Wake Up, Dead Man: Whodunnit Comedy with Heart

Commenting on the grandiose architecture of a church, the young priest tells a visitor, "You can almost feel His presence."

"Whose?" asks the visitor. Uncomfortable pause. "Oh."

The young priest, Father Jud Duplenticy (Josh O'Connor), has been accused of murdering his superior Monsignor Wick (James Brolin) during Mass. The visitor is Detective Benoit Blanc (Daniel Craig), convinced at their first meeting that the young priest isn't a guilty man pretending innocence, but an innocent man who appears to be guilty. About religion, though, Blanc is dismissive: "God is a fiction."

Cracking Blanc's attitude to religion is a story that underlies the plot.

The sacrament of confession punctuates the plot five times. The first confession is played for laughs as Father Jud hears TMI from Wick. In a replay of that situation, the young priest fights back, confessing that he has snooped around to learn all the ways that Wick is abusing his power over his followers. Once a boxer, Fr. Jud has sworn to fight for Jesus with his hands open in love, not with fists. His resolve is tested.

The last two confessions are spoilers, but number three is the heart of this funny, macabre murder mystery. It has nothing to do with whodunnit, and there's nothing funny about it.

It happens in a phone conversation with Laurie, office-manager at the excavation company that opened a crypt. Who ordered that work? Blanc wants Fr. Jud to find out ASAP. But Laurie seems to be in a chatty mood, and Fr. Jud listens patiently while Blanc rolls his eyes.

Suddenly, Laurie stops. When we she speaks again, she's sobbing, and Fr. Jud takes the phone and confession to another room. It's after dark by the time Laurie accepts forgiveness and finds the name they needed, but Blanc's attitude has changed. "You're really good at this!" he tells his young client.

What Blanc has learned carries over into a key decision he makes during the inevitable Big Reveal.

As much as I laughed and thrilled to all the old mystery tropes - long shadows, a creepy crypt, a sudden storm, and an impossible "locked-room" murder - it's Fr. Jud's solemn and loving pronouncement of absolution to those who desperately need it that I've taken away from the movie. I'm tearing up now, a week later.

The Joy of Singers & SINNERS

When the lights came up after the credits for Sinners, the elderly black man beside me, who had seen me gasp, laugh, and cry throughout the movie, said, "So, I suppose you're a blues man?"

"I am now," I replied.

It's true: to my collection of hundreds of recordings, I've recently added the first two blues albums, both by Buddy Guy, the revered singer-guitarist who appears late in the movie. I've been listening to them over and over, beginning to appreciate what I've been missing.

Sure, Sinners tells a story of vampires who crash a party at a Mississippi juke joint during the Jim Crow era. They do make a bloody mess, bringing a whole new meaning to the phrase "sundown town." But the tentpoles of this film are music and dance, and, like Blues songs about tough life, the overall effect is joy.

The first words of the movie are voiced by a woman who tells us about music's power to open a door between our world and the spirit world, between past and present, between good and evil. Take that as the thesis sentence for the movie. We will hear the blues, and we will also hear Irish folk music from another race of down-trodden people.

Then there's the character Sammie. The charismatic actor Michael B. Jordan was the draw to this movie, playing both "Smoke" and "Stack," Sammie's uncles. But it's Miles Caton as Sammie who stole the show. Sammie's a teenager, son of a preacher who forbids him to play guitar or sing the blues. Sammie's uncles think he might be a good singer for the opening bash at their new juke joint. So it's sort of an audition when, riding shotgun beside his uncles, he strums guitar and sings. The fullness and maturity of the sound from this deferential, unimposing young man is so unexpected that his uncle gasps, turns to gape at his passenger, then smiles broadly. That was my reaction, and others' too. Caton is now hailed as the "breakout" star of the movie.

Caton admits in an interview that he got the part before he understood SINNERS is a vampire movie.

