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Reviews
Portrait of Billy Joe (2004)
inspiration, uplifting, gives hope for humanity
If you like Robert Duvall and especially the character he played in Tender Mercies, you'll love this movie. Duvall produced Portrait, and his very talented wife directed (forgive me for forgetting her name blame it on my getting older). Duvall did Tender Mercies years ago, before Billy Joe Shaver went through so much personal loss, and if I didn't know the timing, I would have thought the Duvall plot and character were based on Shaver. I got to see BJ Shaver and his band perform and meet him, and he is the "real deal," as Duvall says. Shaver makes all those pretty boys coming off the assembly line in Nashville look like amateurs and poseurs - the ones Alan Jackson sings about in "Gone Country." He isn't bitter or envious as far as I can tell, and he shouldn't be, since he is in a class with Willie Nelson, and in fact, Willie says Shaver is one of his favorite poets and writers. The pretty boys are the ones who are probably envious.
The Thin Red Line (1998)
Vishnu goes to War
This is a powerful movie, beautifully filmed and acted. It's easy to see why Mel Gibson chose Jim Cavaziel to play Christ in the Passion, which I have not and will not see. I didn't know it was Cavaziel until the end credits, but he was mesmerizing as the sometimes awol private. There's a lot of spiritual depth in this movie, which appears to be influenced by Hindu ideas, especially in the Bhagavad Gita, with Arjuna and Vishnu. Which may explain why my father in law, who is Catholic, and who fought with the Marines at Guadacanal, hated this movie, and said "it wasn't like that at all." Maybe too much on the inner thoughts and philosophy, and non-Christian. I think the Marines were a tighter knit, harder ass kicking outfit than the Army soldiers portrayed in the movie, too concerned with staying alive when they were outnumbered and cut off from the outside, to have been as self reflective as the men in this movie. I think it's a great movie, but I have to defer to him and the other brave men who were really there on the accuracy. Great performances by Cavaziel, Nolte, Sean Penn, and many others.