Writer/director Aaron Sorkin takes three real-life potentially cataclysmic events in the life of America’s most famous celebrity couple and packs them into one high-intensity week for “Being the Ricardos,” with Oscar-winners Nicole Kidman as Lucille Ball and Javier Bardem as Desi Arnaz. As title cards take us through each day of the week of production for an episode of “I Love Lucy,” from the table read on Monday, through the rehearsals, to the taping at the end of the week.

We get to see what an intense, challenging, and serious business producing 22 minutes of comedy is. Lucy, who explains to a director she thinks is third-rate that she is not like Danny Thomas, whose “Make Room for Daddy” show he had been working on. “He tells jokes,” she says with palpable irritation, “I am a physical comedian.” All around her are people who seem to be getting in the way of her vision for the show, whether it is grumpy William Frawley (J.K. Simmons), who plays Fred, Vivian Vance (Nina Arianda), who feels neglected, or the television network and sponsors, who seem to think they can tell her what to do. But nothing oppresses her more than her own perfectionism. She just knows that there is some key to a dinner scene that will take it from cute to hilarious, and she just has to keep thinking about it until she can lock it in. “She’s working through beats all the time,” a character says. It is clear she will sacrifice almost anything including damaging her professional and personal relationships if that is what it takes to get every minute of the show exactly where it needs to be. We see in flashbacks her struggles as a starlet, with studios who did not know what to do with her so her roles were limited to “sticking my head in a frame, saying something biting, and going home.”

That is more than enough to occupy her full attention, but she is also facing three terrible threats, one to her show, one to her career, and one to her marriage.

It is the height of the “Red Scare,” and even the child actor on “Make Room for Danny” has had to sign a loyalty oath. Walter Winchell, the most powerful journalist in the country, has accused Lucille Ball of being a communist. In this era, even an whispered, unsubstantiated accusation of communism could mean being blacklisted, so that no jobs in movies, television, or radio would ever be offered again. “I Love Lucy” might be the most popular show on television, but it could be canceled overnight.

Another possible reason for canceling the show — Lucille Ball was pregnant. It is hard too understand for today’s audiences, but in those days not only did even real-life married couple Lucille Ball and Desi Arnaz have separate twin beds on the show (as did every other married couple on television). For the purposes of television, sex did not exist, and the idea that a pregnancy might make audiences consider how it came about was unthinkable for the television network and the cigarette company sponsor. They tell Lucy that she can just stand behind things and go on as usual, pretending that the pregnancy did not exist. But she rightly believed that the audiences would be thrilled to experience the real-life and television pregnancy. (They did decide that the show would never include the actual word “pregnant,” however, using the euphemistic but not fooling anyone term “expecting.” by the way, they were also not allowed to use the word “lucky,” because it was the name of a rival brand of cigarettes.)

And then there is the most painful of all. A gossip magazine has published photos of what they say is Desi fooling around with other women. That puts at risk not only Lucy’s career but her marriage to the father of the child she already has and the one she is expecting.

I would love a world where Aaron Sorkin wrote everyone’s dialogue. Every sentence is perfectly composed. But the British have an expression “too clever by half” which I think of when he is both writer and director with no intermediary. The script is dazzling. The brilliance of the lines tips over into a quippiness that distracts us from the real conflicts and emotions that are going on. And there’s always an uncanny valley risk when even the best actors play real-life people whose faces and gestures and voices we know almost as well as we know our own family. The issues presented are engaging in their own terms and as reflections of our time but because of the impenetrable glossiness of the script it never does what Lucille Ball was so good at — making us love her.

Note: It is interesting that three of the biggest end-of-year films were made by adults about their parents: “Belfast,” “King Richard,” and this film, produced by Lucie Arnaz and Desi Arnaz, Jr.

Parents should know that this movie includes very strong language, frank sexual references, including adultery, and a sexual situation.

Family discussion: Which problem was the most difficult? Which relationship was the most functional?

If you like this, try: “I Love Lucy” and the TCM podcast about Lucille Ball, “The Plot Thickens,” season three. This is the episode about the accusations of communism. Watch “The Big Street,” the tragic drama where she plays a showgirl loved by a busboy played by Henry Fonda. My favorite of her movie performances is in the Tracy-Hepburn film “Without Love,” where she plays a whip-smart Washington liaison.

