The Week in Entertainment

Film: Footnote, an Israeli film that's smart, funny, sad, and biting, turning on an ethical dilemma with no easy answer, no answer that doesn't do a lot of damage, in fact. Don't miss this one if you haven't seen it. Also, Das Rheingold in HD from the Met. Watching an opera in HD is different - you're so close - but this is a great production. Am catching the next three parts this week.

TV: Bringing Down the House, Steve Martin/Queen Latifah, and very funny even though it is utterly predictable. The stars are brilliant even if the story's not. Grimm - I'll be sorry to see the season end, but I do like the way Nick's lives are colliding. The Mentalist - creepy graveyard scene - both of them, in their different ways. And I loved Cho's response to Rigsby's saying his baby monitor would let him talk to the baby in his crib: "That should terrify him." Also the American Masters show on Harper Lee.

Read: Finished Written in Stone, which I enjoyed a lot. Crooked House, a Christie I didn't remember the ending of. Sidney Chambers and the Shadow of Death, an episodic semi-cozy mystery about a 1950's English priest pulled into detecting. Natural Acts, essays by David Quammen, uneven but mainly interesting.