John Powers

The humor is slyer in my favorite mystery novel this year, The Lover of No Fixed Abode, by Carlo Frutero and Franco Lucentini, a hugely popular Italian literary team.

The humor is slyer in my favorite mystery novel this year, The Lover of No Fixed Abode, by Carlo Frutero and Franco Lucentini, a hugely popular Italian literary team.

Set in Venice, it's about a middle-aged signora who's an art scout for big auction houses, who finds herself attracted to an enigmatic tour guide leader, Mr. Silvera, who seems to know everything and greets every situation with a different inflection of the word ah. The mystery is, who is he?

Set in Venice, it's about a middle-aged signora who's an art scout for big auction houses, who finds herself attracted to an enigmatic tour guide leader, Mr. Silvera, who seems to know everything and greets every situation with a different inflection of the word ah. The mystery is, who is he?

Set in Venice, it's about a middle-aged signora who's an art scout for big auction houses, who finds herself attracted to an enigmatic tour guide leader, Mr. Silvera, who seems to know everything and greets every situation with a different inflection of the word ah. The mystery is, who is he?

Shimmering with wit and bursting with an insider's knowledge of Venice, The Lover of No Fixed Abode builds to a solution so unexpected that not one person in a million will guess it. It's a minor classic. Two big classics are the 50s movies that got theatrical re-releases this year.

Shimmering with wit and bursting with an insider's knowledge of Venice, The Lover of No Fixed Abode builds to a solution so unexpected that not one person in a million will guess it. It's a minor classic. Two big classics are the 50s movies that got theatrical re-releases this year.

Shimmering with wit and bursting with an insider's knowledge of Venice, The Lover of No Fixed Abode builds to a solution so unexpected that not one person in a million will guess it. It's a minor classic. Two big classics are the 50s movies that got theatrical re-releases this year.

Akira Kurosawa's Seven Samurai, in which a village hires seven swordsmen to protect them from bandits, and The Wages of Fear, Henri-Georges Clouseau's excruciatingly suspenseful story of four exiles in a poor Latin American town who must transport a shipment of nitroglycerin in ramshackle trucks. Both movies are magnificent in themselves. Their action scenes are still breathtaking.

Akira Kurosawa's Seven Samurai, in which a village hires seven swordsmen to protect them from bandits, and The Wages of Fear, Henri-Georges Clouseau's excruciatingly suspenseful story of four exiles in a poor Latin American town who must transport a shipment of nitroglycerin in ramshackle trucks. Both movies are magnificent in themselves. Their action scenes are still breathtaking.

Akira Kurosawa's Seven Samurai, in which a village hires seven swordsmen to protect them from bandits, and The Wages of Fear, Henri-Georges Clouseau's excruciatingly suspenseful story of four exiles in a poor Latin American town who must transport a shipment of nitroglycerin in ramshackle trucks. Both movies are magnificent in themselves. Their action scenes are still breathtaking.

But they possess a special interest because in them you can see a Japanese director and a French one laying down the template for today's Hollywood blockbusters. And they're better than our current action pictures in one crucial way. From their white-knuckle stunts to their revelations of character, everything in them is human scale.

But they possess a special interest because in them you can see a Japanese director and a French one laying down the template for today's Hollywood blockbusters. And they're better than our current action pictures in one crucial way. From their white-knuckle stunts to their revelations of character, everything in them is human scale.

But they possess a special interest because in them you can see a Japanese director and a French one laying down the template for today's Hollywood blockbusters. And they're better than our current action pictures in one crucial way. From their white-knuckle stunts to their revelations of character, everything in them is human scale.

My favorite sports movement this year was also Alive with Humanity. It featured Simone Biles, whose all-around gold medal at the Paris Olympics confirmed her as the greatest woman gymnast of all time. Yet what I loved wasn't her style in winning, which was, of course, phenomenal, but her grace in losing.

My favorite sports movement this year was also Alive with Humanity. It featured Simone Biles, whose all-around gold medal at the Paris Olympics confirmed her as the greatest woman gymnast of all time. Yet what I loved wasn't her style in winning, which was, of course, phenomenal, but her grace in losing.

My favorite sports movement this year was also Alive with Humanity. It featured Simone Biles, whose all-around gold medal at the Paris Olympics confirmed her as the greatest woman gymnast of all time. Yet what I loved wasn't her style in winning, which was, of course, phenomenal, but her grace in losing.

In the final event, the floor exercise, where she normally reigns supreme, she was bested by Rebecca Andrade, the superb Brazilian gymnast who'd spent her career losing over and over to Biles. And what did Biles do when she lost? She didn't cry, I'm still the GOAT. She didn't whine that the judges had cheated her. She didn't say that Andrade was lucky or actually no good.

In the final event, the floor exercise, where she normally reigns supreme, she was bested by Rebecca Andrade, the superb Brazilian gymnast who'd spent her career losing over and over to Biles. And what did Biles do when she lost? She didn't cry, I'm still the GOAT. She didn't whine that the judges had cheated her. She didn't say that Andrade was lucky or actually no good.

In the final event, the floor exercise, where she normally reigns supreme, she was bested by Rebecca Andrade, the superb Brazilian gymnast who'd spent her career losing over and over to Biles. And what did Biles do when she lost? She didn't cry, I'm still the GOAT. She didn't whine that the judges had cheated her. She didn't say that Andrade was lucky or actually no good.