His is the voice that cracks open the spirit world. Like songs in the best musical theatre tradition, the words of his blues number are very specific to his story:

You threw me a Bible on that Mississippi road
See, I love you Papa, you did all you can do
They say the truth hurts, so I lied to you
Yes I lied to you
I love the blues

It starts as voice and guitar, but ramps up to a surreal dance number. As the camera roams the dance floor, the dancers seem unfazed when they're infiltrated by musicians and dancers from Africa, China, past and future (there's a rap DJ with turntable).

Then a trio of white people ask to be invited in. They're musicians, too, says their spokesman Remmick (Jack O'Connell). He says they're not Klansmen: "We believe in equality." What that really means is, every new vampire joins a "community" of vampires who share Remmick's mind -- including his accent and movements. The trio sings a little ditty about eating a man. Smoke and Stack turn them away, but they lurk in the woods and pick off guests who leave the party, one by one.

Soon, Remmick has enough vampires to make up the cast of Riverdance, and that's what they do. He leads an Irish dance tune, "The Road to Dublin," and the chorus encircles the club doing their Irish jig.

At this point, I was laughing and crying -- one, because it was so incongruous to see blood-smeared black people jigging, and, two, because it was both outrageous and fitting -- perfection!

The film score by Ludwig Göransson is nearly continuous -- bluegrass or blues guitar playing behind images when not accompanying voices. Songs performed by women in the cast express their tangled relations with Smoke, Stack, and Sammie.

Director Ryan Coogler has made a great movie that busts out of one genre to another: music is at the heart of this horror movie. You can watch SINNERS for the thrill of a bloody horror suspense film, and find yourself exhilarated by the season's best musical.

Tom Stoppard and Me

The one thing left on my bucket list is to write a Stoppardian play. That would mean a comedy with characters whose dialogue would mix their personal stories with some intellectual controversy in a collage of images and allusions to literary or scientific sources. An unkind critic said a Stoppardian play uses complexity of form to disguise a simplicity of thought.

I tried, but never got beyond the brainstorming stage. It's probably a mistake to start with the form and not with a subject of interest. Anyway, he died today, so he'll never see my homage, should I ever write it.

Regardless, I loved what I read and I liked what I saw.

Bruce Davison, actor on stage and screen, starred in the Duke Players' production of Stoppard's Travesties for which I was props manager. Davison was Duke's artist-in-residence that year, around 1980. I was honored when the actor inserted "Scott Smoot" into a list of names during a performance.

The earth moved for me the first time I saw a play of his that I could understand. It was a one-act take-off on Agatha Christie's plays that he called The Real Inspector Hound. Mid-way, the phone rings and just keeps ringing. A theatre critic who has commented on the first half of the play gets annoyed and climbs up onto the stage to silence the phone. From that point on, every line and stage movement is practically a repeat of the first half of the play, only it all means something new with this different character.

Stoppard performed a similar feat in his screenplay for Russia House, which opens with a story told by Sean Connery, heard three times, verbatim. Each time we hear the words, we're seeing a different angle on the story that changes its meaning completely.

I was delighted, and in awe. I felt the ground drop away, and I was in free-fall. I'm always grateful for that experience.

I got that same feeling from Arcadia, a much more substantial and emotional (and joyful!) play. I admit that other live performances were rarely as strong as the ones I imagined while I read and marked cross-references, puns, and epigrams. A Broadway production of Jumpers, a play I'd read with delight, was especially disappointing. I missed so much that I had caught on the page.

