I do want to see Little Women; maybe this weekend. But I'm a no for Uncut Gems, that sounds like nails-ona-chalkboard for me.

Have you watched Fleabag? In S2, Andrew Scott TOTALLY has that quality. Vonnie can attest to that.

Is it easy to get past his association with other roles? For example, Moriarty. Which, you know, keeps making this Hot Priest thing confusing for me, but I haven't watched Fleabag.

I know I need to see Little Women, but truth be told it was the first book that made me ugly cry as a child and I never re-read it from the childhood trauma. More than 5 decades later I might take it better.

Is it easy to get past his association with other roles? For example, Moriarty

I was AMAZED at how easy it was for my brain to make the switch from Moriarty to Hot Priest.

My brain never got over the Moriarty thing, and I'm still trying to process where the Hot part is supposed to come in.

I adored Little Women. I might have unseated the 1994 version as my new favourite.

It's not a completely straightforward adaptation. I mean, all the story beats are there, but slightly... scrambled. It's formally inventive and has some startlingly metafictional side to it, which may give LW purists a pause. It really worked for me though.

All the cast is first rate but a particular shoutout to the Florence Pugh for being the Best Amy Ever. I can't get over how splendid that casting choice was, honestly. She's such a sparkly, charismatic pistol, it's kind of difficult to look at anyone else when she's on screen (which is saying a lot given the rest of the cast). Also, this is first time a LW adaptation really sold me on Amy/Laurie.

Oh, and make sure to take some Kleenex to the theater. The sad parts made me cry until I had a headache.

Is it easy to get past his association with other roles? For example, Moriarty

I was AMAZED at how easy it was for my brain to make the switch from Moriarty to Hot Priest.

Ditto. Basically from the first scene, he was just Hot Priest.

I need to see the Jumanji and Star Wars sequels as soon as I can sit in a theater without coughing, and then Bombshell with my mom as it's in the Venn diagram overlap of movies we'll probably like.

I'm not sure about the Little Women film—wasn't there a present day adaptation just last year?

We had our usual Christmas Movie Day and saw Uncut Gems, NewStar Wars and Bombshell. I loved Uncut, liked Bombshell and was underwhelmed by SW. I just didn't care about any of the characters or what happened to them. I enjoyed the other two in this trilogy, so I don't know why this one didn't hit the target with me.

Super, extremely petty movie gripe: I can't get past Kevin Spacey's selfish, opportunistic, life-ruining predatory awfulness, and this is the third year in a row I've looked at the DVD of my previously favorite Christmas movie, The Ref, and been unable to stomach it.

The script is marvelous, Judy Davis is a wonder, Glynis Johns and Christine Baranski are corrosive delights, Denis Leary is as great as he's ever been, Richard Bright is comic and heartbreaking as poor inept Murray, endlessly abused but also endlessly tolerated by the only person on earth who'll put up with his catastrophic ineptitude, it's JK Simmons's film debut, and there's even a brief delicious glimpse of BD Wong.

But there's Kevin Spacey sitting in the middle of it; he's one of the leads, and his character is flawed but deeply sympathetic, and by about the 3/4 mark you're rooting for Lloyd and Caroline to work it out. Except that now the thought of him snuggled cheek to cheek and giggling with her makes me queasy. He victimized teens and tweens over and over again and is just a thoroughly shitty human being, and acting is so emotionally naked and present an art that I can't separate this performance out from him. Which infuriates me, because I bloody love that movie, and, like all successful movies, it's a great collaborative work and I so badly miss all its other collaborative graces.

I just keep thinking about an anonymous essay by one of the tween boys he "dated" as a 20-something rising star, who looked back on it all in his 40s, and how painful that reflection was, and how this man is still bewildered by how hurtful and confusing it was and is. He wrote about how when he reached the age Spacey had been when they "dated," he made a point of looking at every tween boy he saw, to try to understand. But all they looked like to him was kids, children, fragile and flailing and absolutely not for his use or anyone else's. I only read it once, but it gutted me and I still haven't shaken it.

Does anyone else still watch that movie? Or any of his? How do you sort it all out, the art and the artist and the monster? I feel like Caroline and Murray and Gussie are beloved friends I can't visit with anymore because I can't see them privately, away from the monster.