ARYA'S WRITING & READING BLOG

House of Gucci , a two and a half hour operatic-style extravaganza, is currently streaming on Netflix and is worth watching exclusively for Lady Gaga 's performance as the lead character Patricia Reggiani , a real life personage (still alive). The 2021 film, directed by Scott Ridley , is a take off on a scandalous true story about the Italian fashion empire and has a big-name cast that includes Adam Driver as Maurizio Guzzi , Al Pacino as his uncle Aldo Gucci , Jeremy Irons as Maurizio's father Rodolfo Gucci , and Jared Leto as Paolo Gucci , Maurizio's cousin. Whether you take this film seriously or as an invigorating dose of camp, replete with memorable disco songs and 70s fashion and styles, it's Lady Gaga's acting and scenes you will want to watch, as she simply steals the entire movie. An espresso and Napoleon while watching House of Gucci would have surely added to the fun. A critical PS: I've told myself I will not make fun of other actors or neg...

  The Assistant on Netflix is a 2019 movie starring Julia Garner ( Ozark ) in a harrowing role as a young aspiring producer named Jane who is hugely overworked and underlooked in a male-driven company. The film, which runs about an hour and a half, takes the viewer through the complicated tedium of Jane's days and her struggles not to become overwhelmed by petty and gross injustices as she starts to uncover her boss's sexual secrets. I had to double and triple check the setting/date of the movie which so accurately depicted horrors I endured working as an admin assistant for various companies, including non-profits, in the late 80s and early 90s, when I was fresh out of a little ivy league college and only knew I wanted mostly to write and primarily make money so I could do what I wanted artistically. To realize that this is a present-day story in which nothing, absolutely nothing has changed from what I knew working dead end jobs in the early 90s brought a double punch to ...

If there has ever been a time for inspiring true stories about women, this is it. LILLY , on Netflix, is a true story about Lilly Ledbetter , the factory worker turned national hero as she became a courageous advocate for fair pay, which led to the passing of the Lilly Ledbetter Fair Pay Act of 2009 . Who better to star in this role than Patricia Clarkson , who has left another indelible mark in her acting career playing Ledbetter with characteristic unflinching emotional honesty, precision and grace.   LILLY is a film about a quiet, hard-working, southern gal, deeply sure of certain values, which include love of her family and the importance of fighting for what's right even in the face of great opposition. The film has a solid cast that also features actual footage of Supreme Court Judge Ruth Bader Ginsburg sharing her dissenting opinion and lending insight into this important case. And once again, Clarkson steals the show with her sure portrayal of an undervalued woman who...

Dear Fellow Authors and Readers: For your interest, here are some recent and upcoming publications:  " Gloria ," prose poetry , in Thorn & Bloom , Issue 3 " Venus On the Rocks ," a noir-inspired short short, in Screaming Beyond Borders anthology " Sarah Vaughan Performing ," poetry, audio and text, in Jerry Jazz Musician , 11/23/25 " Night Swim ," creative nonfiction , in Rockvale Review , 11/30/25 Detailed postings about these and other forthcoming publications will appear on my website, aryafjenkins.com . Thanks. And keep the love and inspiration coming by doing what you do and love best.  Recipe for writers :  Write, review, let sit, revisit and edit . Re-write, review, let sit, revisit and edit. Do it until there isn't a word you disagree with on either your worst or best day. Then, submit . Happy day, all!                                       ...

I finally did the thing I've been told I should have done long ago, which is probably why I didn't do it. I have an author's website . Most of my books are available through it, and I have to admit, Tertulia did a pretty neat job putting it together for me, although, of course, authors still have to do some work. It's $9.99/month, if you pay monthly--I opted for that--and $7.99 if you pay yearly, which means 20-percent off, I think. (Let me never be the one who pays more cheaply for anything!) You get two weeks free at the start if you are undecided.  I really thought I could bypass the presumed pomposity of an "author's website" by keeping everything on this blog, but the wave of writerly opinion says otherwise. So I'm going with the flow. We'll see if it makes a difference for sales. Who knows. My new website is via a domain that is mine for a year, procured through Stripe . Price for that was $15/yearly. Am I wrong to think the whole author...

  I joined a couple of friends, one of whom has a late October birthday we were still celebrating, to see Deliver Me From Nowhere , the Springsteen biopic starring the unforgettable Jeremy Allen White (of THE BEAR series , and before that, SHAMELESS series). To be honest, my expectations were not that high, as biopics often turn out to be slathering portraits mainly composed of colorful heaps of praise and lacking an equanimous lens, neither of which turns out to be true here. In retrospect, low expectations is probably the best way to go see a film. White's performance as Springsteen and acting in general I cannot say enough about. Both he and Springsteen have that same grounded, gritty vitality and ooze a similar kind of unvarnished, sexy masculinity. White is 32 and plays Springsteen when he was the same age, working on his sixth album, Nebraska (which came out in 1982), a time when he was plagued by demons from his past and a nagging depression. Deliver Me From Nowhere is a ...