Movie Review: North Country (2005)

Posted on December 20, 2017 by Brian Wright

North Country (2005)___9/10
Upper US mining country morality play

Directed by Niki Caro
Charlize Theron …. Josey Aimes
Frances McDormand …. Glory
Sean Bean …. Kyle
Woody Harrelson …. Bill White
Richard Jenkins …. Hank Aimes
Sissy Spacek …. Alice Aimes
Michelle Monaghan …. Sherry

If you’ve ever been tempted to dismiss remedies for sexual harassment as just one more instance of unnecessary government intrusion, you need to see this flick. It’s based on the story of, Lois Jenson, who worked in the Eveleth Taconite Company in Eveleth, Minnesota, from 1975 to 1992.

In 1984 she began legal actions to protest the abusive treatment and stalking she and other women employees were continually subjected to by men at the plant. In 1991 her actions culminated in a class action suit against the company, the first sexual harassment liability suit in American history.

After the original verdict that the company owed damages, a special judge was appointed to oversee a trial to determine these damages. In 1995, he awarded the 15 women plaintiffs an average of $10,000 each, which was appealed, then reversed by a higher court, which ordered a new jury trial. Continue reading →

Movie Review: Road to Guantanamo (2006)

Posted on December 13, 2017 by Brian Wright

Documentary that brings tears ____ 7/10

Directed by Michael Winterbottom

Riz Ahmed …. Shafiq
Farhad Harun …. Ruhel
Waqar Siddiqui …. Monir
Afran Usman …. Asif Iqbal
Shahid Iqbal …. Zahid
Sher Khan …. Sher Khan
Jason Salkey …. Military Interrogator

Road to Guantanamo is the story of three British citizens of Pakistani descent who through a series of accidents and bad coincidences wind up in Taliban-held Afghanistan during the British-American bombing and occupation in the post-911 months of 2001.

Ruhel Ahmed, Asif Iqbal and Shafiq Rasul are 20-year-old devout Moslem men living in England who travel with their friend Monir to Pakistan to attend Asif’s wedding. After spending a few days of shopping and sightseeing, the friends attend a mosque with Asif’s Pakistani cousin, Zahid.

The Imam inspires them to volunteer to travel to Afghanistan and provide humanitarian aid presumably to the refugees being created in the civil strife with the Taliban on the eve of the invasion The friends decide to go to Kabul “to help.” The story finds them set loose in the chaos of the invasion after the bus driver hits and kills a man, then leaves them. Continue reading →

Movie Review: Little Miss Sunshine (2006)

Posted on November 29, 2017 by Brian Wright

A small movie on dysfunctional families running for Oscar ___ 8/10

Directed by Jonathan Dayton and Valerie Faris
Written by Michael Arndt

Abigail Breslin … Olive
Greg Kinnear … Richard
Paul Dano … Dwayne
Alan Arkin … Grandpa
Toni Collette … Sheryl
Steve Carell … Frank

The Academy Award nominees for best picture of 2006 are as follows:

Babel
The Departed
Letters from Iwo Jima
Little Miss Sunshine
The Queen

And though I’ve seen and reviewed Eastwood’s companion film to Iwo Jima, Flags of Our Fathers, the only movie I’ve seen on this list so far is LMS. My personal feeling is it’s a good movie—perhaps providing unique insights into how to resolve a dysfunctional family—but not big enough to win the Oscar.

The setup: we learn very quickly the nuclear family portion of the ensemble consists of a motivational speaker Pop (Greg Kinnear), his long-suffering wife Sheryl (Toni Collette), a seemingly psycho son Dwayne who reads Nietzsche and doesn’t speak, and Olive (Abigail Breslin), the daughter innocently addicted to child beauty pageants. Continue reading →

Movie Review: The Lookout (2007)

Posted on November 22, 2017 by Brian Wright

Supremely crafted psychological drama____ 9/10
Written and directed by Scott Frank
Reviewed by Brian R. Wright

Joseph Gordon-Levitt … Chris Pratt
Jeff Daniels … Lewis
Matthew Goode … Gary Spargo
Isla Fisher … Luvlee
Carla Gugino … Janet
Bruce McGill … Robert Pratt

What a first-class effort: completely engaging from start to finish. I had read on IMDb one reviewer’s comments that’s it’s just nice to watch a movie that’s extremely well made, you know, as it all works together seamlessly to convey a meaningful story.

The actors are in top form as well, especially the young lead Joseph Gordon-Levitt who you’ll probably recognize as some child actor that you just know you’ve seen a million times. He came of age recently in an interesting film noir effort Brick (2005), a story about a bizarre killing in a dysfunctional high-school environment.

Levitt plays a boy named Chris Pratt, who becomes a star high school athlete in a fictional Kansas farming town south of Kansas City. He’s fooling around one night on a double date in his convertible Mustang GT, which leads to a major accident. The couple in the back are killed, while he and his girlfriend suffer disabling injuries.

