Great Balls of Fire


Great Balls of Fire is 1989 take on Jerry Lee Lewis rise to fame. It's the years of the first shot a recording to right after the controversial episode of marrying his 13 year old cousin. The take great liberties of excluding all kinds of details and just focus on the immediate family and Jerry's manager.

I'm not sure what kind of character Jerry Lee Lewis was. I'm sure he must have been very eclectic and bold. But in ways, Dennis Quaids portrayal is damn near clownish. I mean to the point of distracting. Maybe Jerry Lee Lewis was that bizarre. I dunno. If you watch the trailer, the only time you see Quaid portray Lewis, is very emotional. Those other moments of him just talking are what I'm talking about. Just over-the-top expressive. There are a couple of scene's that just go way over-board too. You can't miss them. I guess the director was getting a little artsy.



But I do know the som**** could play. The movie does a great job of capturing those moments of hits. While I do like his hits, the songs really started to sound the same.

Winona Ryder does a great job acting as a 13 year old. There's a lot going on with her and she portray's what I think a young female might be like in this situation.

If you like movies about music and their creators, I would suggest checking this out.

And on the same note, for those who like this genre of music, you need to check out Nowhere Boy

here's a cool video of Quaid playing with the Man.

The Way We Were

It's probably blasphemy to give The Way We Were only 3-1/2 stars. I had never seen this movie until last night. It was nothing like I thought it might be. The ending was perfect, but that is only the tip of the iceberg of a rather complicated movie. Two lovers who are so different in many respects fall for each other and try to make it work. Both very intelligent people, but at times letting emotions guide their actions. Even to the point of the getting married and then getting pregnant. I don't want to run spoilers for those like me who have not seen it, but while it's not gut wrenching, where it should have been, it still packs a punch.

I get why it was and has been classic. It's wrapped around the blacklisting of Hollywood in the late 40's, which I only heard of, a lot of the emotion was lost on me. But it's not THAT critical, because the story is about the roller coaster ride of the two lovers. Their hits and misses. Barbara Streisand brings her Jewish heritage into the story and recognize many facets with her and my wife. So, yea, I had a little stake into giving this my attention.

By the way, Ms. Streisand sets the bar on music and voice like no other. I like some of her songs, not all, but I know when a voice is phenomenal.

I've been meaning to check out Side By Side. I was tracking this before it hit the theater but just completely forgot about it till now. Thanks for the heads up. Adding to my Library Hold List now. That is if they have it.

I've never heard of it. I'm going to have to check it out too.

dayum, my library doesn't own it. Might have to make a request.

Wait, it hasn't come out yet to DVD

...(also paying four bucks for a 24 hour rental sucks)

The Library is your friend.

Doesn't your branch pull from other branches?

We have about 20 or so branches here and each branch orders 1 movie of all the bigger releases as well as some of the minor ones. So there is always plenty of copies in circulation at any given time. I've had to have my branch order certain titles that aren't in rotation. They've ordered a few that way, but I think a certain number of request has to be put in for them to go through with ordering. So, you might wanna put in some request on your end for any titles you're looking for. Couldn't hurt.