"reds"

It was gratifying, if not particularly surprising, to see Cillian Murphy capture the Best Actor Oscar this year. He’d just starred in the year’s most critically acclaimed film, “Oppenheimer,” which also took Best Picture. It was a big performance in a very big movie.

Great speeches have always made history, and in the movies, the voice of a single character, equipped with just the right words to suit the moment, can stir the emotions and stick in the memory, almost to the exclusion of everything else.

At the outset, many in Hollywood pigeonholed her as “kooky.” As most of us now realize, she was — and is — considerably more than that: smart, funny, complex, and yes, quirky, but in a thoroughly winning way. She is, in short, wonderfully human.