After reading Paul Auster’s Sunset Park, a novel with its pros (strong start) and cons (weak finish), I was more curious about a film obsessed throughout by the book’s many characters.
The Best Days of Our Lives explores the stories of three WWII veterans coming home to revisit their previous Midwestern civilian lives. An American drama, the film was released in 1946 and won seven Academy Awards including a supporting actor award for Harold Russell, a first-time actor selected to play the role of Homer, a former all-star high school athlete who returns home from the navy with hooks for hands.
In many ways, the film is timeless. There are scenes so humanizing that thoughtfully unveil just how difficult coming home from war can be even when returning to a loving wife, a fiance in waiting, or to children. With the war in Afghanistan over, more and more military servicemen and women are coming home, and that’s incredible. Yet, it’s easy to overlook the sacrifice, and this film was a nice reminder of how the many layers of psyche that make that journey difficult.
I found this particular scene so moving… an important metaphor - a lone soldier treads into a graveyard of abandoned aircrafts, he wanders and finds his way into the only place where he feels valued - the bomber jet he used to command. Watch.
“Your work is going to fill a large part of your life, and the only way to be truly satisfied is to do what you believe is great work. And the only way to do great work is to love what you do. If you haven’t found it yet, keep looking. Don’t settle. As with all matters of the heart, you’ll know when you find it. And, like any great relationship, it just gets better and better as the years roll on. So keep looking until you find it. Don’t settle.”
Photo by photomelissa
Source: photomelissa
I went to prison to get to the supreme court on a constitutional issue that they refused to take. Do you need any more evidence that we’re living in a corrupt country with a corrupt government? I’m angry. - Jack Kevorkian
Tonight HBO delivered yet another incredible documentary in their summer series with Kevorkian, a portrait of a man who devoted his life to taking on the establishment on principle. The film uncovers some of the mystery of a highly mysterious man.
Dr. Jack Kevorkian achieved household name status in the mid-1990s for his very public fight for medical assisted suicide, an unpopular idea that ultimately led to his incarceration. This film went beyond the controversy of Dr. Death to reveal, in quite a compelling way, the more personal stories that created the character. I was surprised to learn that his life was much more robust in the arts than a medical career would lead one to believe. He composed music, painted, produced a film and wrote books. He also never married, something he says he regrets, and the idea of personal sacrifice is a big theme throughout the film.
I also enjoyed re-visting and re-thinking about the idea of euthanasia today. It’s impressive that even after ten years in prison his position remains unchanged. His whole fight was and is based on our fundamental rights as outlined in the ninth amendment of the U.S. constitution: “the enumeration in the Constitution of certain rights, shall not be construed to deny or disparage other rights retained by the people.”
He’s a pioneer. He may have used questionable tactics during the debate - publicity tours, representing himself in trial - but that’s par for the course. The fact that he willingly gave away his own rights to fight for others is extremely admirable. And it’s one more debate where people should really listen and engage.
The film’s available on HBO On Demand and I highly recommend you give it a watch.
Ended up seeing Margot at the Wedding… As I was leaving the theater, I overheard some unhappy movie-goers criticize the point of the film—they thought it had none and looked to me and my friend for validation that it “sucked.” I have to disagree. Family dysfunction, the subject of the film, is certainly not pleasant and it *was* uncomfortable watching a family casually humiliate each other one scene after the other. But, I didn’t go to this film expecting to be entertained, although there were bits of humor needled throughout.
Anyway, it’s getting too late for me to really analyze this, but I did want to write about it while it was in my head. Overall, I felt that the movie painted a perfect picture of a truly narcissistic passive-aggressive person and the way people tend to enable it or fight it. I didn’t expect a feel-good movie experience. It was a well-made film with great dialogue and human moments that make people uncomfortable at times and at other times, laugh—all the type of moments we try to forget and/or remember about our own families. Needless to say I didn’t think it “sucked.”
After much anticipation, I finally made time to see No Country for Old Men on Thanksgiving evening. The movie was incredible! It ran a little over two hours and for the first time in a long time, I didn’t seem to notice. No Country for Old Men is an intense drama set in a dark, soulless country in the American West. It is retold by the Coen brothers who adapted the story from a Cormac McCarthy novel of the same name. I don’t want to give too much of the plot away, but the story begins with a guy who discovers millions among an abandoned bloody scene. The film soon turns into a cat-and-mouse game between an ordinary guy who wants to keep the millions and a peculiar coin-tossing psychopath with a bad haircut and a deadly cattle gun. The story is full of dark ideology and suspense and is definitely a must see for people who love to get lost in film.
