Tuesday is Movie Day

      For the past month, Tuesday has been movie day for me.  Melanie and I, recent retirees, are going to the movies weekly on Tuesday where the tickets are $5 and include free popcorn!  And then we go out to lunch for a discussion of what we have seen.

My criteria is that it needs to be a movie about people and a movie that will make me think.  So far, our movies have been: Our Brand is Crisis (politics), Burnt (about a perfectionist chef), Suffragette (feminism) and today - Spotlight - about the reporting of the Boston Globe on the systemic cover up of the molestation of children by priests.

This was a powerful and - yes - thought provoking movie.  I have been part of book groups for over 30 years and I love discussing a book that everyone has read.  The only problem is that if it has been a while since we read it, we don't always remember details and our reaction to it is in the past.  But watching a movie with others and then talking about it is about our immediate responses.  I love it.

Spotlight had some of my favorite actors in it - like Stanley Tucci, John Slattery and Michael Keaton.  And it was a complicated story that was told well and was very satisfying.  This is what it made me think about
1. How we can try to put the needs of the institution over the needs of people - whether it is a church, a  newspaper, a school, a company. And soon there will be a movies about the reality of concussions in football and  corruption on wall street.  We can read the paper about the lies of VW that put lives at risk.  It happens all the time.
2. How easy it is to turn a blind eye to what is happening.  And there were good people - priests, lawyers and newspaper people who chose not to see or to connect the dots to the systemic evil.
3. How sometimes only the outsider can come in and open our eyes.  In this case it was an editor who was Jewish and not from Boston who started to ask the questions.

And always, when I see movies like this I hope that   - in the future - I can be a person who sees what is really going on.  And has the courage to tell the truth and face the consequences.  I know that has not always been the case.

Tuesday at the movies is more than entertainment - it stretches my mind and hopefully enlarges my spirit. 

Email me if you want to join us! (ogram842@yahoo.com)