Mud

As a rule, I'm not a Matthew McConaughey fan. Maybe it's his Texas U background and ongoing ties. I haven't seen many of his movies, and wasn't impressed by the ones I saw. But my wife wanted to see his new movie, called Mud, based on a recommendation from her best friend, and I agreed to take her since I owe her a lot of favors.

I'm glad I did. McConaughey is excellent in the title role, and Mud has many of the qualities I admired in Stand By Me and Sling Blade. Rated 9.0 and recommended for people interested in working class life in small-town Arkansas, and how adolescents cope with it. I'll need to reevaluate McConaughey's acting skill.

127 Hours

To me, a great movie is one that shows me people, places or events I would never see otherwise, and affects me emotionally and makes me think in the process. Great movies like Saving Private Ryan, Schindler's List or Lawrence of Arabia help me visualize history more clearly than the text printed on pages.

This afternoon we saw a movie called 127 Hours, which dramatizes the experience of a young man named Aron Ralston in 2003. His story received a lot of news coverage, and eventually Ralston wrote the memoir this movie is based upon.

I remember parts of the Ralston story from headlines at the time, and was surprised when I heard someone was making a movie about it. I was even more surprised to discover the film met the criteria for greatness mentioned earlier.

Because of the subject matter, I can't recommend 127 Hours to everyone. Parts of it are extremely intense, to put it mildly, and there are probably many people who should see it and won't because of that aspect. For me, though, it was 94 minutes well spent.

Cooper and Clarkson

Sometimes we'll watch a movie for no reason other than that we really like the actors in the lead roles, which is how my wife and I ended up seeing Married Life on TV last night. Chris Cooper and Patricia Clarkson play a married couple, middle-aged and upper middle class, in the late 1940s. Cooper and Clarkson are character actors who are strong enough to carry a movie, and they do it again in this one. Married Life is not quite a heavy drama, a comedy, or a suspense thriller, but has traces of each of those genres. The plot revolves around the issue of marital infidelity, and how people who've been married a long time may not know each other as well as they think they do. A quiet film constructed to interest older, mature audiences like the bees, and recommended.

Certitude

There are things about which I'm certain:

• When losing weight, it's much easier to go from 260 pounds to 190 than it is to go from 175 pounds to 165.

• Quentin Tarantino will never make a movie better than Pulp Fiction.

• Of all the Republicans on earth, Rush Limbaugh most deserves to be designated a Waste of Oxygen. Tom DeLay is a lock for second place. Karl Rove is in a tie with numerous others for third.

• The people in charge of football at TAMU damaged the program beyond repair when they wasted Reggie McNeal's talent at quarterback.

• The days of TAMU beating Texas in football six consecutive seasons are over and done with.

• If Rick Perry ends up being the longest-serving governor in the recorded history of Texas, it will be an everlasting blemish on the state and a monument to voter stupidity.

• I could probably get all the TV watching I need if Turner Classic Movies was the only channel I received.

• The people who are most obsessed with firearm ownership are the last people who need to be carrying loaded guns around.

• If everyone who bragged about their dedication to Christian values actually lived their lives as Jesus taught, there would be no Republican Party as it exists today.

• The worst thing John McCain ever did was select Sarah Palin as his running mate in 2008. There is no possible atonement for this misjudgment.

• Alfred Hitchcock, Steven Spielberg, and Billy Wilder are three directors who made a lot of movies worth seeing over and over again.

• I have yet to find a contemporary actor who personifies cool the way Steve McQueen and Paul Newman could on their worst days.

• I really wish Kurt Vonnegut Jr. could've written more books. Even his lesser works are better than a lot of stuff I've read.

Shoot 'em up

Michael Mann directed three of the best crime movies I ever saw (Thief, Heat and Manhunter), and one of the best historical epics based on American literature (Last of the Mohicans). A rule of thumb that works for me when choosing movies to see in theaters is to follow directors with a consistent track record, and Michael Mann has one. Which is how I ended up in the neighborhood cineplex at 11:15 am today to see Public Enemies.

Public Enemies probably won't be at the top of the list when major film awards get passed out next spring, but it's a hell of a good genre picture. It's based on the criminal career of John Dillinger and his pursuit by Melvin Purvis and the FBI. The story was told in the 1970s by John Milius in his film Dillinger, starring the late, beloved Warren Oates in the title role and the late, beloved Ben Johnson as Purvis. Harry Dean Stanton played a gang member, who spoke my all-time favorite movie line: "Goddammit, things aren't working out for me today."

