
And while Hardy and Olyphant can usually make even the most despicable cads charming, the only character I found worth rooting for in the movie was a young female cop with only a few scenes, though she did manage to star in just about the only scene I liked.
Grandma, left, and her lifelong friend Mina in their 20s, circa 1939.
Grandma at the laundromat: “No TV!! Dryer took quarter!”
Welcome to the days of my grandmother, who wrote down each morning when she woke up, recorded everything she ate, noted any phone calls or mail she received, then reviewed any movie she went to see before settling down with the television and a crossword puzzle in bed.
That was cool.
Because her journals are just about my favorite things to read these days, and have become one of the best forms of free mental health medication I can find these days.
The entries below are from May of 2000, when she was 84 and living alone in a trailer park. But don’t feel sorry for her, because she was the most fiercely independent person I have ever known, living in one of the most beautiful places I have ever known: Santa Cruz, California.
See some of her journals and learn more about her long and full life in this video:
