Movie Review: Quantum of Solace

2008. Starring Daniel Craig, Mathieu Amalric, Judi Dench. Directed by Marc Forster. There were so many negative reviews of this, the second movie in the series of reinvented James Bond adventures, that I was not in any kind of hurry to see Quantum of Solace. Even though I loved 2006’s Casino Royale, which introduced us to Daniel Craig’s icy, brutal James Bond, who lacks the winking casualness of past Bonds, and substitutes his bare knuckles for the increasingly goofy devices that drove earlier movies. Casino Royale began its reinvention with a bang — a relentless parkour chase that leaves the …

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Country Music Reclamation Project: The Sweetest Gift, A Mother’s Smile

For my mom, gone from this world six years now. I hope she wakes up with breakfast in bed every morning, and with no worries about her kids. The Sweetest Gift, A Mother’s Smile (performed by the Blue Sky Boys) Written by J.B. Coats One day a mother came to the prison To see an erring but precious son She told the warden how much she loved him It did not matter what he had done She did not bring to him parole or pardon She brought no silver, no pomp or style It was a halo bright sent down …

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Movie Review: The Reader

2008. Starring Kate Winslet, Ralph Fiennes, David Kross. Directed by Stephen Daldry. The secrets we keep from each other, with varying degrees of shame, is the theme that seems to run through The Reader, the adaption of the Bernhard Schlink book and last year’s Oscar nomination vehicle for Kate Winslet. It is a sad, quiet story that imagines an intense, brief love between two people neither can handle. Winslet is deserving of the Oscar win, especially for her work in the second act of the movie, but her young co-star nearly outdoes her. Ralph Fiennes portrays the adult Michael Berg, …

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Movie Review: The Wrestler

2008. Starring Mickey Rourke, Marisa Tomei. Directed by Darren Aronofsky. The talk leading up to this past Oscar season was that there couldn’t have been a better actor for the role of the washed-up warrior in Darren Aronofsky’s The Wrestler than the once-famous Mickey Rourke. That may be true. But I think that, instead, there could not have been a better way to reintroduce the natural and intuitive acting skill of Mickey Rourke than this role — a role that seems written precisely for him. Rourke becomes Randy “The Ram” Robinson very seamlessly, and it may be because he looks …

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