By Dwight Sparks

A little marriage advice this week: Take your wife to see the new movie sensation “La La Land.”

She will leave blubbering over the romance, the music and dancing, and you will have enjoyed a two hour nap.

Nah, it’s not quite that bad.

But nobody dies. Nobody is shot. There are no horses or saddles. No train hold-ups or bank robberies. No cowboys. No soldiers. Nothing but jazz and dance routines in Hollywood … and a lot of talking. Clint Eastwood is not cast in this movie.

Elizabeth loved it. I patted myself on the back for taking her. Some women in the theater were there alone, their sorry husbands refusing to take them.

The movie has been nominated for 14 Oscars — Best Picture, Best Actor, Best Actress, best song, director and so on. It has already won seven Golden Globes.

Twice, Elizabeth had arranged with girlfriends to go together to the movie, but those plans fell through. We went to a theater that offers a $5 senior citizen discount — even to those of us not old enough to qualify — to lessen my pain.

The lead actress, Emma Stone, as Mia, has hauntingly beautiful eyes. Elizabeth said Ryan Gosling, in the role of Sebastian, is handsome.

Mia is trying with great difficulty to break into Hollywood. Sebastian, a jazz pianist, wants a night club of his own. They don’t have the dance skills of Fred Astaire and Ginger Rogers, and their singing talents are only passable, but the stars do a fine job. I’m no movie, dance or singing critic, but it was okay enough.

Women in the audience applauded as the credits rolled.

I may have liked it more than I will admit. Best of all, I got brownie points as a husband.

• • • • •

There is some shooting, explosions and soldiers in another current movie we’ve seen, “The Arrival,” a science fiction thriller nominated for eight Oscars.

I didn’t understand it at all. Twelve oddly-shaped UFOs arrive on earth, spacing themselves around the globe and upsetting everybody. One stops in Montana.

Science fiction really puts me to sleep with the excellent exception of the 2011 movie “Cowboys & Aliens.” Now that was a fine show, even if no Oscars were awarded.

• • • • •

Finally, there’s the lard flap involving N.C. Sen. Joyce Krawiec of Winston-Salem, who couldn’t resist the urge to be cute on her Twitter account last week when angry, often vulgar women were leading a march in Washington to protest President Trump’s inauguration.

“If brains were lard, you couldn’t grease a small skillet,” she posted, channeling her inner Donald Trump.

A number of politicians who have been cute on Facebook and Twitter have instantly regretted it when their constituents accused them of racism, sexism, homophobia or an assortment of unsavory adjectives. Sen. Krawiec apologized, but the offended women — sensing victory — haven’t drop it. Displaying their own cleverness, 10 boxes of lard have been delivered to the senator’s Raleigh office.

Our mothers always told us if we didn’t have something nice to say, don’t say anything at all.

Sen. Krawiec, unless she develops thicker skin, should heed that old adage lest her Twitter indiscretion remains her most noted accomplishment.