Just a great movie. This is a celebration of free-spirited individuality, a classic story of rising above one’s circumstances, just like most of the good old John Wayne and John Ford Westerns of the 50s and 40s. But it’s also got a Twenty-first Century sensibility, with Russell Crowe as Ben Wade, a personable cutthroat who actually wears a black hat and Christian Bale as Dan Evans, a gimpy farmer who clearly knows how to motivate even the most desperate of men. I don’t want to spoil it, but it’s got a great script. I particularly liked the two reveals from last reel as Evans convinces the outlaw Wade to do something crazy.
Kathi Appelt created a memoir entirely of short, evocative word poems. Her theme is the loneliness and longing she felt for her father as a teenager. All of her poems build on this main theme and only rarely do some of the poems feel a little forced. Some of the poems are quite good, but I like this memoir mostly because it’s so different. Not all memoir has to be a straight story, and I applaud her for trying something so difficult and managing to pull it off so well.
Present Tense 