THE WORLD RUNS ON IDEAS. A SITUATIONAL AWARENESS MOVIE REVIEW OF BRAD PITT’S NEW MOVIE “AD ASTRA” FOR SENTIMENTAL PEOPLE WHO WANT WHAT IS IMPORTANT – by Gary Smolker, Movie Reviewer, Values Critic, Social Commentator, and Trial Attorney

The new Brad Pitt Movie AD ASTRA is an action packed science fiction movie – it takes place in a new near future.

It is a storyabout a FAST TRACT MAN, a  man on the fast track, a man who was “never there.”

His wife finally left him.

She complained he was never there.

• He didn’t have time to go on vacations.
• He wasn’t there when he was traveling.
• He wasn’t there when he was at home with her.

This deeply bothered him while he was on a mission in outer space to save the world.

He wanted his wife.

He wanted to be with his wife.

At the end of the movie, after he successfully completed his mission, he figured out what he was going to do going forward with his life.

He resolved:

• To live life.
• To love his wife, and those he was close to.
• To share his burdens with his wife and those he was close to and to share their burdens with them.

I thoroughly enjoyed watching this action packed movie with a message.

TAKEAWAY

Takeaway: The world runs on ideas.

This movie sends a good message.

I totally 100% agree with the message this movie sends.

Gary Smolker, Movie Reviewer, Values Critic, Social Commentator, and Trial Attorney

Copyright © 2019 by Gary Smolker, All Rights Reserved

 

POSITIVITY, a character, values, morality, and courage of parents movie review of the movie DADS for people who praise parenthood, want PEOPLE to do a better job of parenting, want to be better informed, and who want to be more well-rounded by Gary Smolker, Parent, Grandparent, Movie Reviewer, Values Critic, Social Commentator and Trial Attorney

GENETICALLY SPEAKING, EVERYONE HAS A FATHER.

DADS is a 87 minute documentary film in which Hollywood Celebrity dads Judd Apatow, Will Smith, Jimmy Fallon, Neil Patrick Harris, Kenan Thompson, Jimmy Kimmel, Ken Jeong, Conan O’Brien Patton Oswalt, Hasan Minhaj, Ron Howard, and additional fathers living in the United States, Brazil and Japan, as well as Bryce Dallas Howard, make the point:

• There is no rite of passage for dads – no baby showers
• New fathers are ill equipped – no instruction manual or classes for new fathers
• These fathers do their best.
• These men get great joy from their children.

THE CREATION AND PRODUCTION OF THIS MOVIE WAS FUNDED by organizations who promote parental leave for fathers.

REPORT FROM JAPAN

Some films make people feel their deepest emotions.

This is such a film.

A Japanese man who lives in Japan reported:

• A man who doesn’t work in Japan is considered a drop out.
• He was diagnosed having a disease which made it impossible for him to work.
• He wanted to commit suicide.
• When he told his wife of his sickness, his wife begged him, “Please continue to live for me.”
• He then became a full-time father.
• Being a full-time father transformed him.
• He became cheerful for the first time in his life.
• While being a full-time father constantly interacting with his child, he cried tears of joy for the first time in his life.
• After many yearly check-ups, his physician told him, “Your illness is gone.”

I want to be a well-informed parent.

I HAVE THREE DAUGHTERS AND A FRIEND WHO CRITICIZES ME FOR MY REFUSAL TO TAKE STATINS TO LOWER CHOLESTEROL

I recently read:

“Middle-aged women, in most countries, are encouraged to get regular mammograms.  But breast cancer is really rare. Just under 0.5 percent of women who get a mammogram actually have the disease.  Looking for breast cancer is therefore a haystack search.

“Epidemiologist Joann Elmore recently calculated just what this means. Imagine she said, that a group of radiologists gave a mammogram to 100,000 women. Statistically, there should be 480 cancers in that 100,000. How many will the radiologists fined? 398. Believe me, for a task as difficult as reading a mammogram, that ‘s pretty good. ”

“But in the course of making those correct diagnoses, the radiologists will also run up 8,957 false positives.”

