Bread and Bread

When I saw The Station Agent , I remember imagining an alternate-universe version of the movie focused on the relationship between Michelle Williams’ and Bobby Cannavale’s characters instead of on Peter Dinklage and Patricia Clarkson. I.e., on the young, traditionally sexy couple instead of the man with dwarfism and the older woman. Of course, that alternate universe is usually this universe, and I felt so happy and grateful to visit a world where the “supporting” characters were central. Realizing that in 2003 Patricia Clarkson was probably like five years older than I am now. I had the same experience last night when AK and I saw Roma at the Egyptian Theatre. If it had been a movie about a middle-class Mexican woman (Marina de Tavira) struggling through a divorce while her indigenous maid (Yalitza Aparicio) deals with an unplanned pregnancy, it might still have been a good story. But writer-director Alfonso Cuarón made the same simple/radical choice that Tom McCarthy made w...

From my travel journal: Thursday, our first in Mexico City, we kept it mellow and walked around Polanco, which all the guidebooks say is the "Beverly Hills of Mexico City." It's true that I saw a BMW motorcycle and lots of professional dog walkers, but Polanco has more urban flare than BH. We spent a lot of time at Lincoln Park; there's a statue of Lincoln here that says "a gift from the people of the United States to the people of Mexico." Nearby a store had hung a #fucktrump banner. Better than a wall. We stayed up talking to the friends we're staying with, Laura and her wife, Molly. I've known Laura since I was a little kid; our moms were good friends, and hers passed away recently, from Alzheimer's. Laura said that navigating her mom's illness would have been twice as hard without her sister Lindsay, and that's part of why they wanted a second kid (Cora is four, Evan is 20 months). It's sobering, but it did push me more in...