Movie Review: The Third Man (1949)

Posted on June 8, 2016 by Brian Wright

Post World War II film noir w/authentic feel _ 8/10

Calloway: Go home Martins, like a sensible chap. You don’t know what you’re mixing in, get the next plane.
Martins: As soon as I get to the bottom of this, I’ll get the next plane.
Calloway: Death’s at the bottom of everything, Martins. Leave death to the professionals.
Martins: Mind if I use that line in my next Western?

Anna Schmidt: A person doesn’t change just because you find out more.

Amazing I’d never seen this highly artful, black and white film, because it actually has a bit of a political message, set as it is in immediate post World War II Vienna, Austria. The city was divided into four separately policed zones—US, Britain, France, Russia—mainly to accommodate the diplomatic niceties extended to the Soviets. Hint: Nobody wanted to be in the Russian zone.[1] It was quite common for Germans to forge their identity papers so that they would appear to live in districts under responsibility of the Western powers. Continue reading →

Movie Review: Alongside Night (2015, updated version)

Posted on June 1, 2016 by Brian Wright

An impressive and important artwork in the libertarian cultural oeuvre (8/10)[1]
Written and directed by J. Neil Schulman, produced by Patrick Heller
Reviewed by Brian R. Wright

Patrick Heller of Liberty Coin Service, who financed this film, is a personal friend of mine and political ally going back to the early 1970s. To use a military analogy, back in the day of Rampant Campus Collectivism we charged up a lot of the same hills under heavy fire… and continue to fight for reason and liberty in our much more sinister Era of Polished Global Fascism. I’d say we’ve managed to secure some beach heads for what we (with others)—and certainly the writer/director of Alongside Night, Mr. J. Neil Schulman—see as the ultimate if not imminent victory of Worldwide Liberty.

In 1979, when Neil’s novel was written, only a handful of authors had emerged to work Ayn Rand’s corner (philosophical individualism) or, say, Robert Heinlein’s hard science fiction path—Heinlein had a more martial-society ideal for the heroic person. [Yet, Heinlein came up with any number of mindbending plot devices and convincing tech innovations.] Anyway, Alongside Night along with L. Neil Smith’s Probability Broach were the ones most of us contemporaries in the modern libertarian movement read and discussed. Continue reading →

Movie Review: Night at the Museum (2006)

Posted on May 25, 2016 by Brian Wright

Solid family fare that edifies, inspires, and entertains 7.5/10

Never a huge Ben Stiller fan, I was pleasantly surprised after picking Night at the Museum out of the Netflix mailer and firing it up on the DVD player. It’s a story about a fellah in a busted marriage just trying to get by in the Big Apple. Larry Daley (Stiller) has a creative, inventive orientation—he supposedly developed a light that turns on when you snap your fingers—but his inventions are always scooped, ahead of their time, or missing capital funding. Thus he’s always running low on rent money and his ex (Kim Raver) wonders if he’s a positive influence on their boy Nick (Jake Cherry).

In the beginning of the movie, Larry drops by the plush apartment of his ex and her new fiance Don (Paul Rudd)—a techno-business geek (emphasis-added) bond trader—with whom she and Nicky live. These opening scenes are easy to dismiss because many have seen the previews and are waiting for the dinosaurs to come alive and wreak havoc at the museum; but these instances of humanity are key to story. Stiller shows the kind-hearted angst of the aspiring father who, because of some bad breaks and naïveté, has been ejected from his son’s life and replaced by a cipher. Rudd is perfect, too, as the shallow, good-natured stepfather to be. Continue reading →

Movie Review: That Hamilton Woman (1941)

Posted on May 18, 2016 by Brian Wright

Magic classic with unforgettable performances 8.5/10

They told us your splendid victories, but not of the price you paid. — Emma Hamilton

Whoever came up with the idea of Turner Classic Movies—well, it was Ted Turner with the help of Robert Osborne and Carrie Fisher, of course—should have a statue or a movie studio named after him. Readers may recall a couple of other occasions when my movie-of-the-week review hailed back to a simpler time when cinema was a more straightforward theatrical presentation and a bag of popcorn, even adjusted for inflation, cost somewhere around a nickel (with no refills). Follow the Fleet and Seven Men from Now are two such reviews that came on the heels of my presence at Mom’s while the dial was turned to TCM. In both cases I was pleasantly surprised an old flick could be so good without being Casablanca.