“Now suppose you want to do a better job of spotting cancers.  Maybe getting 398 out of 480 cases isn’t good enough.  Elmore did a second calculation, this time using a group of radiologists with an extra level of elite training. These physicians were very alert, and very suspicious.  They correctly identified 422 of the 480 cases – much better! But how many false positives did that extra suspicion yield? 10,947. An extra 2,000 healthy women were flagged for a disease they didn’t have and potentially exposed to treatment they didn’t need.  The highly trained radiologists were better at finding tumors not because they were more accurate.  They were better because they were more suspicious.  They saw cancer everywhere”. 

“If you are a woman, which group of radiologists would you rather have read your mammogram? Are you more concerned about the tiny chance that you have a cancer that will be missed, or the much larger probability that you will be diagnosed with a cancer you don’t have? There’s no right or wrong answer to that question. Different people have different attitudes toward their own health, and to risk. Looking for something rare comes with a price.”

Quote from “Talking to Strangers” by Malcolm Gladwell, published by Little, Brown & Company in 2019.

WHAT THEY DID SAY

None of the dads said anything about what their children should be taught about what takes to survive independently, or what their children should be taught about anything.

They did say:

• FATHERHOOD is the realization you aren’t the most important person in the world.
• Being a father gives you a purpose in life, makes your life meaningful.
• Fathers need to provide their children with love, safety, security, and an example to follow.
• My children taught me to be authentic.
• There is nothing more amazing than seeing your kids evolve.
• A good gardener helps the seed be what the seed is ment to be. A father is a master-gardener. He doesn’t want a rose to be an oak. 
• Being a father is winning the lottery.
• You are only as happy as is your family.
• You won the lottery. Ask yourself: What kind of example to you project?

SIDE COMMENT CONCLUSION

Many lawyers, in big law firms, making lots of money, complain their children hate them.

When you are understood, it is sweet and precious.

Gary Smolker, Parent, Grandparent, Movie Reviewer, Values Critic, Social Commentator, and Trial Attorney.

Copyright © 2019 by Gary Smolker, All Rights Reserved

A HIP EXUBERANT HIGH ENERGY MOUTH WATERING SENSUAL DELICIOUS PSYCHOLOGICAL YOU ARE DUMB IF YOU DON’T GET IT MOVIE REVIEW OF “THE GOLDFINCH” FOR BRAINY PEOPLE by Gary Smolker, Movie Reviewer, Values Critic, Social Commentator and Trial Attorney

“THE GOLDFINCH” IS A MOVIE FOR BRAINY PEOPLE

Other reviewers who put down this movie didn’t get it.

Everyone has a point at which they break down.

One bad thing after another happens to the main character in the book THE GOLDFINCH and in the movie THE GOLDFINCH.

That is why the book THE GOLDFINCH is 800 pages long and the movie is 2-1/2 hours long.

I spent five days writing a movie review of THE GOLDFINCH.

It took that long to describe in detail physically, mentally, emotionally, and psychologically what is happening and what happened in the movie.

The many stories told in the subplots in the movie are about the importance and difficultly of making sense of people we don’t know as bad things are happening.

This movie is about the importance and value of friendship.

The takeaway from this movie is the importance of friendship.

The friendship of the Russian Drug Lord Kingpin (played masterfully by actor Aneurin Barnard) saves the life of the main character in the movie.

The movie makes it clear that it is too late to get a friend when you need one.

Get friends before you need one.

THE GOLDFINCH is a cinematic masterpiece.

Hip people will love this movie.

Smart people will love this movie.

Psychologically oriented people will love this movie.

Literate people will love this movie.

Fashion oriented people will love this movie.

People who love movies will love this movie.

This movie will become a cult classic with broad appeal.

The acting in this movie is superb.

The cinematography in this film is fantastic.

The screenplay is fabulous.

Different strokes turn on those who are awake then those who aren’t.

I loved this film.

In my review (below) I explain you are dumb if you don’t see THE GOLDFINCH

BACKGROUND

I saw THE GOLDFINCH on Monday night, September 16, 2019.

Many reviewers think this movie is going to bomb.

