Movie Review: A Better Life (2011), Cherry (2010)

Posted on March 4, 2015 by Brian Wright

This week finds me having watched two notable films, the first, A Better Life, dealing with an important sociological/political issue that all the political candidates (that I’ve seen anyway) try to deal with without considering that immigrants are, actually, you know, people. The second movie is a ‘coming of age’ movie in which a brilliant (and virginal) boy goes to Ivy League super college and learns about women, sex, and friendship… even family. Cherry is low budget, yet has good writing and a couple of good performances.

A Better Life ___________ 8.5

Story by Roger L. Simon
Screenplay by Eric Eason
Directed by Chris Weitz

Demián Bichir … Carlos Galindo
José Julián … Luis Galindo
Eddie ‘Piolin’ Sotelo … Himself
Joaquín Cosio … Blasco Martinez
Nancy Lenehan … Mrs. Donnely
Gabriel Chavarria … Ramon
Bobby Soto … Facundo
Dolores Heredia … Anita

Too early for quotes to be listed on the IMDb page, and many of them are in Spanish in subtitles. But the mix of humorous and poignant dialog is especially remarkable and immediate. Continue reading →

Guest Column: 10 Things America Must Do to Stop Ruining the World

Posted on March 2, 2015 by Brian Wright

My letter to an unknown American patriot (excerpt)
by Tom Engelhardt / TomDispatch

Full column at this location.

I wish I knew your name. I’ve been thinking about you, about all of us actually and our country, and meaning to write for a while to explain myself. Let me start this way: you should feel free to call me an American nationalist. It may sound ugly as hell, but it’s one way I do think of myself. True, we Americans usually reserve the more kindly word “patriot” for ourselves and use “nationalist” to diss other people who exhibit special feeling for their country. In the extreme, it’s “superpatriot” for us and “ultranationalist” for them. Continue reading →

Brian’s Column: After 9/11 Truth, Ch. 12

Posted on March 1, 2015 by Brian Wright

Leveraging the TLC campaign to other causes

“Walkin’ in the sunshine, sing a little sunshine song…” — Roger Miller

This is the ultimate and very important step for all who take up the 911TLC cause.

As a Campaign for Liberty activist strongly urged to me in the days leading up to completion of the book, we need to think of our rather low-effort 911TLC work, really—after all, we’re sending out letters and telling one another how great we are in Master Mind meetings (!)—in the context of the broader liberty movement.

In other words, each of us in the TLC program needs to lend a hand to those out there organizing and fighting for freedom on all the other issues.

Totally! Continue reading →