Movie Review: The Bucket List (2007)

Posted on February 24, 2016 by Brian Wright

Jack and Morgan hugely entertaining in terminal vehicle (8/10)

Edward Cole: I envy people who have faith, I just can’t get my head around it.
Carter Chambers: Maybe because your head’s in the way.

The Bucket List looked like one of several old-guy buddy movies in the vein of Jack Lemon and Walter Matthau in The Odd Couple II, Grumpy/ier Old Men, or Out to Sea or, more fittingly, Jack Lemon and James Garner in My Fellow Americans. But this one is more than just a frolic of buddy repartee and various sexual wannado’s; it’s actually a serious movie that strikes close to home (for Boomers and their aging parents) with a naturally humorous undertone.

From the special features we learn screenplay writer, Justin Zackham, came up with this idea of writing down a list of things one would want to accomplish should one learn one’s time on earth was short. Oddly enough, Zackham made “making a movie about a ‘bucket list'” one of the items on his own personal bucket list—though, so far as we know, Zackham doesn’t have a terminal affliction—and The Bucket List became his Hollywood breakout story. In the movie the Morgan Freeman character, Carter Chambers, comes up with the list idea: he remembers it from a philosophy class in college. Continue reading →

Movie Review: Sex and the City (2008)

Posted on February 17, 2016 by Brian Wright

Appreciated yet flawed homage to original (4/10)

“Never try to relive the past: the fire will have become ashes.”
— General Douglas MacArthur

Like many moviegoers and Sex and the City series fans, I desperately wanted to fall in love with this movie as much as I had fallen in love with practically everything about the TV show. Alas, my subtitle speaks with kid gloves only because of the enormous respect I had for that groundbreaking creative enterprise on HBO, Sunday nights—running from 1998 to 2004 with a total of 94 episodes. But if I’m Ebert and/or Roeper, all honesty requires a thumbs down on the movie… even a ‘way down:’

An obvious ringer right off the top: “What in the holy hallelujah is Jennifer Hudson doing in this movie?!” Continue reading →

Movie Review: From the Earth to the Moon (1998)

Posted on February 3, 2016 by Brian Wright

Hanks’ creation is another national treasure (10/10)

Note: at the time that I’m reposting this original review from 2008, I have become aware of a movement to the effect that various anomalies in the official version of the space program for Apollo show that the program was faked, at least in some instances. My general view at the moment—having briefly checked out some of these arguments—is that, no, substantially the Apollo program facts did occur as officially represented and documented. Here is a reasonable Moon-hoax-counterargument site that does undercut many of the hoax advocates’ propositions: http://www.braeunig.us/space/hoax.htm. But it’s 10 years old, and I haven’t bothered to find newer sources.

Understanding that the globalista-federale Axis of Evil is fully willing and able to produce major fake events, I am suspending judgment on the moon hoax until I’ve had time to review legitimate hoaxists’ arguments and theories. My default position is that at least most of the moon landings and technology (key facts) to accomplish them were authentic. [Basically, to have produced a fake program of such scope, pervasiveness, and under vast public scrutiny, would have exceeded the capabilities of the American national security state apparatus by several orders of magnitude… at least to my knowledge.] I’ll let my readers know if I should change this default. — bw Continue reading →

Movie Review: Talk to Me (2007)

Posted on January 20, 2016 by Brian Wright

Heartfelt tribute to Petey Greene, one of a few who told it like it was… (8.5/10)
Directed by Kasi Lemmons

… and told it with style and humor, Ralph Waldo ‘Petey’ Greene, Jr. (1931-1984) was an electrifying and extremely street-funny black radio talk-show host in the late 1960s and early 1970s in Washington DC; he became prominent enough to host his own television show in DC from 1976 to 1982, winning two Emmys. His shows discussed a wide variety of political issues and public affairs, especially as they affected and afflicted black Americans… and the poor in general. He overcame drug problems and a prison sentence for armed robbery. Howard Stern, who appeared on Petey’s show early in Stern’s career, referred to Greene as a broadcasting genius in Stern’s book, Private Parts.