That's more or less my experience with other Stoppard plays. Below are links to my blogposts about Stoppard's works:

• Stoppard's The Hard Problem: Dramatizing Thought
• Rosencrantz and Guildenstern: Still Kicking How do we gain when Stoppard crosses Hamlet with Waiting for Godot? Let me count the ways!
• The Invention of Stoppard Stoppard's favorite of his own works was The Invention of Love. I saw it on Broadway and I read it closely. Stoppard eluded me, but I do think my essay about the show hits on something great: the playwright known for verbal virtuosity achieves his greatest emotional effect in the silence between just two words.
• I read today (Stoppard's death) that he thought Arcadia was his best play. Me, too. I wrote about it in Math and Tenderness.
• I tried to appreciate Stoppard's suite of plays called The Coast of Utopia about the intellectual developments of the 19th century that led Russia to totalitarianism. I didn't succeed. Or maybe, Stoppard didn't. You Had to be There.

I may some day post notes I wrote longhand on Every Good Boy Deserves Favor, The Real Thing, Travesties, and Night and Day.

When I studied at Oxford in the summer of 1980, the lords of British theatre were Stoppard, his buddy Pinter, and their less-revered-but-more-popular colleague Peter Shaffer. I wrote about the other two when they died:

Playwright Sees God: Remembering Peter Shaffer https://smootpage.blogspot.com/2016/06/remembering-playwright-peter-shaffer.html

A Moment of Silence for Harold Pinterhttps://smootpage.blogspot.com/2008/12/moment-of-silence-for-harold-pinter.html

Premieres by young composer Nathaniel Davila

Young composer Nathaniel Davila presented a recital of original works Sunday night November 9. Although he is a baritone, he has sung Tenor with St. James parish choir for two years. I and many other members of the choir were there.

In Scott Hall of KSU's Bailey Arts Center, we heard live performances of several chamber works by Nathaniel. The theme of the recital was a question, "How do you express character in music?" In a three-movement work for piano, cello, and bassoon, Nathaniel played with the notion that time changes character while character also changes our perception of time.

We also viewed a short film Distance for which Nathaniel composed the score. The story is about a relationship when the partners are separated for a summer. The director used split screens to show the action, so Nathaniel created parallel themes. Like parallel lanes of a north-south highway, the characters' themes moved in opposite directions: not a good sign for their relationship!

Another piece featured a choir singing vocalese in close harmony over, and sometimes against, a tonal background created by instruments.

At the conclusion, Nathaniel thanked Dr. Black. "I have learned so much from St. James," he said. In the photo, he's pictured at the piano, surrounded by members of the choir.

Remembering Mom

Frances M. Smoot
Educator, Dancer, Runner
November 5, 1934 – November 6, 2025

Frances Smoot died in her sleep one day after her 91st birthday. She was born Frances Lee Maier in 1934. Throughout her childhood in Cincinnati, she danced ballet and tap, continuing to dance in the annual revues at Walnut Hills High School. There she met Tom Smoot, a “bad boy” who reformed under her influence. She finished her undergraduate degree in Education at the University of Cincinnati, and married Tom in 1955. Over the next seven years, their family grew by three children, daughter Kim and sons Scott and Todd. They lived in Champaign-Urbana, Pittsburgh, and Chicago before settling in the Atlanta area in 1969.

Once the youngest child Todd reached middle grades, Frances started her career as a teacher at Holy Innocents Episcopal School in Sandy Springs in 1972. Soon, she was leader of the third-grade team. After she earned a graduate degree in Educational Administration, she instituted the school’s summer program, directing it for twelve years. At the celebration of her retirement from Holy Innocents in 2005, she surprised the faculty by handspringing up onto the stage to accept her plaque.

Frances also became an entrepreneur. With friends, she purchased properties to rent or resell. She managed a pool of writing tutors that she called “The Write Connection.”

Tom and Frances traveled the world. From Alaska to Peru, Iceland to Italy, Egypt to South Africa, Australia to New Zealand, and India to China, Tom and Frances covered every continent but Antarctica. Her brother Jack Maier and sister-in-law Blanche often accompanied them on their travels. Closer to home, Tom and Frances flew in a hot air balloon and parachuted from a plane. Tom made photo collages of their many adventures, keepsakes that Frances treasured.

