Movie Review: Love Song for Bobby Long (2004)

Posted on April 15, 2015 by Brian Wright

Lush tribute to the soul (and body) of New Orleans

Lawson Pines: Some people reach a place in time where they’ve gone as far as they can. A place where wives and jobs collide with desire. That which is unknowable and those who remain out of sight. See what it is invisible and you will see what to write. That’s how Bobby used to put it. It was the invisible people he wanted to live with. The ones that we walk past everyday, the ones we sometimes become. The ones in books who live only in someone’s mind’s eye. He was a man who was destined to go through life and not around it. A man who was sure the shortest path to Heaven was straight through Hell. But the truth of his handicap lay only in a mind both exalted and crippled by too many stories and the path he chose to become one. Bobby Long’s tragic flaw was his romance with all that he saw. And I guess if people want to believe in some form of justice, then Bobby Long got his for a song. Continue reading →

Frost/Nixon (2008)

Posted on April 8, 2015 by Brian Wright

David goes after the disgraced political Goliath (8 stars out of 10)

James Reston, Jr.: You know the first and greatest sin of the deception of television is that it simplifies; it diminishes great, complex ideas, trenches of time; whole careers become reduced to a single snapshot. At first I couldn’t understand why Bob Zelnick was quite as euphoric as he was after the interviews, or why John Birt felt moved to strip naked and rush into the ocean to celebrate. But that was before I really understood the reductive power of the close-up, because David had succeeded on that final day, in getting for a fleeting moment what no investigative journalist, no state prosecutor, no judiciary committee or political enemy had managed to get; Richard Nixon’s face swollen and ravaged by loneliness, self-loathing and defeat. The rest of the project and its failings would not only be forgotten, they would totally cease to exist. Continue reading →

Movie Review: Milk (2008)

Posted on April 1, 2015 by Brian Wright

The true test of sharing liberty…

Harvey Milk: [Voice Over, Last lines] I ask this… If there should be an assassination, I would hope that five, ten, one hundred, a thousand would rise. I would like to see every gay lawyer, every gay architect come out… If a bullet should enter my brain, let that bullet destroy every closet door… And that’s all. I ask for the movement to continue. Because it’s not about personal gain, not about ego, not about power… it’s about the “us’s” out there. Not only gays, but the Blacks, the Asians, the disabled, the seniors, the us’s. Without hope, the us’s give up – I know you cannot live on hope alone, but without it, life is not worth living. So you, and you, and you… You gotta give em’ hope… you gotta give em’ hope. Continue reading →

Movie Review: Revolutionary Road (2008)

Posted on March 25, 2015 by Brian Wright

The quintessential “trapped in the 1950s” story

Frank Wheeler: I want to feel things. Really feel them.
April Wheeler: Don’t you see? That’s the whole idea! You’ll be able to do what you should have been allowed to do seven years ago, you’ll have the time. For the first time in your life, you’ll have the time to find out what it is you actually want to do. And when you figure it out, you’ll have the time and the freedom, to start doing.
Frank Wheeler: This doesn’t seem very realistic.
April Wheeler: No, Frank. This is what’s unrealistic. It’s unrealistic for a man with a fine mind to go on working year after year at a job he can’t stand. Coming home to a place he can’t stand, to a wife who’s equally unable to stand the same things. And you know what the worst part of it is? Our whole existence here is based on this great premise that we’re special. That we’re superior to the whole thing. But we’re not. We’re just like everyone else! We bought into the same, ridiculous delusion. That we have to resign from life and settle down the moment we have children. And we’ve been punishing each other for it. Continue reading →

Movie Review: Odd Man Out (1947)

Posted on March 18, 2015 by Brian Wright

Character study in precursor environment of the Northern Ireland ‘Troubles’

Happened upon the film given four stars by the reviewer on Turner Classic Movies, and checked it out.

Glad I did. Informed by the venerable Robert Osborne that this movie is a launch pad for director Carol Reed who later did such classics as The Third Man, The Agony and the Ecstasy, and Oliver. It also served to elevate James Mason into leading actor territory. In this effort he is cast as an Irish revolutionary leader working for ‘the Organisation’ after having served much time in a British/Unionist prison. [Here’s where I’m unclear on the history, but I believe, looking at my Wikipedia ‘hallowed official knowledge’-bot article on Ireland: I see the Irish Republic—meaning the bulk of the island, except for the northeast six counties—came into existence after considerable struggle in 1921 with the Anglo-Irish Treaty, but it wasn’t until 1949 that ‘full’ independence was achieved and that that land became the Republic of Ireland. Continue reading →

Movie Review: Akeelah and the Bee (2006)

Posted on March 11, 2015 by Brian Wright

That’s the respect for language I be representin’

Akeelah: [quoting Marianne Williamson]
“Our deepest fear is not that we are inadequate. Our deepest fear is that we are powerful beyond measure. We ask ourselves, Who am I to be brilliant, gorgeous, talented, fabulous? Actually, who are you not to be?
We were born to make manifest the glory of God that is within us. And as we let our own light shine, we unconsciously give other people permission to do the same.”
Dr. Larabee: Does that mean anything to you?
Akeelah: I don’t know.
Dr. Larabee: It’s written in plain English. What does it mean?
Akeelah: That I’m not supposed to be afraid?
Dr. Larabee: Afraid of what?
Akeelah: Afraid of… me?

Continue reading →

Movie Review: Snow Falling on Cedars (1999)

Posted on February 18, 2015 by Brian Wright

Awesome testament of an American holocaust
combined with deep truths of human nature

Nels Gudmundsson: It takes a rare thing, a turning point, to free oneself from any obsession. Be it prejudice, or hate, or even love.

Arthur Chambers (dictating a news story): These people are our neighbors, they’ve sent their sons into the United States Army. They’re no more an enemy than our fellow islanders of German descent or Italian descent. Let us live so that when this is over we can look each other in the eye and know that we have acted honorably.

Continue reading →