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Tag: Matthew McConaughey

“Dallas Buyers Club”– Not for Cowboys (or, A Lone Star in the Fight against AIDS)

Dallas Buyers Club   Jared Leto as Rayon The true-life story of Texas AIDS pioneer, Ron Woodroof,  set in 1985 Dallas, depicts his battle to fight for his life after being diagnosed as HIV-positive. His search for life-supporting  experimental drugs via Mexico to help fellow HIV-positive people is the heart of “Dallas Buyers Club“. Part-time rodeo bull rider Ron Woodroof (the skeletal Matthew McConaughey in an Academy Award-nominated performance) is rudderless–smoking heavily, snorting cocaine, having a lot of sex with prostitutes. He is also grossly unsympathetic for...

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“Mud”– Channeling “Beasts of the Southern Wild”

With its meandering pace, Mud embodies a Southern culture known for doing things slowly, drifting along the bayou languorously like “Beasts of the Southern Wild.” John Nichols, the director and an Arkansas native, grounds his film in authenticity through superb casting (including local teenagers), location, and a script centered on a believable coming-of-age story. From gravel to mud to the swampy river, this feature film reminded me not only of “Beasts of the Southern Wild” but also of the Mark Twain novels, Tom Sawyer and Huckleberry Finn.  And that is probably why...

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“Bernie”– A Texas Tale

This indie film defies easy categorization because it is sometimes comedic, often sad particularly with regard to the old and lonely, and always quirky. Based loosely on a true story, which took place in a Texas hamlet called Carthage, the small-community culture is faithfully and mercilessly presented. The writer-director, Richard Linklater (of “Dazed and Confused” fame) zeroes in on ordinary lives in Carthage, particularly of the old.  Filmed in  a quasi-documentary style of “interviews” with actors and local Texans, about the almost-too-good-to-be-true Bernie Tiede, ...

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“Lincoln Lawyer”–More Than an Ambulance Chase

We saw the movie “Lincoln Lawyer” a couple of days ago, and it was a highly engaging–not brilliant–courtroom thriller of a movie in the “Grisham” style. Think the best of the courtroom dramas of the recent past: “Fracture” meets “Presumed Innocent”, for example. This film noir, based on a book written by Michael Connelly, is pure entertainment–with a few twists to keep it original and not the same old courtroom drama we’ve seen done well and also done poorly. Michael “Mick” Haller (Matthew McConaughey in...

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