Frances and Tom went to great lengths to support their children. When son Todd joined his high school’s track team, Tom and Frances both began to train as well. During the 1980s and 90s, Frances competed in Atlanta Track Club events, often winning her age division, being the only contestant.

While Frances was a consummate cook and entertainer for social occasions, the grandest party of all was a surprise to her. Years in advance, Tom invited guests to her 60th birthday, and they came from as far away as Italy. He rented the top floor of an Atlanta skyscraper, and led her to believe they were going to a friend’s retirement party.

Shortly after Frances retired, she and Tom followed Todd to Valdosta to be close to their grandchildren Raymond Craig and Mary Alice. They continued to race, supporting Todd’s business promoting track events, and they were active in Valdosta’s First Presbyterian Church. They also rescued Sassy, a miniature Doberman Pinscher who had been slated for euthanasia. When Tom died in 2010, Frances wrapped up affairs in Valdosta and returned to the Atlanta area in 2012. At Winnwood Retirement Community, she made friends and kept active walking with Sassy to the end of the dog’s life. During this time, Laura Robinson of Visiting Angels became her daily companion and friend.

In 2018, she moved to memory care at Arbor Terrace, where she was a bright and lively presence. A director there observed that her schoolteacher instincts kicked in, as she encouraged others in warm but firm tones to participate in conversation. With Laura at her side, she never felt alone during months of COVID-19 lockdown.

As dementia progressed, Frances forgot how to walk and talk, but she maintained a regal bearing and sense of humor. Some of the staff at Arbor Terrace referred to her as “The Queen.” During a visit when she hadn’t opened her eyes or said a word, Scott chatted with the nurse who was feeding her. When he rose to go, he said, “Ok, Mom, nice talking with you.” She stopped chewing and said, distinctly, “Yeah. Right.”

More about Mom

• All the articles I wrote to work through my range of feelings since Mom's diagnosis are linked on one-page overview at Dementia Diary. It may be of help to others shepherding a loved one through the same valleys.
• Articles about Mom in the context of generations of my family are linked to a page I call Family Corner.

Dementia Diary: Sarcasm

Mom is now in a full-fledged nursing home because they accept Medicaid. When I have visited, she has smiled, she has nodded, and she has opened her mouth when I've held a fork full of Sloppy Joe or beans or rice to her lips. But she hasn't spoken. She has kept her eyes closed.

I spent some time with her Friday, chatting with the young woman who often feeds her mid-day. After awhile, I said, "Okay, Mom, I'm going home, now. Nice talking to you."

She said, distinctly, "Yeah. Right."

[I've posted stories and pictures since Mom's diagnosis in 2012. I've curated links to those stories at my page Dementia Diary. If you're dealing with a loved one's dementia, you may find useful tips and comfort there. ]

[A favorite photo from late 2019, just before the pandemic -- when Mom was still walking and conversing. A sharp drop-off followed in the months after, when only her Visiting Angel Laura Robinson could cross the quarantine boundaries around her.]

This was my Last Visit to New York

Well, I've said that before, in 2010, and again last March. I've seen all I want to see, and I like my routine at home with my lovely old dog, and I look forward to my next colonoscopy more than my next flight. Still, in case I ever go again and want to remember what I learned, or in case I never go again and just care to savor the experience I had, here's what I want to remember:

A bag of peanuts is not worth $300. Using Google.flights, I compared prices for round trips at my preferred times, and found Frontier Airlines for $300, half what was listed for competitors. Buying my ticket was like playing a video game, because offers popped up at different places on my screen, to choose a seat, to carry on a small suitcase, to have more leg room. Each offer required lightning-fast reflexes to admit, deny, affirm, reject. For all the stuff that my no-frills ticket lacked, the flight was fine. I had the window and an empty seat beside me going up, and my friend Susan was beside me going home. So my round trip ticket was only 2/3 the cost of my seat at the Metropolitan Opera, and all the underwear and black tee shirts I needed were able to fit in my laptop bag with room for regulation-sized hygiene products and a book of crosswords. I win!