And that same sort of pleasant surprise just happened the other day with That Hamilton Woman, starring Laurence Olivier and Vivien Leigh—though for different reasons. In fact, the main attraction for me about this film is twofold: a) the magic of the actors and b) the unforced romanticism of the cinematic effort. Continue reading →

Movie Review: Waitress (2007)

Posted on May 11, 2016 by Brian Wright

Lovable, intimate inspirational story (9/10)

“Baby don’t you cry, gonna make a pie,
gonna make a pie with a heart in the middle.
Baby don’t be blue, gonna make for you,
gonna make a pie with a heart in the middle.
Gonna make a pie from heaven above,
gonna be filled with strawberry love.
Baby don’t you cry, gonna make a pie,
and hold you forever in the middle of my heart.”
— Jenna

Jenna (Keri Russell—no relation to Kurt) sings this tender little ditty a couple of times toward the end of the movie. It’s a tune her mother taught her, sang to her, when she was a little girl growing up in a small town in the Deep South. As the credits for Waitress unfurl we see a young woman’s hands making pie after pie full of scrumptious innards with moist, thick golden crusts, then we learn the woman’s name is Jenna and she works for the local diner… which has a far and wide reputation for serving these hand-made pies “from heaven above.” Continue reading →

Movie Review: American Beauty (1999)

Posted on May 4, 2016 by Brian Wright

On reflection, testifying to the inner reality

“It was one of those days when it’s a minute away from snowing and there’s this electricity in the air, you can almost hear it. And this bag was, like, dancing with me. Like a little kid begging me to play with it. For fifteen minutes. And that’s the day I knew there was this entire life behind things, and… this incredibly benevolent force, that wanted me to know there was no reason to be afraid, ever. Video’s a poor excuse, I know. But it helps me remember… and I need to remember… Sometimes there’s so much beauty in the world I feel like I can’t take it, like my heart’s going to cave in.” — Ricky Fitts

This year’s (2008’s) crop of Oscar nominated movies seemed to lack in the way of uplift: the Academy deemed the best movies for 2007 to be 1) No Country for Old Men (winner… but a complete downer, violent, too), 2) There Will Be Blood (Daniel Day Lewis plays a psycho oil baron with a father disorder), 3) Atonement (a love story, but with false accusations of rape), 4) Michael Clayton (depressing indictment of corporate man… and woman), 5) Juno (this is the cheerful one, and it’s about teenage pregnancy!). Continue reading →

Movie Reviews: Croupier (1998)

Posted on April 27, 2016 by Brian Wright

A black-and-white-feel film noir, like The Hustler (9/10)

“The world breaks everyone, and afterwards many are strong at the broken places. But those that will not break, it kills—it kills the very good, and the very gentle, and the very brave, impartially. If you are none of these, you can be sure it will kill you, too, but there will be no special hurry.”
— Jack Manfred (Clive Owen)

That’s my favorite of the quotes from this brooding yet determined character, young, slick Jack Manfred. It comes toward the end of the movie. Here’s another:

“Gambling’s not about money… Gambling’s about not facing reality, ignoring the odds.”

Quite a fascinating character, right from the beginning, when we see him talking to a London publisher about a book idea. The publisher is smarmy, the type who sucks up to the in crowd; his advice to Jack is in effect, “Just work your ass off for us every waking moment and eventually success will arrive.” The vibes Jack gives off, however, are anything but those of an aspiring, hardworking writer… Jack carries a constant grin of confidence. His appearance is hotshot retro, he dies his hair blond and wears a pork-pie straw hat. Continue reading →