Why remake a 60-year-old movie that won ten Oscars and is still beloved, even while admitting its shortcomings and its being quaintly out of date on some of the issues it raises? Because Steven Spielberg and screenwriter Tony Kushner have taken the best from the original and made the essence of the story even more powerful and meaningful. “West Side Story,” the original itself a remake of Shakespeare’s “Romeo and Juliet,” itself a reworking of an Italian story that had at least three different versions before Romeo compared Juliet to the sun and Juliet asked what there was in a name. The themes of love, loss, fear, and anger will always inspire our stories, and the incomparable music by Leonard Bernstein, with lyrics by then then-25-year-old Stephen Sondheim, are as thrilling as ever in this new version.

Maybe there will be another remake 60 years from now, but it is hard to imagine it being better than this one. Spielberg’s gift for visual story-telling, with brilliant cinematography from Janusz Kaminski, production design from Adam Stockhausen, and editing by Sarah Broshar and Michael Kahn match and enhance the muscular electricity of the Bernstein score. There are star-making performances from the entire cast, especially Ariana DeBose as Anita, Mike Faist as Riff, and Rachel Zegler as Maria. Rita Moreno, who won an Oscar for her performance as Anita 60 years ago, all but steals the movie as Valentina, a new role, replacing Doc, the owner of the convenience store. In this version, she is his widow, their own marriage a symbol of what Tony and Maria aspire to.

Kushner’s changes are subtle and judicious, making the story deeper and more urgent. The opening shots show us that the turf battle has already been lost. The wrecking ball is knocking everything down. The only home the Jets have ever known is being torn down “for slum clearance” to make way for a gentrification project that will include a high-end high-rise and the high-culture Lincoln Center for performing arts. When Anita sings in “America” about some day living in an apartment with a terrace, she is standing near a sign showing the glamorous building that will replace the town-down tenements.

The setting looks like a bombed-out war zone. This makes the the emotion more vivid and the stakes more concrete (in both senses of the word). When “West Side Story” was first written, juvenile delinquents were listed by a majority of Americans as one of their most important concerns, next to atomic weapons. In order to make the concerns of the gangs as visceral today, Kushner shows us why Riff and the Jets feel that everything is being taken from them. The detective tells them that all the white people in the community who were smart enough to get out are gone. They are, he says, “the last of the can’t make it out Caucasians.”

Everything that gave them a sense of power, belonging, and control (“little boy, you’re a man, little man, you’re a king”) is being reduced to rubble and replaced with spaces that would be alien to them even if they could afford them. There is dust everywhere, and everything is washed out, knocked down, and covered with grit. The Jets cannot fight City Hall. All they have left is their fury and what they use to assuage it — the feeling of brotherhood. They sing of the Jets as a family (“you’ve got brothers around; you’re a family man”) while Tony says he envies the Puerto Ricans’ strong, committed biological families. There is no one to take it out on but the newcomers who are even lower on the social hierarchy than they are, the Puerto Ricans. Riff says, “I wake up to everything I knew being sold or wrecked or being taken away by someone I don’t like.”

Their gang, the Sharks, is fueled by resentment at being treated like second-class Americans in their own country. And they, too, are worried about losing their sense of family. They want the opportunities available to white, native English-speaking Americans but they want to remain intact, insular, restricting their associations to those they can trust. Their internal conflict is shown in “America,” where the girls sing of what they can do and buy and the boys jeer at them for ignoring the bigotry they will face — while not being willing to go back to Puerto Rico.

Some changes reflect our more sensitive understanding of the very issues the original depicted. In this version, the Latinx characters are played by Latinx performers of different skin tones and no one wears brownface make-up. All of the performers do their own singing. In addition, the Spanish dialogue is not subtitled. Some gender/sexuality insults remain in the script but the character once derisively called “Anybody’s,” who we might now call non-binary, is portrayed with more depth. The dance numbers are less balletic, more a reflection of the energy of emotions the characters are feeling.

