Gifted Hands

This movie was terrific. It portrays the life of Ben Carson, a disadvantaged young black man, growing up in the 60s and 70s to become a highly acclaimed brain surgeon as an adult. The movie focuses primarily on Ben's growing up years, but also pays tribute to Ben, the adult, in his professional years as a surgeon. According to the movie, Ben moved from a failing student to a thriving, flourishing A-student, who ended up third in his high school graduating class and attended Yale.

There's a horrific moment in the movie, where, moments after Ben has won an academic award at an assembly in the school, one of his teachers gets up and rants racially about how the white students should have been able to do better than he could, given his race and circumstances. What's even worse is the principal moves on right from the rant to the next award, without bothering to correct the teacher.

Ben ultimately becomes a highly acclaimed brain surgeon and the movie is bracketed with a plot about a craniography he needs to perform. He needs to figure out what he can do to keep the brains from bleeding out when he performs surgery to separate conjoined twins who are joined at the head. He's quite intent on being able to have a possibly favorable outcome for both twins before performing the surgery. Eventually, after lengthy scenes taking up a tremendous amount of time, Dr. Carson is able to separate the twins, and they both survive.

Dr. Carson also pioneers a surgery where he removes an entire half of the brain (a hemispherectomy) of a young girl suffering from seizures. Apparently this surgery has become a regular treatment for the condition displayed in the movie.

This was a wonderful, feel-good movie, showing what difference pure determination can make in some situations.

Zorba the Greek

Really...save your two and a half hours and do something else. Really. The movie is about, wait for it....Zorba, the Greek, who works for another man in the mines. And then he goes off to buy stuff for the guy. And then he falls in love with someone out there, shunning the woman he had been showing his affections to before then......and then he comes back and gets pseudo-married to the woman, and then she dies. Oh yeah, and the other guy gets involved with this other lady, and then she dies, while he looks on, doing nothing. Yeah, real winner, there. And then at the end....Zorba teaches the man how to dance. THE end. Yeeha. Borrring.

De-Lovely

I just finished a movie about Cole Porter's life. First of all, yay, Ashley Judd! I like her as an actress (She was also good in [heart to heart??], as the mother of several young children in the movie where Natalie Portman's character lives in the WalMart for a while).

Moving on to the main gist of the story, the overarching theme of the movie seems to be Cole Porter getting his moment of reviewing his life, before he dies. It shows his rise in fame into the Hollywood scene.

I don't think I'd ever heard anything...."unseemly" about Cole Porter's life, but apparently he and his wife, Linda, had a fairly "open" marriage, at least on Cole's part. It seemed that Linda was willing to give up almost everything, and look the other way at some of his unfaithful behavior, in order to keep Cole himself, with her. This just seems so sad in some ways, since she seems to be getting the "dregs," once he's found all of his recreational activities and gotten bored. He is portrayed as truly loving her in the movie, though, but if a man truly loves a woman, will he continue to do things that hurt her, just because she's willing to give up any claims on his faithfulness, in order to have his presence? In fairness, it does seem that Linda grows increasingly dissatisfied with this situation, while perhaps she was in fact fully on board, initially.

Cole Porter was also apparently in a fairly serious horseback riding accident. As portrayed in the movie, the horse reared up and then Cole and the horse both fell, with the horse rolling over and harming Cole's legs (one of which was eventually amputated).

I guess it shouldn't come as much of a surprise that an entertainer's life was so wild....it's to the point nowadays when the mild life of a Hollywood entertainer is the exception. Some of it does seem a bit shocking though, not having come across the information before. The whole thing seemed rather sad. Cole seemed rather ...empty...with all of his various affairs and one night stands, but he does "faithfully" (or as faithfully as he seems to be able) nurse Linda when her health deteriorates and she ultimately dies.

I actually did not fully understand the very end of the movie. Cole has friends and his companion (chosen before her death by his wife Linda) over to his house...and then basically chases them off. I'm not quite sure if it's that he's supposed to know that he's about to die and wants to be alone, or what. They both apparently loved Paris, and at the very end it segues back to a scene, that I think is supposed to be earlier in his life, when they were in Paris. I think it's maybe supposed to be a reminder of happier times, when Cole and Linda were newly together and fully in love.

Intro to Scribbled Reviews

About a minute after I watch a movie or read a book, I sometimes don't remember much at all about them, besides the general gist. I decided it might be a good idea to keep some reviews of the books and movies at hand. This way, it can help me remember things about the books and movies that I might otherwise have forgotten, and assist in reminding me when I don't actually need to check out a movie for the third time, because I have, indeed, already seen it twice, even though I don't remember watching it.

I am going to see how well I can address this on two levels...both for adults viewing the movies, and for recommendations for children watching (at least some) of them as well.