One reviewer thinks this movie likely to become one of cinema history’s biggest flops after making only $2.6 million at the US box office on its opening weekend.

Another reviewer, the Wall Street Journal reviewer, thinks it’s the worse movie ever made, at least the part he didn’t sleep through.

WHAT IS THE GOLDFINCH MOVIE ABOUT?

While I was watching THE GOLDFINCH I didn’t know what it was about.

At the end of the movie, the person I saw the movie with said, “The characters were better than the story!”

I agreed because I still didn’t know what the story was about or even if there was a story.

After thinking about the movie intently on Monday, Tuesday, Wednesday, Thursday, Friday, and Saturday and discussing the movie for about two hours with a very intelligent couple, I concluded the movie does tell a story as it is sending a strong important message.

The important message THE GOLDFINCH sends is knowledge gives you an edge, lack of intellectual flexibility and doubt will get you into trouble because love and expectations of appropriate behavior trump everything.

Accurately and quickly communicating emotions to one another is of critical importance to the human species.

You never know what is going to decide your future.

THE OPENING SCENE

In the opening scene the main character (a young well dressed man) is in a hotel room in Amsterdam about to commit suicide.

The next scenes are flash backs to a series of events that happened in his life – some just happened and some he caused.

These events lead to him being in that hotel room in the opening scene -ready to give up on life by committing suicide.

NEXT FEW SCENES

In the next scene the young man who was about to commit suicide in the first scene is a small young boy richly and stylishly attired holding his mother’s hand in the Metropolitan Museum of Art in Manhattan.

We can tell from the clothes he is wearing and from the clothes she is wearing that they are wealthy members of high society.

Such attire is expected in many places and situations in Manhattan and you will not be seated in some formal restaurants if you don’t comply.

After a brief dialog with her son, she leaves her son – near a gift shop – to look at a painting in a nearby gallery.

Immediately, or soon after she leaves her son, there is a loud explosion, a bomb explodes.

The screen is filled with bellowing smoke, dense clouds of smoke make the contents of room in which we are looking invisible.

Eventually the boy becomes visible in a thick smoke filled room.  The boy is surrounded by dead bodies.

The young boy begins to search in another smoke filled room for his mother.

He sees an old distinguished looking well dressed man sitting up.

He goes towards the old distinguished looking well dressed man.

The old man points to a painting on the floor in the rubble; he tells the boy to pick up the painting and keep it.

The boy picks the painting up and puts it in a bag.

The man takes a ring off one of his figures and gives his ring to the boy.

He tells the boy to bring the ring to an antique furniture dealer in Manhattan.

He tells the boy to ring a buzzer located in an alley behind the antique store to meet the man to whom he is to show the ring.

The boy is instructed the back door will be opened after the boy pushes a buzzer on a wall in the alley next to the door.

From the clothing the old man is wearing, the ring he gave the young boy, and from the both of them being in the Metropolitan Art Museum we know the old man is a very wealthy, knowledgeable, debonair art aficionado and the young well dressed boy is a member of a wealthy high society family.

The director has played to our expectations of what rich high society people look like.

We believe we know “what” and “who” the young well dressed boy and the old distinguished looking well dressed man are because of what they are wearing.

THE STORY PROGRESSES

We learn that from a newspaper article that is shown on the screen that the masterpiece (THE GOLDFINCH) was destroyed in the explosion at the Metropolitan Museum and that the boy whose mother was killed by the bomb exploding in the Metropolitan Museum has been taken in by a high society family.

We see well and expensively-dressed Nicole Kidman talking to the young boy in her home.

We know from that scene that Nicole Kidman is the mother in the high society household who has given refuse to the young boy.

We see that the furniture, furnishings, wall paper, and carpets in that home are elegant.

The collection of furniture and furnishings meets our expectations of what a wealthy high society home will look like.

However, in real life, home-life is not wonderful in that home.

The man of the house, Nicole Kidman’s husband, is a sociopath.

ADOPTIVE FAMILY’S SOCIAL PATHOLOGY

In the next scenes, we are shown the young boy’s adaptive family eating dinner at a formal dinner table.

At the family dinner table the father creates arguments and disputes.