Kushner’s changes to the script are sometimes subtle but every one adds to the emotion and revelation of character. In this version, Tony has even more reason to be reconsidering his commitment to the Jets, and he has an example in Valentina, his employer and friend, of what is possible. The “Cool” song has much more of an impact here, sung by Tony to Riff when he discovers that Riff has bought a gun. “I Feel Pretty,” instead of a bridal shop, is sung in a department store, where Maria is an after-hours cleaner. The dance through the aspirational scenes of mannequins “enjoying” middle class life parallels the reference to the apartment with a terrace. And Tony takes Maria to see The Cloisters, a beautiful cathedral-like setting for “One Hand, One Heart” that evokes the timelessness of Romeo and Juliet.

This story is very much of its time but its themes, too, are timeless, and with this new version we can experience it with the deeper understanding of its themes, a new generation of performers making it as new to us as it is to them, and one nod to the past with Moreno reminding us that like the late Bernstein and Sondheim, brilliance is always forever renewing itself.

Parents should know that this movie includes strong language with some racist terms, sexual references and a non-explicit situation, drinking, smoking, references to drugs, and gang violence, with knives and a gun. Characters are injured and killed.

Family discussion: If the story took place today, who would be in the gangs and how would it be different? What do we learn from the “Office Krupke” song? Why do Riff and Tony see things differently? What advice would you give to Tony and Maria?

If you like this, try: the original 1961 film, “In the Heights,” the wonderful documentary about Rita Moreno, and “Romeo and Juliet”

I love the classic Christmas movies and watch as many as I can every year.  But there are many great Christmas films that don’t get mentioned as often and I like to remind families that these are worth making time for as well.

1.  The Nativity Story  This sincere and respectful story is a good way to remember that Christmas is about more than presents and parties.  “Whale Rider’s” Keisha Castle-Hughes has a shy but dignified and resolute air and she glows believably as the very young woman who is selected as the mother of Jesus. And “Star Wars” heart-throb Oliver Isaac effectively conveys tenderness, doubt, courage, and transcendence as Joseph.

2. A Christmas Memory Truman Capote’s bittersweet memory of his childhood Christmas making fruitcakes with his elderly cousin, the only relative who cared about him is beautifully filmed with the magnificent Geraldine Page and Capote himself reading the narration.

3. Will Vinton’s Claymation Christmas The California Raisins guys put together this Christmas special, with the highlight the funniest-ever performance of “Carol of the Bells.”

4. Come to the Stable Loretta Young and Celeste Holm are French nuns trying to raise money to build a hospital.  Their faith and goodness transforms those they meet.

5. Little Women “Christmas won’t be Christmas without any presents” is the first line of this classic novel based on the loving if sometimes tumultuous family of author Louisa May Alcott.  The movie opens with an important Christmas lesson about the joy of giving. All three feature film versions are great family films.

6. Klaus A Christmas traditions origin story begins with a spoiled son of a wealthy family sent away to learn responsibility by delivering letters in a bitterly divided town. It is a beautifully animated Netflix film with voice talent that includes Jason Schwartzman and Rashida Jones.

7. This Christmas I love this movie about a family with five adult children who return home to celebrate Christmas with their mother and youngest brother.  The outstanding cast includes Regina King, Idris Elba, Loretta Devine, and Chris Brown.  Be sure to watch through the credits to see a great dance number.

8. Desk Set Before Google, companies had human beings to track down information. Katherine Hepburn plays the head of the all-female research department for a television network and Spencer Tracy is the engineer who is installing the company’s first computer, which takes up a whole wall and uses punch cards and vacuum tubes. Sparks fly — and not just in the equipment.

9. Die Hard Bruce Willis plays a cop visiting his estranged wife at her office Christmas party when the building is taken over by bad guys led by Alan Rickman in this action-movie classic. And yes, it is a Christmas movie!

10. The Man Who Invented Christmas Dan Stevens plays Charles Dickens who has just a few weeks to write a book in the midst of family conflict and financial pressures. It is a lot of fun to see the way he draws inspiration — and insight — from the people and problems he encounters and the end result is the ultimate classic, A Christmas Carol.

11. Home Alone This comedy smash hit stars Macauley Culkin as a little boy who is accidentally left home when his family goes away for the holidays and has to take care of himself and guard the house from a couple of inept thieves.  The slapstick is a bit over the top but the message of Christmas is surprisingly touching.

12. Annie The story of the plucky orphan from the comic pages became one of the biggest Broadway musicals of all time and one of its highlights is Christmas with Daddy Warbucks.