Frick 'n' Friday. Susan and I took off from Atlanta around 2:30 and arrived in just enough time to check in at the Empire Hotel and hail a cab to reach the Frick Gallery in time for our reservations 6:30-8:30. We arrived at 7. I didn't expect a musical welcoming committee, but attractive young staffers greeted us in a chorus line. This was evidently a regular Friday evening occasion for art and music. We toured several rooms, serenaded by a couple of young men who played jazz bass and saxophone from music on their phone screens. They were stationed in a central courtyard while Susan (a painter) and I wandered through the surrounding rooms. They got special applause from the crowd and some words of encouragement from me when they played a gorgeous ballad by Monk, "Ask Me Now." Are you guys from Juilliard, I asked. "We wish," they laughed. To my question, the bassist said he had no regrets about not choosing the harmonica, as he struggled to lift his instrument to the exit.

You can love 18th Century Art, too. Mr. Frick had great taste, we thought, as his collection includes many pieces by Whistler and early impressionists. We like a lot of dramatic and opulent 17th century stuff, too -- Frick has lots of Rembrandts. But the 18th century has left me cold.

My takeaway from the Frick was how much I enjoyed the rooms devoted to the 18th century. A portrait of British General Burgoyne by Joshua Reynolds captured so much nuance of personality! We both disliked some "blobby" cloth in the backgrounds, but came to realize that these were like stage curtains gathered up to reveal the backdrop. So our subjects were star actors in front of blatantly artificial natural scenery. There were little domestic dramas in several Vermeers, too. I took a photo of Susan, herself a painter, between a Vermeer (drama: what's in the letter that the smirking maid reads to her startled mistress?) and a Rembrandt. Thanks to Android and AI, it was a cinch to erase another guest for an unobstructed view.

The two of us enjoyed a Goya piece that gave a lot of attention to the woman's face and hardly any detail to the torso. We had both known Hogarth from disgusting etchings of London debauchery, but we liked a Hogarth painting of a smiling woman with her frisky dog. We enjoyed noticing that the features in the face of a girl and the cat at her hand were very similar. "This is a fun room," I told my phone, and "I'm enjoying the 18th century for the first time."

Everybody ought to have a goal. Saturday morning, with nothing else on our agenda, we visited the former home of my hero Stephen Sondheim (see my page of postings devoted to him and his work). So many nights in sleep I've dreamed of finding myself in that home on "Turtle Bay" close to the river. There was no bay, and the only turtles were figures in the wrought iron gates. But I was so excited to be on the street where he lived. Fun fact: My dad's business partner Alfredo owned the property.

Take a jacket. We walked across the street from our home, the Empire Hotel, to see the opera THE AMAZING ADVENTURES OF KAVALIER AND CLAY. An hour later, we dined a few blocks north of Lincoln Center at Chama Mama, a Georgian restaurant. The temperature was balmy, but the first breaths of a vicious Nor'easter made it chilly for those of us seated on their terrace. Still, we enjoyed bread with a variety of pastes made from walnuts mixed with ingredients such as yams, beets and other plants.

My Time of Day is the Dark Time. Before sunrise the next morning, I walked to Columbus Circle, observing men as they stocked their food trucks. I saw one man ordering breakfast from another, and I enjoyed how thirty or so pigeons that feasted on seeds that one chef had thrown in the pool of light that his service window cast on the pavement, where he could watch them as he prepped food for the day. Except for those men and a couple of cars, I had New York to myself. I thought of Frank Loesser's favorite song from his own musical Guys and Dolls, a recitative for the gambler "Sky Masterson" that begins, "My time of day is the dark time / a couple of deals before dawn...."

Noon Departures are Easier. Delays (which we had) are less dreadful when you know that you'll still be back in time to feed dinner to your dog.