The father is aggressively dominating and verbally abusive.

We see: There was no pleasant conversation at the dinner table.

The dinner table was not a place where soft music was playing, pleasant conversations were taking place, or a place that had the emotionally soothing and pleasantly intoxicating glow of friendship in action.

The family dinner is chaotic experience, not a cozy restful interlude after a full day, not a place where one can find order, predictability and/or orderly pleasant rituals bring practiced.

THE STORY CONTINUES

In a series of succeeding scenes the young boy’s father appears.

He has an imperious manner.

He is wiry and energetic.

He is compelling, a likeable talker.

We have previously been told, the young boy’s father had walked out on his wife (the young boy’s mother) and had abandoned the young boy when the young boy was quite young.

The young boy’s father suddenly walks into Nicole Kidman’s house accompanied with a dazzlingly sexy girlfriend, announces that he is the boy’s father and that he has come to take the boy with him to his home in Las Vegas.

The father tells Nicole Kidman that he is a successful musician who lives and performs in Las Vegas.

I could tell from the clothes the father was wearing and the loudness of his voice that he was not a successful musician.

He is a breezy person who glad-hands people.

His clothes and demeanor are out of nowhere, so out of place, that the suspicious amongst us (myself for example) suspect the young boy’s father is up to no good.

However, in real life we tend to judge a person’s honesty based on their demeanor.  Well-spoken, confident people with a firm handshake who are friendly and engaging are seen as believable.

Some people believe over evolutionary time the face developed into a billboard for the heart. They believe a person’s demeanor is a window into their soul.

That is – to put it mildly – nonsense.

A liar can act like an honest person.

We later find out that the young boy’s father is an emotionally disturbed person.

Looking backward, as we learn more about the father we realize the clothes the young boy’s father wears as the movie progressed – from the moment he appears in the movie throughout the entire time he is on the screen – in hindsight match exactly how we think an emotionally disturbed person would dress.

The clothes the father wears as the movie progresses coherently carries the story forward.

THE NEXT SCENES ARE SET UP TO PROVIDE US WITH EVIDENCE THAT THE YOUNG BOY’S FATHER IS A DESPICABLE EMOTIONALLY DISTURBED PERSON

After the young boy’s father appears in the movie, viewers struggle to assess the father’s honesty, his intent, his character.

Viewers ask themselves:

• Why did the young boy’s father show up out of nowhere?
• Why has the young boy’s father come out of nowhere to take his young son from a rich stable life in Manhattan to live with him in Las Vegas?

When viewers see where the father lives and how he lives in “his house” in Las Vega – viewers learn one alarming fact after another about the young boy’s father.

Viewers learn the father is a gambling addict who is perennially in debt.

The home the father lives in is located in a large failed housing tract development on the outskirts of Las Vegas —  almost all the the other houses in the failed housing tract are empty. They are boarded up. They have for sale signs posted on them.

They have been foreclosed on; they are boarded up; they are for sale.

Viewers wonder:

• Is the father a squatter?
• Does the father own the house he is living in?
• Does the father, the father’s girlfriend, and the young boy have the right to be living in the house the father is living in?

After the young boy, and his father, and his father’s glitzy sexy girlfriend arrive at the father’s home, the father tells his young son he has made a lot of money and that he wants to put $10,000 in a bank account to be there for his son to use when his son graduates from high school and goes to college.

The young son believes his father.

Next the young boy’s father tells his young son that he [the father] needs his son’s social security number in order to open a savings account for his son

The young son believes his father.

The young boy’s father asks his young son to tell him his social security number.

The young boy gives his father his social security number.

As the story/film progresses, the young boy continues to believe his father, that his father had good intentions, until he couldn’t anymore.

When the young boy gave his father his social security number he didn’t suspect anything was amiss.

He had no doubt that everything was okay.

In real life accumulating evidence to overwhelm our doubts takes time.

A PROFOUND FRIENDSHIP TRANSFORMS THE YOUNG BOY’S LIFE

While living in an almost deserted housing tract on the outskirts of Las Vegas, the young boy strikes up a friendship with another young boy.

