Movie Review: Win Win

Posted on February 1, 2012 by Brian Wright

Subtle morality play w/ HS jock backdrop _ 8/10
Reviewed by Brian Wright

Directed by Thomas McCarthy
Written by Thomas McCarthy

Win Win is a terrific multigenre sleeper. It’s funny, even hilarious; it has mystery and action; and it features brilliant performances by the always-reliable Paul Giamatti and Amy Ryan. It’s also not a movie that wallows in treacly messages, and it’s not a movie that uses sports as a crutch for “finding one’s inner strength.” In short, it’s a wonderful, top-notch movie. — from user review, IMDb, Dan Franzen

Exactly. The kudos for this film lie in two general areas: story and acting. So it could easily be a stage play except for the difficulty capturing nuances of dialog of the ‘younger generation,’ mainly from Kyle (Alex Shaffer) the lead character who talks with the modern youth slanguage, in a clipped under-the-breath manner. [Though distinctly and with a moral force that belies his years.] But let’s back up… because this movie is all about making ethical choices. Continue reading →

Movie Review: Burlesque

Posted on January 18, 2012 by Brian Wright

Holding on to family values ____ 7.5/10
Review by Brian Wright

Ali Rose: Jack, why did you leave Kentucky?
Jack: Well, why did you leave Iowa?
Ali Rose: Because I looked around and realized there wasn’t one person whose life I wanted.
Jack: Exactly.

Right, family values. Song and dance and the suggestion and celebration of sex, which is what, after all, does make families and all those family values that make the world go ’round. In the early scenes, Ali (Christina Aguilera), coming from Iowa to the bright lights of LA, asks Tess (Cher), proprietor of the Lounge, whether the establishment is a ‘strip club.’ Tess does a double-take, exclaiming that burlesque is to strip clubs as a carriage is to the bacteria on the underside of a snake crawling in the ruts of the carriage’s wheels. It puts me back into the memory banks: I suppose if you’re younger than 50 you may not even know what burlesque is… Continue reading →

Movie Review: Limitless

Posted on January 11, 2012 by Brian Wright

Superb science fiction for Humanity+ __ 8/10
Review by Brian Wright

Eddie Morra: [at a party] … Well sure, you’d get a short-term spike, but wouldn’t that rapid expansion devalue the stock completely in two years?
Kevin Doyle: No, ’cause there are safeguards!
Eddie Morra: Against aggressive overexpansion? There aren’t because there are no safeguards in human nature. We’re wired to overreach. Look at history, all the countries that have ever ruled the world – Portugal, with its big, massive navy… All they’ve got now are salt cods and cheap condoms.
[crowd laughs]
Eddie Morra: And the Brits? Now they’re just sitting in their dank little island, fussing over their suits. No one’s stopping and thinking, ‘Hey, we’re doing pretty well. We got France, we got Poland, we got a big Swiss bank account… You know what? Let’s not invade Russia in the winter, let’s go home, let’s pop a beer and let’s live off the interest.’ Continue reading →

Movie Review: Eat Pray Love

Posted on December 28, 2011 by Brian Wright

A unique womanly spiritual journey _ 7/10

Liz Gilbert: In the end, I’ve come to believe in something I call “The Physics of the Quest.” A force in nature governed by laws as real as the laws of gravity. The rule of Quest Physics goes something like this: If you’re brave enough to leave behind everything familiar and comforting, which can be anything from your house to bitter, old resentments, and set out on a truth-seeking journey, either externally or internally, and if you are truly willing to regard everything that happens to you on that journey as a clue and if you accept everyone you meet along the way as a teacher and if you are prepared, most of all, to face and forgive some very difficult realities about yourself, then the truth will not be withheld from you. Continue reading →

Movie Review: Executive Action (1973)

Posted on December 21, 2011 by Brian Wright

Suppressed groundbreaker on JFK killing __ 8/10
Review by Brian Wright

TV Commentator: In the three years after the murders of John F. Kennedy and Lee Harvey Oswald eighteen material witnesses died, six by gunfire, three by motor accidents, two by suicide, one by a cut throat, one by a karate chop to the neck, three by heart attacks, two from natural causes. An actuary engaged by the London Sunday Times concluded: On November 22, 1963, the odds of all these witnesses being dead by Feb. 1967 are one hundred thousand trillion to one. Continue reading →

Movie Review: Taking Chance

Posted on December 17, 2009 by Brian Wright

Touching made-for-HBO “antiwar film” ___ 8/10
Review by Brian Wright

Lt. Col. Mike Strobl: If I’m not over there, what am I? Those guys, guys like Chance… they’re Marines.
Charlie Fitts: And you think you’re not? Want to be with your family every night – you think you have to justify that? You’d better stop right there, sir. You’ve brought Chance home. You’re his witness now. Without a witness, they just disappear.

You might want to check your supply of Kleenex before you slip Taking Chance into the DVD player. As you realize from the trailer, this is a story about a Marine escort (a real-life Lt. Colonel Mike Strobl played by Kevin Bacon) for a casket containing a young “killed-in-Iraq” soldier[1] named Chance Phelps. Chance is, or was, a real-life person, too. Continue reading →

Movie Review: The Great Debaters

Posted on May 23, 2008 by Brian Wright

Gandhi + eloquence vs. lynch law mob mentality
Review by Brian Wright

“The state is currently spending five times more for the education for a white child than it is fitting to educate a colored child. That means better textbooks for that child than for that child. I say that’s a shame, but my opponent says today is not the day for whites and coloreds to go to the same college. To share the same campus. To walk into the same classroom. Well, would you kindly tell me when that day is going to come? Is it going to come tomorrow? Is it going to come next week? In a hundred years? Never? No, the time for justice, the time for freedom, and the time for equality is always, is always right now!” — Samantha Continue reading →