Greene spoke from the heart and tended to resist the various compromises that would be necessary to catapult him into national attention. It was his humanity that made him endearing—including several instances of ‘stage fright’ or failure of confidence upon being presented with some next big challenge. The early scene when he first arrives at radio station WOL to assert his intentions of being employed by Dewey Hughes is typical: “Vernell,” he tells his girlfriend, “my legs won’t move.” Somehow he manages in all these cases, until the one bellwether night at the Johnny Carson Show. Well, you’ll have to watch the movie. Does he do the right thing? Continue reading →

Movie Review: Dark Knight (2008)

Posted on January 13, 2016 by Brian Wright

Critic-and-crowd pleaser is raucously uninspiring (4/10)

Batman: Why do you want to kill me?
The Joker: [laughs] Kill you? I don’t want to kill you! What would I do without you? Go back to ripping off mob dealers? No, no, you… you complete me.

As we’re leaving the theater, I ask Bill, of the other couple we went with, what he thinks of the movie. “Well, I feel it’s just like the half-dozen previews—one of them was the new Bond flick—we had to sit thru: excessively loud and excessively violent.” Bill pretty much nails it. Plus, it takes forever (152 minutes) to reach the end of this particularly long and convoluted bat cave. My take: if you like playing richly textured, complex, viscerally violent video games in surround-sound at 90 decibels, this movie is for you.

In terms of acclaim and popular appeal, the Dark Knight Batman ranks up there with the highest rated movies of all time; IMDb gives it an unheard of 9.3 rating, Rotten Tomatoes (RT) a 94%. The critics mostly render some version of the RT synopsis: Continue reading →

Movie Review: The Ultimate Gift (2007)

Posted on January 6, 2016 by Brian Wright

Inspirational antidote to loud, violent fare (8/10)

Jason Stevens: Do you have
butterflies?
Emily: No Jason. I’m looking at the stars.
Jason Stevens: You know, I set this whole thing up because I thought you wanted to go horse back riding, not your mom?
Emily: Get real. Horses are smelly and sweaty.
Jason Stevens: So what’s your dream, if you could dream of anything?
Emily: My dream. My dream was a perfect day and I’m just finishing it. My dream is to be with people I love, that love each other and that love me.

I know, I know, it sounds a little corny and saccharin. That’s what I used to think about the 1970s television series The Waltons, before I actually tuned in one night and became absolutely captivated by the adventures of John Boy, Mary Ellen, and the rest of that poor West Virginia mountain family in the Depression era. It’s fitting to contrast cinematic dramas such as these with what I decried in so much modern fare with my previous review of Dark Knight.[1] So many movies, especially in theaters appealing to the young, are full of so much special-effects clatter they leave no room for human beings and a story worth telling. Continue reading →

Movie Review: Far from Heaven (2002)

Posted on December 30, 2015 by Brian Wright

The way we (really) were _________ 9/10

Cathy Whitaker: That was the day I stopped believing in the wild ardor of things. Perhaps in love, as well. That kind of love. The love in books and films. The love that tells us to abandon our lives and plans, all for one brief touch of Venus. So often we fail at that kind of love. The world just seems too fragile a place for it. And of every other kind, life remains full. Perhaps it’s just we who are too fragile.

When I read the above bittersweet reflection from Cathy Whitaker (Julianne Moore)—homemaker extraordinaire in upscale, extremely class-conscious 1957 Hartford, Connecticut, and wife to Frank Whitaker (Dennis Quaid), high-powered sales executive at a leading ad agency—I thought, wow, that’s my exact impression of her… and sums up a major idea of the movie. The only problem is I’ve been back over the DVD several times, and I can’t find where anyone says these words! [If any of my readers can locate the statement, please contact me on the Coffee Coaster Blog.] Continue reading →