The other young boy is a Russian, actually a Ukrainian.

One day the young boy asks his Russian friend where he is from.

Russian gives the names of many countries, and explains that his father is a mining engineer and that they travel from country to country where his father works in mines.

The Russian also tells the young boy that his father killed a man in a mine recently, and that is why they left that country.

As the young boy is leaving his friend’s house one evening, he looks back and sees the Russian father has come home and is vigorously beating his son with a stick.

If you know that many of the horribly violent men in history who were psychopathic murders (such as Adolph Hitler) had abusive fathers you have a foretaste of what is going to happen as the story progresses.

BACK TO THE MOVIE: These two boys appear to be the only two kids living in that huge housing tract.

They go to school together.

ASIDE: It was not clear to me whether they were going to middle school or to high school together.

The story/movie progresses.

One day, the Russian boy visits the young boy’s house.

In the young boy’s house the Russian sees the young boy’s father’s girl-friend very sexually sunning herself in a bikini in the backyard next to a backyard swimming poo.

The Russian boy opens a cabinet in the kitchen. In the cabinet, he finds a clear see through package full of pills with the marking V marked on the package.

The young boy tells his Russian friend that the pills are his father’s girlfriend’s vitamins.

The Russian replies: “No they are Vicodin, a powerful narcotic.”

From that point forward, the Russian friend supplies the young boy with drugs when they hang out together.

There follows many scenes.  In those scenes the two of them (the Russian friend and the young boy) are taking drugs together and getting high together.

One afternoon the boy’s father comes home.

He confronts his son in the kitchen of their home,

1. “I need $65,000 to purchase a restaurant.”
2. “Call your mother’s attorney. Tell him you want to go to a private school. You need $65,000 to pay tuition.”
3. Then he slaps his son in the face.  Then he says, “Do it, now!”

The boy calls a law firm and asks to be talk to his deceased mother’s attorney.

The boy is put through to the attorney.  When his mother’s attorney comes on the line, he tells his mother’s attorney he needs $65,000 to pay  tuition to go to a private school.”

The attorney replies,

1. “Glad you called.  I didn’t know how to get in touch with you.”
2. “I am not allowed – by the terms of your mother’s trust fund set up for you – to send you money for school tuition directly.”
3. “Give me contact information for the school, and I will send the money directly to the school.”
4. “By the way, someone tried to use your social security number to get unauthorized access to your trust funds.”
5. “Do you know anything about that.”

The boy hangs up the phone without answering.

The father is enraged, silent for a stunned moment.

The story told in the film continues.

An ominous looking man knocks on the door of the home while the father is gone.

The young boy opens the door.  The stranger asks if the boy’s father is home. The boy says, “No.”

The stranger gives the boy his name, then asks the boy to pass along to his father the message that the stranger came to visit him.

During a later scene in the movie, the young boy’s father’s girl friend and a bunch of her friends are shown in the living room crying.

The young boy asks, “What is going on?”

The girl-friend answers, “Your father drove into the desert.”

The young boy responds, “So?”

The girl-friend responds, “Your father will not be returning. He is dead.”

At that point in the movie, the young boy decides he must leave, he must go back to Manhattan to seek refuge with the antique’s dealer’s partner who he met shortly after the bomb explosion that killed his mother and killed the distinguished gentleman – the distinguished gentleman who gave him a ring and told him to take a picture laying in the rubble to an antique furniture shop.

The young boy packs his things, including the bag that he thinks contains the picture he picked up in the rubble after the explosion in the Metropolitan Museum.

The young boy has not touched the picture since he wrapped it in newspaper and packed it in his bag so long ago while looking for his dead mother in the rubble at the Metropolitan Museum of Art.

The young boy tells his Russian friend they must go to Manhattan, they must escape right away.

In the next scene, the young boy is standing next to a taxi cab with his Russian friend, he tells his friend, “Come with me. We must go now.”

His friend replies, “I can’t go right now.  I’ll come join you tomorrow or the next day.”

In the next scenes we see the young boy in the cab, then in a bus, then on a train or a subway, traveling alone to Manhattan.

