Tag Archive: Morgan Freeman


WHY I DON’T LOVE LUCY

Filed under: Movies — Leave a comment
October 1, 2014

LUCY directed by Luc Besson (France/USA, 2014)

Ever wondered what would happen if humans achieved the power to use 100% of their brains? No, me neither but Luc Besson has given the matter some thought and this overblown piece of cinematic nonsense is the consequence.

What makes the movie so unbearable is that you get the impression that Besson takes seriously the debunked  scientific premise that humans only make use of 10% of their grey matter. Not only that, but it is packed full of psychobabble and pseudo-spiritual musings that are preachy, absurd and humorless.

Scarlett Johanssson is charged with the task of convincing us that she has undergone this altered state but since she is laden with a truly dismal script she fails miserably. Continue reading →

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KICKING THE BUCKET LIST

Filed under: Atheism, Health and fitness, Movies — Leave a comment
March 29, 2014

THE BUCKET LIST directed by Rob Reiner (USA, 2007)

Death is no laughing matter but mainstream movies still have a hard time taking it seriously. How we come to terms with our mortality is rarely addressed at anything more than a superficial or sentimental fashion.

The story of two terminally ill men making full use of their final months ought to be different but isn’t. It is also dishonest in its unwillingness to show the true ravages of cancer or the messy business of dying.

The premise of the movie is that the bucket list, things to do before you kick the bucket, takes on a new urgency when you get to learn how long you have left to live. The subtext is that procrastination or postponement of these actions is never recommended.

Morgan Freeman plays Carter Chambers a car mechanic with a high IQ whose humility is at odds with brash billionaire Edward Cole played in typically over the top manner by Jack Nicholson.

Remission following surgery and intensive care is tantamount to a miraculous recovery. One minute the two men are lying in their hospital beds, seemingly at death’s door, the next they are skydiving and road racing or gadding about the globe to visit the seven wonders of the world.

Carter is a man of faith while Edward is a sceptic. Mercifully, we are spared crass religious propaganda but Christian morality is still implicit in the film’s advocacy of family values and kindness to strangers,

The underlying message is that it is the things that money can’t buy that bring joy and fulfillment in our lives. This is something I knew already and didn’t need this lame ass movie to remind me.

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TRANSLATING BUCKET LISTS

Filed under: Blogging, Health and fitness, Italy, Movies — 1 Comment
November 1, 2012

Jack Nicholson ticks off one of his ‘bucket list’ items .

As a teacher of English as a foreign language, I have more than a passing interest in linguistic conundrums.

Idiomatic and general slang expressions are notoriously hard to translate particularly when there is no direct equivalent in the target language, in my case Italian.

‘To kick the bucket’ is one example which, if translated simply as ‘to die’,  would lose the casual, even jokey register. You wouldn’t make a formal announcement that someone has passed on by saying that they had kicked the bucket.

In the last five years the term ‘bucket list’ has gone viral on the blogosphere and it’s a term that , until recently, left me mystified mainly because I missed the movie from which it originated.

The Bucket List (the film) is a kind of buddy movie  directed by Rob Reiner. It stars Morgan Freeman and Jack Nicholson as two terminally ill cancer patients who make a list of things they want to do before they ‘kick the bucket’. One critic described it as a feel good movie about death. Reviews are mixed and suggest that , while  it has its moments, it is no masterpiece. Continue reading →

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GONE BABY GONE

Filed under: Books, Fiction, Movies
September 13, 2009

“Good art doesn’t give answers it just asks the right questions”, so says novelist Dennis Lehane, best known as the author of ‘Mystic River’.

I’ve just seen the impressive movie adaptation of Lehane’s ‘Gone Baby Gone’ directed by Ben Affleck. Among the questions it asks are: ‘Is it right to carry out a summary execution on a paedophile and child killer or do such ‘monsters’ have a right to a fair trial?; ‘If a mother is a crack head, is it right to take her child from her without following legal procedures?’ ‘Is it ok to plant evidence to ensure you get a guilty verdict?’ Continue reading →

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