Movie Review: Glory Road (2006)

Posted on March 1, 2017 by Brian Wright

A moving testimony to true sports’ courage

Selected Cast
Josh Lucas : Coach Don Haskins
Jon Voight: Kentucky Coach Adolph Rupp
Derek Luke : Bobby Jo Hill

Glory Road is the inspirational story of Don Haskins, a winning high-school girls basketball coach who was hired to lead the NCAA Division 1 men’s basketball program at Texas Western University (TWC) in El Paso. Haskins… and his special team.

When Haskins takes the reins in 1962, the South’s collegiate sports programs are de jure racially integrated. But unwritten rules persist that minimize recruitment and play of black players. De facto, most teams only play and recruit white players.

TWC’s basketball program is weak, and none of the better white high school players wants to come to the remote moonscape of El Paso. So Haskins entices leading black prospects from schools and playgrounds of the north by offering scholarships and a way out of their harsh realms.

The athletic director and boosters are initially upset with so blatant a violation of their unwritten rules, but they change their minds when the Texas Western Miners proceed to win. Continue reading →

Movie Review: The Truman Show (1998)

Posted on February 22, 2017 by Brian Wright

Precursor to modern reality shows, mainly speaks to Bigger Picture idea

As I was putting together plans for a novel having a ‘Truman Show‘ type of controlled reality and mind control, I realized I had not seen the actual movie for several years. It’s a good one. IMDb gives it an incredibly high 8.1, which truly baffles me… because I don’t sense that that many people see the depth of the philosophical-political issues the movie conveys. No, I’m not saying people are shallow, but I guess I am saying that today the vast majority of people—The Truman Show’s rating is from more that 500,000 viewers—don’t get the essence of the New World Order (NWO). Because if they did they would be doing a lot more to put the kabosh on that jessie.

Sadly, it appears that the high rating of this movie stems from it serving voyeuristic proclivities, not social-commentary ones. Sigh. But times change… and Truman Burbank (Jim Carrey) may come to represent a heroic figure and inspiration for humanity as it breaks free of the NWO. What can be more apt? Ordinary fellow comes to realize that he’s in a giant fish bowl, and being manipulated by actors playing his friends, family, business associates, and so on. Continue reading →

Movie Review: The Good Shepherd (2006)

Posted on February 15, 2017 by Brian Wright

The human costs of spookdom (7/10)

Candidly, I was looking for a damning expose of the most ‘successful’ secret society of the 20th century, the CIA (the Cartel’s Insulation Agency). And we do get some of that. Robert DeNiro, playing the General “Wild Bill” Donovan originator of the Office of Strategic Services (OSS) which became the CIA, says:

“I deeply worry about the agency becoming not the eyes and ears of the country but its heart and soul.”

On another note, just as the CIA controls the mainstream media, or Government(s) Propa- ganda Network (GPN)—ref. Carl Bernstein’s famous 1977 Rolling Stone article, “The CIA and the Media,”—’Intelligence’ pretty much owns Hollywood as well. [Not to say a few exceptions or embarrassments to the premier security state tool of the ruling families don’t slip thru from time to time.]

The story centers on the Matt Damon character, Edward Wilson, who becomes the prototypical CIA agent, then the leader of Agency operations. We open with footage of the failed 1961 Bay of Pigs invasion, compromised by an intelligence leak. Wilson’s career being in jeopardy, he endeavors to find the source of the leak.

As the main story moves along in the present (the early 1960s), the movie flashes back to key points in his life. In the early 1920s, his father (Timothy Hutton) implores the boy Edward to always tell the truth. When Edward leaves the room, his father proceeds to shoot himself, leaving a note; Edward quickly reenters the room before the adults arrive and secrets the note away. Continue reading →

Movie Review: Lone Star (1996)

Posted on February 8, 2017 by Brian Wright

Uncovering crime and passion in a Texas border town (10/10)

Watching reviews and hearing promotions of this movie more than 10 years ago, now, I had no concept of its dimensions, the universals it deals with so effortlessly: race, legal oppression, cross-cultural taboo-challenging love, the drug laws, the environment… and Texas itself. Lone Star is solidly on my top 10 list.

The story is of Sam Deeds (Cooper) the son of a former popular sheriff Buddy Deeds (McConaughey) of a small border town (loosely patterned after Del Rio, Texas) who returns to take the same job his father had. A skeleton has been discovered on an old military target range, which appears to be that of the murderous racist sheriff Charlie Wade (Kristofferson) who preceded Sam’s father.

