ON SCREEN: BIG CONTENDER FOR MULTIPLE OSCARS
Marty Supreme
In past years, the Chief Penguin and I have made it a goal to see as many of the Best Picture Oscar nominations as possible. More recently, we’ve been slackers, but we might see a few of them between now and the March awards.
We are fans of Timothée Chalamet since seeing him in Call Me by Your Name and Lady Bird, both films of 2017. As the star of Marty Supreme, he gave us a good excuse to walk downtown to the cozy Cary theater for an afternoon show. Chalamet plays Marty Mauser, an overconfident young man out to achieve fame as a star ping pong player, and he was fabulous! He most certainly deserves his nomination for Best Actor.
The film actually has a total of 9 award nominations including Best Picture and Best Director. Did I love the film? No, not really. It is fast-paced and intense, with one lively scene after another like a ping pong ball ricocheting back and forth across the game table. Set in the 1950’s and supposedly inspired by a real ping pong player, it has little in the way of character development or a moral arc. Perhaps that makes it more realistic.
Marty is perennially supremely confident, arrogant even, ever ready to make a deal and get what he wants with little to no effort. He’s also careless with other people’s feelings, including his sometime girlfriend’s. But then, it’s a sports film, and Marty is always hankering after the next major tournament (in Japan, perhaps) and scheming to find the money to get there. He has no real job and no long-range plans.
The tournament scenes are dizzying and a technical feat. The soundtrack is appropriately heavy or boisterous as needed, and Gwyneth Paltrow has a touching role as actress Kay Stone, trying for her own comeback. I wanted Marty to get his comeuppance and so found the ending disappointing. Overall, I give it a qualified recommendation as more of a guy’s film.
READING: MARRIAGE UPENDED
Strangers: A Memoir of Marriage by Belle Burden
Author Belle Burden is the product of a socially prominent wealthy family. Her grandmother was Babe Paley, magazine editor and socialite wife of William, founder and CEO of CBS. Burden’s mother, Amanda, is an urban planner who was director of city planning in New York under Mayor Bloomberg. It is not surprising then that Belle, a young lawyer, met and married another rich, preppy lawyer. He too was socially connected.
Over two decades together, they had three children, and he flourished in his career, while she mostly gave up working, tending to the household and the kids’ lives. During Covid, she learned James was having an affair. Confronted, he announced the next day that he wanted a divorce and didn’t want nor care about shared custody of their children.
Strangers is Burden’s account of her shock and disbelief, her struggle to pull herself together, and her probing reflections on why and what motivated husband James to cut himself off so completely. The book grew out of a column she wrote for “Modern Love” in the New York Times.
She is candid in sharing her personal shortcomings, reveals James’ in-it-for- himself approach to money and family, and doesn’t stint on describing how difficult the divorce proceedings were. Yet she genuinely loved this man and so retains some kindness toward him. What I found striking was how much she became a 1950’s traditional wife after the arrival of the children, knowing nothing about their family finances and not asking any questions about them. It’s a very engaging quick read and I recommend it. (~JWFarrington)
COOKING: IN THE KITCHEN WITH A MEAL KIT
Recently, the Chief Penguin and I re-discovered how much we like the Fresh Market stores. We regularly shopped at our local one in Florida. The Fresh Market in Cary is bigger and nicer with tempting deli salads, a wide variety of ethnic sauces, pickles, and spices, and a cheese case that comes close to rivaling Wegmans.
This time we surrendered to the temptation of one of their Market Meal Kits, specifically the Thai Coconut Chicken Rice Bowl. There were several choices ranging from flank steak to Korean barbeque, but this one piqued our fancy. I’ve never prepared one of these meal kits before and was surprised and pleased by the freshness of the ingredients, the sturdy plastic box containing each item separately wrapped, and the straightforward directions.
Even the olive oil for sautéing was included, along with a small packet of seasoning. The vegetables, broccoli mostly with some onion, shredded carrots, and a few onion pieces and snap peas, are stir fried and set aside. While you cook the chicken, the rice packet goes into the microwave for its cooking. Then add veggies and the coconut sauce to the chicken and voila, in a minute or two you have a complete dish to serve over the rice. Start to finish without any pauses, it takes just 15 minutes.
The resulting dish was delicious, nicely spiced, and not salty! We enjoyed it, and not being big eaters, had some leftover for lunch. We look forward to trying other kits.
