beginners

            Every year my extended family and I have a nationwide Academy Awards Pick 'em. We sit through the ceremony, dutifully checking off actual winners versus our predictions, and then we honor the most accurate prognosticator with congratulatory e-mails.

I didn't get to watch a lot of movies as a kid. (It's a long story.) The few ones I did watch left indelible impressions. As it turns out, when you watch the Sound of Music close to 30 or 40 times as a young teenaged woman, Christopher Plummer sticks in your mind. (As does the soundtrack. These are…