THE YOUNG BOY HAS BEEN TAUGHT CRITICAL SURVIVAL SKILLS

Earlier in the movie we were shown a series of scenes in which the young boy goes to the antique shop, meets the distinguished man’s partner and meets the young girl that was with the distinguished man in the gallery when the bomb explosion killed his mother.

The young boy is “taken in” by the distinguished gentleman’s partner when he shows up at the antique furniture store and shows the only man there the ring the distinguished gentleman had given him.

While the young boy is living with the high society family the distinguished gentleman’s partner becomes a “father figure” to the young boy.

The young boy visits the gentleman’s partner and the injured girl while he is living with the high society family and when he returns to Manhattan.

The distinguished gentleman’s partner teaches the young boy critical skills for survival as he is becoming a “father figure.”

The young boy’s “father figure” teaches the young boy skills that will enable the young boy to be self-sustaining, self-sufficient.

He teaches the young boy about antique furniture, how to restore antique furniture, how to make antique furniture reproductions. how to tell the difference between an antique piece of furniture a restored piece of antique furniture and a reproduction of a piece of antique furniture, and how to talk about antique furniture.

A CHANCE ENCOUNTER

The young boy lives with the nice man (father figure) in the Antique Furniture Store when returns to Manhattan.

The antique furniture shop succeeds wildly as a result of the young boy taking on the role of salesman.

One day, by chance, he meets the Nicole Kidman’s eldest son on the street.

The eldest son tells the young boy (who is now a young man) that his brother and his father are dead.

He is sure his mother and his sister would love to see him.

He goes with the eldest son to their home – where with great surprise and warmth he is greeted by Nicole Kidman and her now beautiful daughter.

A warm relationship ensues, so warm that the daughter and the now young man decide to marry.

ANOTHER CHANCE ENCOUNTER

One night while the young man is out, he sees the woman he is about to marry with another man.

He steps into a flower shop so that the woman will not see him.

From the flower shop he sees her lovingly kissing another man.

ANOTHER ENCOUNTER

A creepy customer comes into the antique furniture shop.

He tells the young man (the former young boy) that he bought an antique that really wasn’t an antique. It was a reproduction of an antique.

The young man tells the creepy customer there must have been a mistake, the antique furniture store will buy back that piece of furniture, give the man his money back.

The creepy customer tells the young man, “That is not what I want.”

The young man replies, “Of course, we will pay you a $10,000 premium.”

The creepy customer replies:

1. “I know who you are.”
2. “You are the boy whose mother died in the bomb explosion in the Metropolitan Museum of Art.”
3. “I know you have the painting that went missing after the explosion, “THE GOLDFINCH.” “I want you to sell it to me.”  “I will pay you $500,000 for it.” “If you don’t sell it to me I will report you to the FBI.”

The young man replies: “You are crazy.” “I don’t have THE GOLDFINCH.” “Report me to the FBI.”

After the young man and the creepy customer part company, the young man calls is drug dealer.

He tells his drug dealer he needs to purchase some drugs.

The drug dealer tells him to go to a bar, meet and talk to so and so in the bar.

ANOTHER CHANCE ENCOUNTER

By chance the young man then runs into his boyhood friend, the Russian boy who supplied him with dope while he was living with his father in Nevada on the outskirts of Las Vegas.

The Russian boy is now a young man, a very successful young man.

The Russian tells his boyhood friend, that he has been searching for him.

He tells him that he owes is success as a drug dealer to him.

That night when he didn’t go into the taxi cab he had something important to say, but didn’t say it.

He wanted to tell his friend that he had taken his painting; he wanted to tell him he saw the painting in the bag, decided it was valuable and took it.

He now wants to make amends.

The young man tells the successful Russian Drug Dealer Kingpin that he wants to return the painting to the Metropolitan Museum of Art.

The Russian Drug Dealer Kingpin tells him he no longer has the painting, but he will help the young man get it back.

THIS IS WHERE, WHILE WATCHING THE MOVIE,  I BEGAN TO SIT ON THE EDGE OF MY SEAT

What happened next in the movie was not only suspenseful and dramatic it was simultaneously unbelievable and believable.