I thought the Warren Oates version of the Dillinger story was as good as any gangster film I'd seen up to that point, but in its own way, Public Enemies matches up well against it. The movie was apparently shot using high-definition digital video cameras instead of film, and the photography features incredible amounts of minute detail. Johnny Depp plays Dillinger, and in some shots you can count the hairs on his head and the pores in his skin.

Like Hilary Swank, Johnny Depp has grown on me. It seems like he devoted his early career to playing bizarre characters in strange movies but as he's aged, he's begun to deliver restrained, low-key performances that I've admired. I think Finding Neverland was the turning point for me.

Since this is essentially a cops-and-robbers movie, a lot of ammo gets burned, especially since most of the characters are carrying Thompson submachine guns. The violence is realistic, without the excesses of the usual summer comic book movies. The last scene was poignant enough to put one of those lumps in my throat. All in all, I recommend Public Enemies for theatrical viewing.

Small blessings

There's almost nothing in the national news that isn't totally depressing. Most of the time, another economic measurement is reflecting a state of collapse. And if there's no horrible economic news, some Republican (or group of them) is saying or doing something so outrageous that I have to go out in my car and yell cusswords. And if it's not the economy or the Republicans, it's some Democrat behaving so badly he or she seems to be trying out for a position in the Republican Party.

In the face of all this bad news, I'm finding little rays of sunshine peeking through the dark clouds. This is the month that Turner Classic Movies calls its "31 Days of Oscar." Every day they feature a schedule of movies that were nominated for Academy Awards. Maybe the nomination was for Best Picture, and maybe it was only for Best Screenplay or Best Editing, but it's still an Oscar nominee. As a result, they're showing lots of movies I've heard about but never seen and I'm finally watching some of them. Thank you, Ted Turner, for creating this channel.

Last night I saw The Life of Emile Zola, released in 1937 and starring Paul Muni. I was slightly familiar with Zola from the Classics Illustrated comic book version of his novel The Downfall, about the Franco-Prussian War. It was a treasured item in my comics collection back in the 1950s. The second part of the movie dramatizes Zola's involvement in the so-called Dreyfus Affair, a real blemish in the pages of French history. Anyway, I was captivated by the story. The Life of Emile Zola is highly recommended.

Tonight's cinematic treat was Pygmalion, released in 1938 and based on a play by George Bernard Shaw. Many people my age are aware that Shaw's play was the basis for the musical My Fair Lady. Having now seen both, I'll admit I prefer the 1938 version. Leslie Howard plays Henry Higgins, a man whose attitude about life resembles my own in some ways. Wendy Hiller, an actress whose work I first discovered when she was well into middle age, plays Eliza Doolittle, and she's excellent in the part.

At any rate, anyone who likes old movies could do worse than seeing The Life of Emile Zola and Pygmalion as a DVD double feature. And thank you, TCM, for giving me a chance to take my mind off reality for a few hours.

Thanksgiving thinking

Today's Thanksgiving and for me it's a quiet one, particularly compared to last year. I haven't spent much time on any of the blogs lately, so I might as well take advantage of the peace and quiet to make a few notes.

This morning I got a phone call from a buddy I haven't talked to in months. He lives in Baytown, and we don't get together much these days. He was my closest friend from grades 7 through 12, so I enjoyed the chance to chat a few minutes. We exchanged thoughts about the dreadful season the Texas A&M football team has experienced, and bet a Coke on the outcome of tonight's game in Austin. For the hell of it, I took Texas minus 35, strictly because I know the horns have the ability to drop that kind of asswhipping on the Aggies and after consecutive upset losses, the motivation as well.

For roughly forty years, I lived for football season. My interest in the sport began in 1967, the first of my two senior years in college. After graduation I became a Dallas Cowboys fan, since I just couldn't seem to get enough football to satisfy my needs by following only the Southwest Conference. Year after year, I rose or fell each weekend with the Aggies and the Cowboys. If both won, I was on top of the world and if both lost, I'd stay depressed for two days. My passion was such that I began following all of college and professional football, so that I could compare my favorite teams to those they were competing against. I bought every football magazine I could get my hands on and expanded my interest to include high school recruiting and the NFL draft.

Here's the thing about football: A man can only maintain a passion for the game if he has a particular rooting interest in at least one team, and rooting interests are by definition contingent on a team's ability to be competitive week in, week out. The descent of the Aggies and Cowboys into extended periods of subpar performance caused me to lose most of my enthusiasm. The season's nearly over and I've yet to watch a single college or pro football game from beginning to end. It seems like there's a void in my life; for most of the fall I filled the space with politics and election news. Now I don't have that either. Even Wasilla Wondermom dropped out of sight - she was always good for a paragraph or two.

