Movie Review: Good Will Hunting (1997)

Posted on March 29, 2017 by Brian Wright

“Just playing”… with a little help from his friends

Will: Beethoven, okay. He looked at a piano, and it just made sense to him. He could just play.
Skylar: So what are you saying? You play the piano?
Will: No, not a lick. I mean, I look at a piano, I see a bunch of keys, three pedals, and a box of wood. But Beethoven, Mozart, they saw it, they could just play. I couldn’t paint you a picture, I probably can’t hit the ball out of Fenway, and I can’t play the piano.
Skylar: But you can do my o-chem paper in under an hour.
Will: Right. Well, I mean when it came to stuff like that… I could always just play.

For a subtitle, I was going to use something like political-romantic, psych thriller buddy movie, but the quote above suggests the more descriptive “I could just play.” Both Matt Damon and Ben Affleck at that time in their careers (1997) have been in front of a camera a few times… and they’re smarter than the average bears. Who knows how the creative process works? Just as Sylvester Stallone hit a grand-slam home run his first time at the plate, writing and acting Rocky, Damon and Affleck do the same with Good Will Hunting… and they hit their monster homer at Fenway Park in Boston, no less, where they actually grew up as friends. Continue reading →

Book Review: The Rise of the Creative Class (2002)

Posted on November 28, 2014 by Brian Wright

by Dr. Richard Florida

2002, Basic Books, 325 pages

“If America continues to make it harder for some of the world’s most talented students and workers to come here, they’ll go to other countries eager to tap into their creative capabilities—as will American citizens fed up with what they view as an increasingly repressive environment.”
— Dr. Richard Florida,
The Flight of the Creative Class

From this quote you can see immediately the sort of society Dr. Florida wants. Me, too. What’s puzzling is he doesn’t explicitly attach his shiny new cart of creativity to the thoroughbred of peace and political liberty.

In particular, you’d expect him to lambaste the Neocon Usurpers for launching expensive wars for isolated benefit of the Carlyle Group. Is he pulling his punches so Rush Bimbaugh won’t accuse him of Bush-bashing? In general, why doesn’t Florida boldly oppose the bonecrushing machinery of government per se? Continue reading →

Book Reviews: The Farrah Chronicles (2011)

Posted on July 26, 2013 by Brian Wright

Ninety minutes in the life of a very shaky girl
by Christine Mahoney

For those who feel the recently emerging author-directed alternative publishing technology tends to produce mundane work, The Farrah Chronicles will challenge your presumptions. This small story of a young woman’s journey through stylish neighborhoods of broken dreams and borderline sanity is a sparkling diamond of imagination. Written in first person via flashback, we’re first introduced to Farrah (29) as she’s being retrieved by her parents—and into their court-directed care—from an ‘institution.’ She finds it a little more than ironic that the state is placing her safekeeping ‘in the questionable hands of the very people who endangered it. Indefinitely.’ The next nine months provide the context of her reminiscences, as Farrah chronicles through her ninety-minute psychotherapy sessions (with the highly credentialed and determined Genie) what has brought her to this stage. As Farrah puts it: Continue reading →