I finally watched The Bad Seed, and damn. That is one intense movie, especially for 1956. The Hays Code interferes eventually, but still. If you haven’t watched this gem, do so. Patty McCormack and Nancy Kelly turn in some truly remarkable performances, as does Eileen Heckart.

On the other end of the spectrum, I also watched Alice Through the Looking Glass this week. What a steaming pile of refuse. I’m not going to waste words on it.

I finished Suicide Blonde: The Life of Gloria Grahame by Vincent Curcio this week. I adore Gloria Grahame, which you probably know by now. She was as talented and brilliant as she was tempestuous and broken. She’s an absolute wonder on screen. You’ll be reading more here about Gloria Grahame.

I also finished Ottessa Moshfegh’s Homesick for Another World, the short story collection the Eileen author just released in February. I have mixed feelings about Moshfegh. She’s an incredibly talented writer, and I love that she forefronts unlikable, legitimately flawed characters (as opposed to characters whose “flaws” are actually just quirks) and makes her readers uncomfortable. I’m just not sure I actually enjoy reading her books. I also read Monica de la Torres’s 2006 poetry collection Talk Shows.

On Wednesday evening, we popped the cork on a bottle of Adelbert’s Flying Monk quadrupel. I find a lot of American attempts at high gravity Belgian ales can come across very strained. This didn’t do that–the yeast is handled admirably and the beer has the weight to support its size–but the finish was too sweet. I would have liked to see a little more attenuation, or a hop background that brings it more into balance. The Craft Beer Education Series I lead also started back up last night, and we looked at German wheat ales. Almost no one liked Berliner Weisse, and almost everyone liked Weizenbock. Any time you get to share the gospel of Schneider-Weisse Aventinus, you have to do it.