Documentary: In from the Cold
In 1996 J.J. Hanley was devastated when doctors blamed her son's autism on unemotional mothering. A second doctor debunked the "refrigerator mother" diagnosis, which was first posited by developmental psychologist Bruno Bettelheim in the 1950s. It took decades for the medical community to challenge the theory.
Hanley set out to find the generation of mothers who went before her, who struggled to raise their children while shouldering guilt and self-doubt. Her poignant documentary tells the stories of five women with grown autistic children. Refrigerator Mothers airs July 27 on PBS. Check local listings.
Film: New spy, same secret
In the remake of the 1962 thriller The Manchurian Candidate, war veteran Bennett Marco (Denzel Washington) is the only person who can derail a brainwashed Desert Storm POW (Liev Schreiber) from a mission to corrupt the White House. Washington takes on the role made famous by Frank Sinatra, who in the original plays a Korean War veteran out to crush a Communist plot. Silence of the Lambs director Jonathan Demme reinvigorates the story with more sophisticated ideas about mental programming.