He winds up as janitor at the town bank and receives some public assistance both for his psychological damage—he has a hard time with things like remembering sequences of events and quantities; he’s bottled up his feelings—and for his physical restrictions, mainly pain and mobility related. He has troubles with normal development of relationships with girls, illustrated by his hitting on his therapist Janet (Carla Gugino). Continue reading →

Movie Review: Bobby (2006)

Posted on November 8, 2017 by Brian Wright

Bobby (2006)_______8/10
A touching (Robert) Altmanesque tribute

Directed by Emilio Estevez

Harry Belafonte…. Nelson
Joy Bryant…. Patricia
Nick Cannon…. Dwayne
Emilio Estevez…. Jim Fallon
Laurence Fishburne…. Edward Robinson
Brian Geraghty…. Cooper
Heather Graham…. Angela
Anthony Hopkins…. John Casey
Helen Hunt…. Samantha
Joshua Jackson…. Wade
Ashton Kutcher…. Fisher
Shia LaBeouf…. Jimmy
Lindsay Lohan…. Diane
William H. Macy…. Paul
Svetlana Metkina…. Lenka Janacek
Demi Moore…. Virginia Fallon
Freddy Rodríguez…. José
Martin Sheen…. Jack
Christian Slater…. Timmons
Sharon Stone…. Miriam
Jacob Vargas…. Miguel
Mary Elizabeth Winstead…. Susan Taylor
Elijah Wood…. William

Movie critics have been all over the map on Bobby, some measuring it against the gold standard of ensemble-casted, social-ennui movies of Robert Altman, e.g. Nashville. Well, it is that type of movie, a slice-of-life, journalistic recreation of an important day in history.

This is another nostalgic visit for me of a vein in the ideological gold mine I didn’t tap too much, but was aware others were deeply exploring. I didn’t have the sensitivity in those days to appreciate what a fine and decent human being Bobby Kennedy actually was.

The fatal flaw, as far as I am concerned, for Bobby and many of the others on the Left is expressed in the following quote:

Do not ever say that the desire to “do good” by force is a
good motive. Neither powerlust nor stupidity are good
motives. — Ayn Rand Continue reading →

Movie Review: The Misfits (1961)

Posted on November 1, 2017 by Brian Wright

Marilyn and Clark’s final flick is winner ___ 8/10
Review by Brian Wright

Roslyn: Did you ever think about gettin’ married again?
Gay: Oh, I think about it; never in daylight.

Roslyn: If I’m going to be alone, I want to be by myself.

Guido: You have the gift for life, Roslyn. The rest of us, we’re just looking for a place to hide and watch it all go by.

Directed by John Huston
Screenplay by Arthur Miller

Clark Gable … Gay Langland
Marilyn Monroe … Roslyn Taber
Montgomery Clift … Perce Howland
Thelma Ritter … Isabelle Steers
Eli Wallach … Guido
Kevin McCarthy … Raymond Taber
Estelle Winwood … Church Lady

This 1961 film is unique in several ways: a) it is the final film for Marilyn Monroe (that she completed) and Clark Gable (who died a few weeks after filming of a heart attack some attribute to doing his own stunt work), b) it was not a commercial success at the time of release but gained critical respect for its writing and acting, c) because of lack of control of production costs, the film was the most expensive black and white film to that time at $4 million, and d) adding to the troubles of production were the 108 degree heat of the northern Nevada desert and the imminent end of Monroe’s marriage to writer Arthur Miller. Continue reading →

Movie Review: Postcards from the Edge (1990)

Posted on October 25, 2017 by Brian Wright

Back when Carrie Fisher crashes and turns… her life around
Reviewed by Brian R. Wright

Directed by Mike Nichols
Book and screenplay written
by Carrie Fisher

Meryl Streep …. Suzanne Vale
Shirley MacLaine …. Doris Mann
Dennis Quaid …. Jack Faulkner
Gene Hackman …. Lowell
Richard Dreyfuss …. Doctor Frankenthal
Rob Reiner …. Joe Pierce
Annette Bening …. Evelyn Ames
Mary Wickes …. Grandma

Readers of my site know I often like to delve into the past for movies and books that are classics, at least to me. Postcards from the Edge is such a piece for a number of reasons:

Mike Nichols directs—One of the true masters of Hollywood with such giants as Who’s Afraid of Virginia Woolf? (1966), The Graduate (1967), Catch-22 (1970), Carnal Knowledge (1971), Silkwood (1983), Working Girl (1988), and Primary Colors (1998).
Carrie Fisher writes—She was on her way to becoming an American sweetheart, a 70s sexed-up version of her mother, Debbie Reynolds, as Princess Leia in Star Wars (1977). She had less central roles in subsequent movies including The Blues Brothers (1980) and Hanna and Her Sisters (1986), and she also displayed substantial writing and singing skills.
Meryl Streep and Shirley MacLaine act—Playing Carrie Fisher and Debbie Reynolds-like characters, respectively, these two provide a cinematic tour de force of the timelessly troubled Hollywood daughter-mother relationship.
The times reveal—Culture is partly defined by artworks undertaken by celebs, particularly movies. This movie sends up some largely hopeful signs of the times.