As Sam proceeds to figure out what happened, he reignites a passion he once had for Pilar (Peña), who is working as a teacher. The movie flashes back to the late 1950s into the early 1970s to show the stage from which the main characters have been propelled, and the influences that make the town of “Frontera, Texas,” the menudo (soup) it is today. Continue reading →

Movie Review: Ulee’s Gold (1997)

Posted on February 1, 2017 by Brian Wright

Celebration of the quiet American hero

It’s hard for me to watch Ulee’s Gold without a couple of big juicy tears welling up ten minutes into the film. That’s approximately when Ulee Jackson (Peter Fonda), working in his garage, is drawn into a reluctant conversation with his seven-something granddaughter Penny (Vanessa Zima) about the men in his platoon in Vietnam, none of whom survived.

“Those were good guys, Penny.”
“It’s so sad,” she says.
“You like sad?” asks Ulee.
“No, but sometimes inside it makes you quiet.”

That scene and this poignant statement by an adorable little girl give you the essence of the movie: the bittersweet, calm dignity of an honest man’s living struggle.

In fifteen minutes through his interactions with people in town and briefly at home, the extraordinarily ordinary person of Ulysses Jackson is established:

He’s a beekeeper, pursues the excellence of Tupelo honey, keeps things to himself, has lost his wife, is taking care of his two granddaughters (the teen is difficult), their father is in prison for robbery, their mother abandoned them, Ulee is physically beatup, and his honey harvest is due. Continue reading →

Movie Review: V for Vendetta (2005)

Posted on January 25, 2017 by Brian Wright

Inspirational classic to be, on social justice (9/10)

People should not be afraid of their governments; governments should be afraid of their people.— V

Editor’s Note: 01/25/2017. Per a recent guest column, it appears the Donald will be another Chancellor Adam Sutler from the movie… with help from a continuation of monstrous inside forces. People, get out your Guy Fawkes masks and proceed to the ramparts. — bw

Editor’s Note 11/2/2016—Perhaps this movie is a perfect symbol of the stirrings in the heart of the people for liberty… after decades of abuse by the Men of the Power Sickness. Are such hopes what animate the Trump Revolution? Decidedly so. Will Donald Trump as President betray the libertarian passions of those who got him elected? No one knows for sure, but if he simply sets up one New World Order for another… “Remember, Remember the 5th of November.” — V

Editor’s Note 4/4/2011— I’m using V for Vendetta in lieu of my regular column this week. Every time I view the movie, I get more out of it. Pick up little statements or nuances missed the previous time. For example, on this most recent occasion (yesterday) it dawned on me how close American society is approaching the police state methods of this fictional theocratic-fascist England of the future: black bags, beatings, SWAT teams with benign mottos, warrantless searches, breaking down doors, hauling people away without trial never to be seen again, the complicit media, and the docile, cowering population. I wish for a real V to right these wrongs and fight for justice, free the political prisoners. Growing impatient am I for the restoration of the Republic. [Note, it also occurs to me how parallel the fictional government’s intentional killing of its own citizens was to our own government’s orchestration of the self-murderous 9/11 attacks.] — bw

In the early days of Free State existence we were all excited by the Wachowski brothers (The Matrix) next cinematic innovation. What better to follow a work of sci-fi Kung Foo mysticism than a work of sci-fi swashbuckling libertarian justice. (I include a passage on our night out to see V in Merrimack, in my book.) Continue reading →

Movie Review: The Da Vinci Code (2006)

Posted on December 28, 2016 by Brian Wright

Good ideas that read better than they film

This isn’t to put down the fine cast and expression of sublime ideas that cause everyone to catch their breath the first time they hear them. It’s just the nature of the ideas.

For those of you who were not swept up in The Da Vinci Code book, it was quite the page turner: An author and scholar specializing in cultural symbols, Dr. Langdon, visits Paris, France, to deliver a series of lectures. As he is finishing one of them, a police inspector (Fache) approaches him and insists Langdon accompany him to the Louvre.

There the curator (Saunière) has seemingly been killed or committed suicide in a bizarre fashion, leaving clues in his blood stains and body position specifically for Dr. Langdon to decipher. This seems evidence to Fache that Langdon has something to do with the curator’s death, enough to charge and imprison Langdon. Yet Sophie Neveu, a policewoman, intervenes and secrets Langdon away.

The chase is on. Continue reading →