I recommend that you see the movie to find out what happens next.

LOVE STORIES

THE GOLDFINCH is a movie of interrelated tender sub-plots.

Each sub-plot [standing-alone] is a hip highly biased – full of editorial content – portrayal of the human condition.

Each story portrayed in each sub-plot presents a myth destroying message.

The idea that people’s behavior and demeanor – the way they present themselves on the outside – always presents an authentic and reliable window into the way they feel on the inside is debunked.

Dishonesty and stupidity are everywhere.

EXTRAORDINARY

The acting and costuming in THE GOLDFINCH are extraordinary.

The cinematography is spectacular.

VALUE LADEN SHORT STORIES

There are many value laden short stories – subplots – in this movie.

My favorite character is the Russian boy (masterly played by Aneurin Barnard) who becomes the young boy’s life long loyal friend.

RISKING LIFE AND LIMB

This Russian boy risks his life and limb doing a “favor” for his best friend.

What the Russian boy does for his friend – the main character – and how he does it in this film is suspenseful and complicated.

What the Russian boy does for his friend is shown at the end of the film in a series of action scenes that kept me on the edge of my seat.

HEAD AND HEART

My favorite sub-plot in this movie takes place when the main character leaves his finance at a party they are at, ostensibly celebrating their upcoming marriage.

He tells her he is going away for a few days.

She knows he will never be coming back.

He walks out on her because while he was on a walk alone a few nights before the party he saw her kiss another man.

He knew then that she loved the other man.

When he confronts her, she admits she loves the other man but tries to convince him to marry her anyway.

She tells him that he and she are a good social match;  that he marrying her will make her mother (Nicole Kidman) happy and will make her happy also.

HE WANTED IT ALL, HER HEAD AND HER HEART

He refused to settle for a good social match.

He wanted his wife to love him with a full heart.

It wasn’t enough for him that they got along, that she was smart and pretty, or that she was a member of a big shot distinguished social family and that he likes her mother.

SUPERB ART

This movie is as polished as a movie can be.

CONCLUSION

THE GOLDFINCH is a 2-1/2 hour film about making sense of people.

The truth about someone is not a hard and shiny object that can be extracted if only we look deep enough and hard enough.

Success in making sense of people is no accident.

MUTUALITY (like the mutuality the Russian boy and the main character have in the movie) is necessary for building an integrated identity and maintaining strong emotional ties.

Obtaining friendship takes time.

It takes perseverance.

You can only know one aspect of a person at a time with certainty.

Observation of people affects the properties of the person being observed.

A person can be instantly affected or known by some thought or event taking place near or infinity far away.

Be that as it may, making friends and being friends with other people are two of the most important things you can do.

 

Gary Smolker, Movie Reviewer, Values Critic, Social Commentator, and Trial Attorney

 

Copyright © 2019 by Gary Smolker, All Rights Reserved

DARE MIGHTY THINGS – a movie review of JUST MERCY by Gary Smolker, Movie Reviewer, Values Critic and Trial Attorney

WHAT IT TAKES TO CHANGE THE WORLD

Some people believe all it takes to change the world is to have a good idea, to have a good plan, to have a skill, to be smart, and to work hard.

Those people are wrong.

It takes all of the above plus conviction and hope.

The film JUST MERCY teaches us that lesson.

“JUST MERCY”

JUST MERCY is a film based on a true story.

JUST MERCY is about an unjust legal system.

The film tells the story of a black man wrongfully convicted of murdering a white woman in Monroe County, Alabama.

An all white jury, the prosecutor, the chief of police, the entire white police force, white townspeople, and a trial judge did not care about truth or justice when that black man was on trial for murder.

A corrupt white judge did not care about truth or justice or that an innocent man had been wrongfully convicted of murder and was on death row waiting for his execution date to be set when he ruled on a motion to reopen the case, when he denied a motion to give the wrongfully convicted black man a new trial.

THE OPENING SCENE

In the opening scene we see, Bryan Stevenson’s mother telling Bryan:

“If you don’t recognize the danger in what you are doing, you wasted your time going to Harvard Law School and you should ask for your money back.”

