As a change of pace and to break away from too much political thinking, last night we saw a great movie called "Come Early Morning" with Ashley Judd. I think it won something from the Sundance Festival and my local newspapers, the NYTimes gave it a great review by a pretty arrogant reviewer and 4.43 out of 5 stars from open reviews and Newsday gave it 3.5 stars (out of 4).
http://movies2.nytimes.com/...
http://www.newsday.com/...
So, we tried to get away from politics but this movie is a wonderful metaphor of what goes on between the Republicans and Democrats and it even provides the obvious answer. Perhaps many of us understand it better after what WE did for the last election. Go see the movie, you'll love it. The music is pretty good too.
excerpts from the reviews over the fence
From the Newsday John Anderson review:
There are those who still consider Judd's debut in Victor Nunez's "Ruby in Paradise" (1993) to have been her best performance, and perhaps her last good one; few actresses have so transparently grasped for the gold ring of Hollywood mediocrity. But as Lucille (or Luce, which is apt), Judd makes a fine mix of wounded toughness and subsumed vulnerability - she treats men, essentially, the way she expects them to treat her, and not without reason. And as a pre-emptive one-night stand, she makes "Come Early Morning" a bookend to Judd's indie career: Luce is Ruby, if you don't believe Ruby had the nerve to ever move out of town.
According to William Faulkner, art in the South "must become a ceremony, a spectacle; something between a gypsy encampment and a church bazaar ..." But Adams and Co. have proven it can be subtle, gentle and no more pointed than a bird dog's tail.
From the NY Times by Stephen Holden who is a little arrogant but a good reviewer.
In "Come Early Morning," Ashley Judd returns to the Southern working-class milieu of her first screen triumph, "Ruby in Paradise," to deliver her most natural screen performance since that film pushed her toward stardom in 1993. The career lesson it offers to an actor might be summed up in five words: Stick to what you know. In the case of Ms. Judd, who is no Meryl Streep, you can take the girl out of the trailer park, but you can't take the trailer park out of the girl, so to speak.
The principal question hovering through this teensy but pungent slice of life is whether Lucy's self-destructive mechanism will kick in. And if it does, how soon will the patience of her potential knight in shining armor wear thin? The mixture of Southern machismo and tenderness in Mr. Donovan's performance makes his working-class charmer almost too good to be true, or least too good for Lucy, whom Ms. Judd plays with a vindictive edge that risks making her unsympathetic. And that takes courage.