“Small Things Like These” (Apple and Others$ 2024) I love Claire Keegan’s books. The two adaptations I have watched (this one and The Quiet Girl) are both true to the book in nearly every way. The setting is a small town in Ireland in the 1950’s The local convent is also serves as a Mother and Baby Home where young unwed pregnant women are sent by their families. The extreme abuses of these state/church run institutions have been documented in several excellent films, both narrative and documentary– it is estimated that nearly 56,000 young women were affected–but this one takes a slightly different focus. Cillian Murphy plays a happily married family man who by chance is witness to one of the atrocities in the convent. His subsequent choices may have disasterous consequences but he is determined to follow his conscience. Obviously his decision does not change the system (those places didn’t close until 1961), but the film is about individual choices of conscience. How can we as individuals fight injustice so that we can live with ourselves?
“Conclave” (Fandango Home 2024) Still recovering from Small Things Like These and Sebastian Barry’s Old God’s Times (a novel), I needed to set aside my inner cynic and just relax and enjoy the film as a good old fashioned high intentioned mystery/propaganda piece. The not so sub text is a familiar trope: the tension of the plot is between those who seek power but don’t deserve it and those who deserve it because they don’t want it. The much loved, liberal Pope has suddenly died, leaving the Cardinals to elect a new one. Ralph Fiennes (be still my heart!) plays a good guy. He’s a Cardinal in the throes of an existential crisis. The remaining Cardinals all seem a little suspect. Well maybe not Stanley Tucci. He plays a middle grounder and is such a likable down-to-earth kinda Cardinal that he could be serving pasta or mass. The remaining Cardinals and Isabella Rossolini as the Mother Superior might have something to hide, but we don’t know what. Conspiracies abound. Will good triumph over evil and who will be Pope? The fate of the future Catholic Church hangs on the decision. Will the new Pope be someone who rejects modern reform and returns to the Old Ways? Or will he be one who continues to lead the Church into the modern world and its true mission of serving humanity and championing the suffering and discouraged? Great acting and gorgeous cinematography. The ending is a bit of a surprise–though I suspected it all along as will you. But there is a clincher that many of you, me included, will not predict. It enraged and offended the Catholic critics. But it does raise a metaphorical question to consider.
True Detective Season 4. Max 2024) I didn’t watch any of the other seasons but I believed some hype about how Season 4 with Jodie Foster was different. Well, it’s not. Same old extreme violence, but this one has a kind of Inuit supernatural cum environmental theme. It takes place in Alaska where it turns out a lot of sex goes on. It’s female empowerment via sexual abandon and being on top. But if you are a huge Jodie Foster fan, (she won a Golden Globe for it) it might be for you!
Missing You (2024)This one started out interesting enough, but it went south pretty fast. By the end there was so much suspension of disbelief that I can’t even remember what it was about. Good acting (I love star Rosalind Eleazar of Slow Horses) and attractive actors made it tolerable, so it’s probably a good flu flick.
The Order (2025) I didn’t expect to like this thriller, but I have to admit I was on the edge of my seat. The acting is great and the story very creepy but scary only only in its implications about the nature of evil. It’s based on a true story. When I looked up the real Bob Matthews, the actor playing him –Nicolas Hoult–bears an uncanny resemblance! It’s very disturbing but very good.
Joe Sarno: A Life in Dirty Movies (2013 Kanopy, Amazon?) He was called “The Ingmar Bergman of 42nd Street” (some of my older readers may remember when 42nd Street wasn’t a place to bring the kids to see Disney characters?) His films include such classics as “Suburban Secrets” “Sex Starved” and “Screw The Right Thing” among many, many others. But there are lots of good things to say about the film. I will just mention a few and then you can go running to your streaming network of choice. At the time of the filming he was 88 and still trying to make the kind of erotic films he was so noted for. He died before it was released. One of the recurring themes of the film is the devoted and loving relationship he has with his much younger wife Peggy and her relationship with her mother. The other is the very interesting exploration of the difference between explicit erotica and hard core porn. Sarno was not interested in that kind of filmmaking. Rightly so he felt that porn is the antithesis of eroticism and women’s pleasure. Watch the film and give some feedback, and yes, it is kind of a turn on. Love to hear from you!
Others recommend: My friends in Esparto say “Night Bitch” on Hulu is great. I don’t get Hulu but am planning to soon. If you watch it, your thoughts?
New York Cynic 
thanks for your very thoughtful commentary, as always.
I saw the Bob Dylan film yesterday, I really enjoyed it. My foot was tapping throughout the entire film.
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I think my problem with the Sarno film is it doesn’t explore the obvious.. why do people make films about sex? What’s the motivation? Is it titilation? Is it voyarism? Is it a recapitulation of an abusive childhood? Both Sarno and his wife talk about their profession like they’re accountants. In fact they’re participants and directors of situations with woman who ( as the research shows with sex workers) were sexually abused. For me watching them and the other men who made these movies was creepy. The reality is these “ arty” movies were shown in sleezy theaters were guys were jerking off into their raincoats.
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You make some good points but how do you differentiate his films from current explicit often not very good mainstream films? For a while it was nearly impossible to find films that didn’t have at least one cunnilingus scene. Now it is de rigeur to have ( to me often overlong) at least one sex scene even when it s totally unnecessary to the plot. What about that unwatchable series eg Disclaimer? Those shots were of course essential to the plot but im sure they held mucho purient value to many viewers. And what about the plot was socially redeeming? Was Care Blanchett sexually abused? (Well maybe since 30% of women have been) unlike porn and other current films Sarnos were quite gentle—maybe one step up from home videos some lovers make for their own entertainment. I’ll bet at least a few of my readers have a French Maid’s costume hidden in their closet.
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I thoroughly enjoyed the Sarno doc. The NYC scenes were fabulous: did Joe really leave over half of his Katz’ pastrami sandwich? The relationship between Joe and Peggy was endearing and sweet. I loved how they worked together — not cold and calculating as another viewer suggested but appreciative of each other’s sensuality while keeping criticism real — “no one uses a phone booth nowadays”. For me, Sarno enjoyed sex: he started at 13 with his neighbor – not merely petting (as we all experimented) but going “all the way.” Far from exploiting women, as hard core porn often did, he extolled the woman’s eyes, breath
and pleasure; the ‘money shot’ was her real orgasm, not the ‘cock/semen’ squirt. Sarno maintained his integrity throughout, refusing to succumb to the money-making hard core industry — why he even hired a ‘flat-chested’ female actor. I need to add that as a First Amendment advocate, I don’t relegate all hard core porn to the ‘junk pile’ (well maybe some that eschew any notion of foreplay, but those are actually funny). Nor do I agree with the viewer who thinks in order to write or watch erotica or porn one has to have been sexually abused. Rather I believe American Puritanical values have created the hidden raincoat secret in the closet reactions to sexuality. C’mon, sex is fun — what’s wrong with watching others who feel the same?
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