Ray

I had watched this movie a few years ago and enjoyed it. Seeing it on AMC a week or so ago I watched it again. It is a very good movie, and to some extent might have been the fuse that lit the fire of the recent spate of biopics that have been released. It and Walk the Line, another very strong movie.

And just as Reese Witherspoon won the Oscar for Best Actress Jamie Foxx showed great range and won the Oscar himself for Best Actor. Foxx in this role was great. He sang, had the mannerisms, and look of Charles down very well.

Ray Charles was an incredibly gifted man. From the movie and from Charles own autobiography it seems clear that the most scarring event of his life was seeing his little brother drown in a bucket of water when he was seven years old. He soon thereafter became blind and it would not be inconsistent to think that the two events together scarred him in a way that he never fully recovered from.

In the movie we see Charles from his beginning up through his second heroin arrest in 1965. Charles had a long running affair with a singer in his band, fathered a child with her, and yet loved his own family a great deal. His wife Della Bee Robinson played wonderfully by Kerry Washington is shown as a woman devoted to family who deals with Ray's infidelities and frailties. Eventually however she cannot put up with the drug use, and the drug arrest. She gives Ray an ultimatum.

We see Charles going through detox, the hard way, not accepting any drugs to mitigate the withdrawal effects. It is brutal to see and for those who have never gone through anything like that hard to understand how brutal it is. Charles did come out the other side. As the credits roll we are advised that Charles went on to great further success and never touched heroin again.

One scene in the movie left me feeling like it was unresolved. Charles hires a new announcer who soon slithers his way into his confidence. The movie wants you to think he was a user, who manipulates Ray from his large office right next to Ray. Clearly putting himself at the arm of power. In the end we see Charles fire his longtime assistant Jeff who he is told has been stealing from him. My sense of the scene was that Jeff had been set up and that perhaps later we would see a reversal of these decisions. In the movie at least it is left unresolved.

Still the movie is very good, the music is wonderful and Foxx deserved every accolade he got for this performance.

Pleasantville

I watched this movie last week. I had seen moments of it here and there as I flipped through on occasion but on this day I watched the full film. It is a good story. It hit home for me a bit as my son has had a fascination with The Brady Bunch. The appeal of the The Brady Bunch for today's children is understood. Today's world is busy, parents are stressed, and the family iwth a Mom, a maid and a happy Dad is a good story.

Much the same exists for the boy in Pleasantville. A " nerd" obsessed with a Nick at Nite like show called Pleasantville he ends up sucked into the television along with his not so nerdy sister played by Reese Witherspoon. Don Knotts has a funny turn as the TV repairman who sets up this descent into the television for the brother and sister.

Once in Pleasantville they become the siblings on the sitcom. However their presence starts changing things. Tobey Mcguire or Bud as he is known in Pleasantville helps Jeff Daniels learn that things can be done differently at the malt shop and eventually accepts cookies made for the star athlete but given to him after he puts out a fire. The fireman in Pleasantville did not know what to do as all they do on the television show is get cats out of trees. Reese Witherspoon soon attracts the attentions of the boys in town but when she teaches them that there is more to boy girl relationships than holding hands things go wrong quickly.

The books in the library soon have words and those people who come into contact with new ideas soon start to see in color and actually have color. This leads near the end to racism as someone is referred to as being " colored."

I am not sure if the movie has a deeper message.It is a good story though. William Macy as the Dad who is befuddled when his wife is no longer there when he says " Honey I'm Home " nor have dinner ready is very believable.

For those that enjoy the perfect world of the older sitcoms this is one look at how those shows might be if today's modern world intrudes. For me however the question might be why would we want to spoil the pretty view of Pleasantville. I liked the movie but still like The Brady Bunch more.

Rating: 6