“Belfast” headlined a diverse roster of winners when The Washington, D.C. Area Film Critics Association (WAFCA) announced their top honorees for 2021 this morning. A semi-autobiographical coming-of-age drama from filmmaker Kenneth Branagh centering on a nine-year-old boy and his family during the Troubles in 1969 Northern Ireland, “Belfast” won Best Film and Branagh took home Best Original Screenplay.

Jane Campion won Best Director and Best Adapted Screenplay for “The Power of the Dog,” based on Thomas Savage’s 1967 novel, a provocative western of toxic masculinity and repressed longing set in the big sky country of 1925 Montana. As a college-aged young man with an increasing enigmatic connection to his petulant rancher uncle, Kodi Smit-McPhee was also awarded Best Supporting Actor for the film.

WAFCA awarded Best Actress to Kristen Stewart for her stirring portrayal of Diana, Princess of Wales, reaching the life-altering decision to leave her marriage to Prince Charles and the royal family over the 1991 Christmas holiday, in Pablo Larraín’s “Spencer.” Also superbly playing a late real-life figure, talented composer, lyricist and playwright Jonathan Larson, Andrew Garfield won Best Actor for Lin Manuel-Miranda’s musical-drama “tick, tick…BOOM!” Best Supporting Actress went to Aunjanue Ellis, wonderful as Oracene “Brandy” Price, mother of future tennis greats Venus and Serena Williams, in Reinaldo Marcus Green’s “King Richard.”

Best Acting Ensemble accolades were awarded to Fran Kranz’s “Mass,” an emotionally shattering drama starring Ann Dowd, Reed Birney, Martha Plimpton and Jason Isaacs, as grieving parents who meet in the wake of a tragic school shooting. For Best Youth Performance, Woody Norman won for Mike Mills’ “C’mon C’mon,” as a nine-year-old boy who forms a bond with his uncle while his mother is out of town.

Mike Rianda’s vibrant sci-fi comedy “The Mitchells vs. the Machines,” about a family road trip that turns into a fight to save the world from a robot uprising, took Best Animated Feature honors, while Best Voice Performance went to Awkwafina for her standout work as excitable dragon Sisu in “Raya and the Last Dragon.” Best Documentary kudos went to “Summer of Soul (…Or, When the Revolution Could Not Be Televised),” Ahmir “Questlove” Thompson’s film about the 1969 Harlem Cultural Festival. Best International/Foreign Language Film was awarded to Ryusuke Hamaguchi’s Japanese drama “Drive My Car.”

In technical categories, Denis Villeneuve’s sweeping fantasy epic “Dune” was the major victor, winning Best Production Design, Best Cinematography, and Best Original Score, while Best Editing went to “tick, tick…BOOM!”

The Washington, D.C. Area Film Critics Association comprises over 65 DC-VA-MD-based film critics from television, radio, print and the Internet. Voting was conducted from December 3-5, 2021.

THE 2021 WAFCA AWARD WINNERS:

Best Film:
Belfast

Best Director:
Jane Campion (The Power of the Dog)

Best Actor:
Andrew Garfield (tick, tick…BOOM!)

Best Actress:
Kristen Stewart (Spencer)

Best Supporting Actor:
Kodi Smit-McPhee (The Power of the Dog)

Best Supporting Actress:
Aunjanue Ellis (King Richard)

Best Acting Ensemble:
Mass

Best Youth Performance:
Woody Norman (C’mon C’mon)

Best Voice Performance:
Awkwafina (Raya and the Last Dragon)

Best Original Screenplay:
Kenneth Branagh (Belfast)

Best Adapted Screenplay:
Jane Campion (The Power of the Dog)

Best Animated Feature:
The Mitchells vs. the Machines

Best Documentary:
Summer of Soul (…Or, When the Revolution Could Not Be Televised)

Best International/Foreign Language Film:
Drive My Car

Best Production Design:
Patrice Vermette, Production Designer; Richard Roberts and Zsuzsanna Sipos, Set Decorators (Dune)

Best Cinematography:
Greig Fraser, ASC, ACS (Dune)

Best Editing:
Myron Kerstein, ACE; Andrew Weisblum, ACE (tick, tick…BOOM!)