“Out there in Alabama they are going to chew you up and spit you out.”

Bryan replies:

“It isn’t my job to make people happy.  It is my job to see that justice is done.”

“I know what it is like to live in the shadows.”

“I want to fight for people who need help the most.”

“That is why I am doing this.”

NEXT SCENE

Attorney Stevenson arrives in Monroe County Alabama at an office building where he is greeted by his assistant Eva Ansley and the landlord who are having a heated discussion.

The Landlord tells Bryan:

“I am sorry I can’t rent this space to you.”

“I didn’t know you were going to set up a law firm/legal clinic to represent convicted murders on death row.”

“I can’t have that kind of law firm in my building.”

MORE TENSION

Attorney Stevenson walks into the W.C. Holman Correctional Facility to have a meeting with Walter McMillian, his first prospective client.

The guard at the door entering into the hallway to the meeting room tells Attorney Stevenson:

“You can’t go in until I complete a complete body search.”

Stevenson replies:

“You can’t do that; I am his lawyer.”

NEXT SCENE

Attorney Stevenson is taking off all his clothes in front of the guard.

After he has removed all his clothes, the guard tells him:

“I have to do a complete body search.”

“Spread them.”

THE CASE AGAINST MCMILLIAN

There was no direct evidence that McMillian killed the white woman.

The prosecution was based on the testimony of one witness.

That witness testified that shorty after the murder of the white woman, he saw McMillian and the dead white woman in the Dry Cleaning establishment where the white woman had just been murdered.

INVESTIGATION

Attorney Stevenson tirelessly conducted a through investigation.

A LIGHT MOMENT

While Stevenson was looking at records of the case in police department record archives, a black clerk asked Stevenson black secretary:

“Is he married?”

His secretary replied:

“No.

“But, he is married to his work.”

FRUITS OF DILIGENCE

While looking through police records, Attorney Stevenson finds a taped interview.

In the interview the Chief of Police asked the key witness to testify that he saw McMillian at the scene of the murder.

The Key Witness replies: “I would never say that! I did not see him there!”

THE KEY WITNESS

With much difficulty and after exerting much charm, Attorney Stevenson asks the key witness:

“Why did you change your mind?”

“Why did you tell the police chief that you would not testify that you saw McMillian at the dry cleaners and then testify at the trial that you saw McMillian there?

Leading up to those key questions, Stevenson asked the key witness:

“Do you have any children?

The key witness replied:

“Yes I do.”

“I have three children.”

“I thought having a child would be like having a dog.”

“I was wrong.”

“I wish someone would have told me having a child is not like having a dog.”

Attorney Stevenson then told the key witness that:

“ McMillian has children and a wife.”

“He loves his children and his wife and his wife and his children love him.”

THE KEY WITNESS’S STORY

The key witness was an orphan.

He had been raised by abusive foster care parents.

On time he was in bed and his pajamas caught on fire.

His skin burned.

He has never forgot the smell of his burning flesh.

Every since then he has been deadly afraid of fire.

He was in jail for robbery at the time the police chief asked him to lie about seeing McMillian at the scene of the crime.

After he refused to lie, the Police Chief had him transferred to a cell on death row.

Shortly after he got to his cell one of the inmates was electrocuted – the smell of burning flesh attacked him in his cell.

The Police Chief then talked to him again.

He then agreed to give false testimony at the upcoming murder trial.

MOTION FOR NEW TRIAL

Attorney Stevenson prepared and submitted a motion for new trial.

The key witness testified at the hearing on the motion.

During his testimony he recanted his prior testimony.  He testified that he had lied.

He testified that he had not scene McMillian at the scene of the crime.

Another witness testified that the key witness could not have seen McMillian at the scene of the crime because he was working with him in a garage fixing a transmission.

The judge denied the motion for new trial.

SEE THE MOVIE

Ask yourself: Why did the police arrest McMillian in the first place?

You should see the movie if you want to know why and/or to find out what happened next.

 

 

Gary Smolker, Movie Reviewer, Values Critic, and Trial Lawyer

Copyright © 2019 by Gary Smolker, All Rights Reserved