March 1, 2021
Motion pictures enthrall us with compelling narratives about fictional lives; Koresky (director, Museum of the Moving Image; Terence Davies) illustrates how movies also illuminate our own lives and, as shared experiences, allow us to connect with the lives of others. Approaching his 40th birthday, Koresky launches a project to rewatch movies of the 1980s with his mother, Leslie. He identifies that decade as unique for having compelling leading roles for American actresses. These are formative movies he watched during his childhood, ones he was introduced to by his mother. Often they are VHS rentals that evoke his childhood home, where his mother still lives. A rewatch of Nine to Five invites Leslie to discuss her own work experience. Queer representation in Come Back to the 5 & Dime, Jimmy Dean, Jimmy Dean leads to revisiting the author's coming-out phone call and Leslie's loving support. Crossing Delancey reminds them of seders past and inspires Leslie to host one--a plan sadly thwarted by the pandemic. VERDICT A skilled film critic, Koresky guides readers through salient plot points instead of rehashing entire films, but his real talent is using cinema as a starting point for conversation. This intimate, probing work will appeal to hard-core cinephiles, lovers of memoirs, and many other readers.--Terry Bosky, Madison, WI
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April 1, 2021
A film critic revisits personally meaningful films of the 1980s. "The story of the movies is basically one long, heterosexual romantic epic," writes Koresky, a gay man who contributes to the Criterion Collection, Film Comment, and Film at Lincoln Center. Yet growing up in Chelmsford, Massachusetts, in the 1980s, he couldn't get enough of cinema, watching "all kinds and as many as I could get my hands on." He credits his mother, Leslie, with instilling this love, a love they continued to share after Koresky's father died in 2011. In this memoir, he describes their project of revisiting '80s films she had introduced him to, one from each year. All of them are "about and starring women, movies that put their emotional inner lives front and center." Interspersed among thoughtful readings of such movies as Mommie Dearest, Terms of Endearment, and The Color Purple are stories from Koresky's family life, mainly about Leslie's attempts to balance motherhood and work and about Koresky's coming to terms with his sexuality. Sometimes the films are only tenuously connected to these stories--the chapter on Aliens takes a jarring turn from a discussion of Ripley, Sigourney Weaver's warrior lead, to his mother's giving birth--but most chapters are smooth and focused. In the chapter on the workplace comedy Nine to Five, the author writes that Leslie still feels the sting of a visiting associate who told one of her male bosses, "Can your girl get us some coffee?" A discussion of the trans character in Come Back to the Five and Dime, Jimmy Dean, Jimmy Dean includes the moment when Koresky called his mother from New York to come out to her. Before he could get the words out, she asked, "Michael, are you gay?" and later revealed that she and his father knew about his orientation long before he did. A moving portrait of a bond film lovers will understand: between a cineaste and the people who nurtured that love.
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May 1, 2021
It's not surprising that movies are central to film-critic Koresky's life, or that he reads deeply into them. In this memoir, he shares a more personal and intimate connection, specifically to the '80s movies starring women that were first shown to him by his mother, Leslie. He decides to rewatch with Leslie one movie from every year of the decade and then discuss it. Watching 9 to 5 spurs a conversation about women in the workplace and Leslie's own experiences. Terms of Endearment allows them to openly discuss Leslie's caretaking role as her husband battled Alzheimer's. And Come Back to the Five and Dime, Jimmy Dean, Jimmy Dean, featuring a trans character, feels weightier in retrospect as Koresky recalls his own coming-out story. The films' plots are loosely outlined with bits of history and criticism thrown in, but this is primarily a warm and engaging story of the Koreskys and the bond between mother and son. Knowing the films is helpful but not required, making the book appealing to a wide swath of readers.
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