From My Collection: A Beautiful Mind Movie Review

The Academy has a great history of awarding the Best Picture Oscar to a generally lifeless, inoffensive work of mediocrity. I can hardly say that A Beautiful Mind is not a good movie (I regrettably put it on my top ten list for 2001), but it certainly isn’t great. It’s not even particularly memorable except in its simplistic depiction of mental illness.

I can’t say with any certainty to what degree John Nash suffered with schizophrenia or how it manifested itself, but I do know that the way Akiva Goldsman incorporates it into his screenplay, based on the biography by Sylvia Nasar, seems almost preposterous, designed specifically to aid the unsubtle viewer in understanding what Nash was going through. I guess I shouldn’t fault the movie for trying to reach a broader audience, but nor should we assume that it has anything new or interesting to say on the subject.

Noah Movie Review

I guess the hokeyness of the Biblical epic film was just waiting for a rebirth. We could count Mel Gibson’s The Passion of the Christ as the start of a new wave, but it’s more torture porn than uplifting. When Darren Aronofsky decides to tackle a Bible story, even when granted a mega-millions budget by a major studio, you have to expect something a little beyond the ordinary, if not quite extraordinary.

25 Years Ago This Month: June 1986

Four of the year's top ten films opened in June.

Let's start with Ferris Bueller's Day Off, an absolute favorite of mine (along with all things John Hughes) when I was growing up. It doesn't matter what Matthew Broderick does with his career, he will always be Ferris Bueller singing "Twist and Shout" on a Chicago parade float. When Alan Ruck turned up in Speed in 1994 and then on the comedy series "Spin City" I could only see Cameron Frye. I don't care how much soft porn Mia Sara does, she will forever be embedded in my psyche as Sloane Petersen. And no matter how many teenage boys Jeffrey Jones coerces into posing nude for photos, he will remain, always and forever, Principal Edward Rooney.