At any rate, A&M lost to Baylor and is officially the sorriest team in the Big 12 South. The new coaching staff hasn't done anything to inspire confidence the situation will improve. I need a new team to root for, which would probably be Southern Cal if their games were regularly televised in Texas.

I haven't been to the movies in a year. The last time I was in a theater was the day after Thanksgiving in 2007, when I saw the excellent No Country For Old Men.

I'm thinking about taking Mrs. bee to see the new movie Australia with Nicole Kidman. It looks like the kind of picture she'd enjoy, with elements to hold my interest as well. These days, I usually watch movies on DVD or cable television. Last night in fact, I watched a movie that deserves a guarded recommendation. It's Reservation Road, starring Joaquin Phoenix and Mark Ruffalo. This is a movie that didn't create a splash when it was released last year, and seems to have been dismissed by most of the reviewers. I probably wouldn't succeed as a movie critic because I thought it was very good, if not excellent. The plot concerns the death of a child in a hit-and-run accident and how that affects members of two families. This is a sober, serious film, hence the restricted recommendation. Reservation Road earns an eight on a scale of one to ten.

Added 10:38 pm, Thanksgiving night

Final score: Texas 49 Aggies 9. I had a hunch that taking the teasips and laying the 35 points was a safe call, given the way TAMU has been stinking up the joint all year. Cellar dwellers. TAMU's football program started to skid out of control in 1999 and has basically been sliding deeper into a hole for a decade. Will it ever end ? Fuck if I know.

Sunday rambling on Methodists, movies and Morgan

I'm not overtly religious; in fact, my religious beliefs are among the few things I try to keep to myself. I have some, but they're personal. And I'm not talking about situations where religion sticks its nose into politics. I have strong feelings about that and will throw out opinions at the drop of a hat.

When I attend church, about 38 Sundays per year on average, I go to the Methodist church. It's the denomination I was raised in; when I was young it was a rare Sunday morning when my family wasn't present for services and Sunday school both. I like the Methodists because, at least at the church I attend, they seem to be more tolerant and less political than, say, the Southern Baptists. I've even read that some Methodists are protesting Bush's presidential library and school of public affairs at SMU in Dallas. Another plus for them on my scorecard.

This morning, the sermon I heard was above average. Its subject was the meaning of the benediction, its biblical origins, etc. To illustrate one of his points, the Rev used a short scene from the movie Deep Impact. Thanks to modern technology, the congregation was able to see the clip in question on the big screens above the pulpits.

In the scene the US president, played by Morgan Freeman, is addressing the country on television, telling them that efforts to destroy an asteroid headed toward the planet have failed, and an ELE (extinction-level event) is inevitable. At that point, President Freeman pauses and delivers his benediction to the nation, which happens to be the biblical passage about which the Rev had been preaching.

Watching that scene again reminded me that Deep Impact is probably my all-time favorite disaster movie. It's one of the few with characters interesting enough to worry about, and there are a few scenes that give me the old lump in the throat. The cast, except Tia Leoni, is good; Robert Duvall plays his usual 'Robert Duvall' character. The really interesting casting choice is Morgan Freeman as the Prez, who comes across as someone people of either party could be proud of. Barry Obama's misfortune is that he wasn't born Morgan Freeman; he'd be a shoo-in this November. In my opinion, Freeman is one of those actors who's never played a part badly. He portrayed God in Bruce Almighty, and took that picture to a level of excellence it would've missed otherwise. So I'm thinking that someday, if we ever have a black president for real, maybe Morgan Freeman will have paved the way a little bit.

Admiring excellent work

Tonight HBO showed the last two episodes of the John Adams miniseries. I was able to again see the final episode covering the years from the end of the Adams presidency until his death. Adams loses his daughter to cancer, followed by the death of his beloved wife, Abigail, some years later. His son, John Quincy, becomes the 6th president. This all happens in a matter of minutes, thanks to the time compression required by television.

Adams and Thomas Jefferson were close friends during the revolution and allies during Washington's presidency, then became estranged over political differences. In tonight's episode they reconcile and exchange a series of eloquent letters. As the fiftieth anniversary of Independence Day approaches (July 4th, 1826), both men are in ill health and near death. Jefferson dies on the 4th, followed some hours later by Adams.

Being more unschooled in history than I should be, the first time I watched this conclusion I was disappointed that such dramatic license had been taken, cheapening the overall effect of the production. Then I was delighted to learn the ending was historically correct. Fact is both stranger than, and cooler than, fiction.

Let's just say the final episode of John Adams leaves me with a lump in my throat and let it go at that. And if we still had leaders as capable as those portrayed in this film, the country would be better off today.