Best Original Score:
Hans Zimmer (Dune)

The 2021 WAFCA AWARD NOMINEES ARE:

Best Film:
Belfast
The Green Knight
The Power of the Dog
tick, tick…BOOM!
West Side Story

Best Director:
Kenneth Branagh (Belfast)
Jane Campion (The Power of the Dog)
David Lowery (The Green Knight)
Steven Spielberg (West Side Story)
Denis Villeneuve (Dune)

Best Actor:
Nicolas Cage (Pig)
Benedict Cumberbatch (The Power of the Dog)
Andrew Garfield (tick, tick…BOOM!)
Will Smith (King Richard)
Denzel Washington (The Tragedy of Macbeth)

Best Actress:
Olivia Colman (The Lost Daughter)
Nicole Kidman (Being the Ricardos)
Lady Gaga (House of Gucci)
Kristen Stewart (Spencer)
Tessa Thompson (Passing)

Best Supporting Actor:
Jamie Dornan (Belfast)
Ciarán Hinds (Belfast)
Troy Kotsur (CODA)
Jesse Plemons (The Power of the Dog)
Kodi Smit-McPhee (The Power of the Dog)

Best Supporting Actress:
Caitríona Balfe (Belfast)
Ariana DeBose (West Side Story)
Ann Dowd (Mass)
Kirsten Dunst (The Power of the Dog)
Aunjanue Ellis (King Richard)

Best Acting Ensemble:
Belfast
The French Dispatch
The Harder They Fall
Mass
The Power of the Dog

Best Youth Performance:
Jude Hill (Belfast)
Emilia Jones (CODA)
Woody Norman (C’mon, C’mon)
Saniyya Sidney (King Richard)
Rachel Zegler (West Side Story)

Best Voice Performance:
Awkwafina (Raya and the Last Dragon)
Stephanie Beatriz (Encanto)
Abbi Jacobson (The Mitchells vs. the Machines)
Kelly Marie Tran (Raya and the Last Dragon)
Jacob Tremblay (Luca)

Best Original Screenplay:
Kenneth Branagh (Belfast)
Mike Mills (C’mon, C’mon)
Zach Baylin (King Richard)
Paul Thomas Anderson (Licorice Pizza)
Fran Kranz (Mass)

Best Adapted Screenplay:
Siân Heder (CODA)
Jon Spaihts and Denis Villeneuve and Eric Roth; Based on the novel ‘Dune’ written by Frank Herbert (Dune)
Jane Campion (The Power of the Dog)
Steven Levenson (tick, tick…BOOM!)
Tony Kushner (West Side Story)

Best Animated Feature:
Encanto
Flee
Luca
The Mitchells vs. the Machines
Raya and the Last Dragon

Best Documentary:
The First Wave
Flee
The Rescue
Summer of Soul (…Or, When the Revolution Could Not Be Televised)
Val

Best International/
Foreign Language Film:
Drive My Car
A Hero
Lamb
Titane
The Worst Person in the World

Best Production Design:
Jim Clay, Production Designer; Claire Nia Richards, Set Decorator (Belfast)
Patrice Vermette, Production Designer; Richard Roberts and Zsuzsanna Sipos, Set Decorators (Dune)
Adam Stockhausen, Production Designer; Rena DeAngelo, Set Decorator (The French Dispatch)
Tamara Deverell, Production Designer; Shane Vieau, Set Decorator (Nightmare Alley)
Adam Stockhausen, Production Designer; Rena DeAngelo, Set Decorator (West Side Story)

Best Cinematography:
Haris Zambarloukos, BSC, GSC (Belfast)
Greig Fraser, ASC, ACS (Dune)
Andrew Droz Palermo (The Green Knight)
Ari Wegner, ACS (The Power of the Dog)
Bruno Delbonnel, ASC, AFC (The Tragedy of Macbeth)

Best Editing:
Úna Ní Dhonghaíle, ACE, BFE (Belfast)
Joe Walker, ACE (Dune)
Andrew Weisblum, ACE (The French Dispatch)
Peter Sciberras (The Power of the Dog)
Myron Kerstein, ACE; Andrew Weisblum, ACE (tick, tick…BOOM!)

Best Original Score:
Bryce Dessner & Aaron Dessner (Cyrano)
Hans Zimmer (Dune)
Alexandre Desplat (The French Dispatch)
Jonny Greenwood (The Power of the Dog)
Jonny Greenwood (Spencer)