Change Your Image
jbussmann-984-527596
Ratings
Most Recently Rated
Reviews
Molly's Game (2017)
Speaking Just For Me
It's never a bad idea to finish watching a worthy movie, followed by asking oneself "O.K....how does it play with my life?" Well, here it is....what kind of person pleads guilty at great personal cost rather than bring harm to other guilty and non-guilty people? People principled and heroic I suppose.Within that question and matched up against that answer...lies the power of Molly and her movie....and the daily unfolding of my life. Do you object?
The movie mechanics, the screenplay, the actors and directors, which most of the above reviews find worthy of note....they surrender the power of this remarkable motion picture to issues of craftsmanship instead of personal self-examination. That's funny in that most of us revolve the world around ourselves....except when things get too real!
John J. Bussmann
Saint Paul, Mn
Palm Swings (2020)
Let's Get Real!
I'm mid 60's baby boomer and we're responsible for free love and almost all the psycho-social-sexual excesses that our culture hasn't got rid of yet. We were spoiled and given everything we wanted and anything more, we just took. The "Lifestyle" of swinging is just a continuation of the old,
lived out by those of us afraid of getting old. Getting old means settling down and some will never take the chance of settling down because to do so means to curb appetites and live within the structures of maturity. Some of us will never be able to be so brave.
I've wet my big toe in the lifestyle and have concluded that the things we're looking for and wonder the most about are the things we still wonder about after the experience. Swinging is just about playing in a bigger sandbox. Yes sex and love can be two separate things but without each other they fail to calm the restlessness within.
So, what about the movie? I loved it! The women were cute, adorable, and totally sexy. The men wore their bravado just like in real life. The dialog, scenes, sets, were perfect. T and A were wonderful. The husband was bound by all his fears and tried to project his inadequacy on his wife. He was the child. This scenario happens all the time in real life.If movies are primarily about entertainment, cut out the crap about real and heavy meaning. Ride the movie like a roller coaster...
And just get your kicks.
The Diary of a Teenage Girl (2015)
For me, A moment of Truth
The Diary of a Teenage Girl brought out my inner voyeurism. I played it straight growing up, never wanting to take big risks let alone do the dope stuff. I marveled at women of almost any age but had not enough self-esteem to put myself out there.To handle my inadequacy I became judgmental about things like sex, drugs, and rock & roll . Yet during all those hot summers, humid nights, with the sound of all those crickets, I ached of being at a drive-in movie, in a steamy car with a cute classmate fooling around in the backseat. My mind worked overtime to cope with my loneliness but my hormones demanded not to be denied. Yet deny them I did until a decade or two later.
I prayed, went to Mass, joined the seminary and was ordained a Catholic priest at the age of 26. Throughout all those formative years, women, nearly all women fascinated me. Compared to men, I found women to be softer and less coarse, more understanding and less brutal, different and wonderful in so many ways I couldn't really put my finger on.For me, the magic is found in the mystery.. I learned how to flirt, do those seductive bedroom eyes from across the room and was happy to send and receive all those vibes that go along with mischief-making outside the lines. Inevitably I fell from grace and I fell hard.
I loved being a priest and I learned to love a women's touch, her perfume, her laughter, and her luscious way of being provocative without even knowing it. Reaching mutual sexual ecstasy I still believe brought me a confirming glimpse of God which, in its own way, I found supremely sublime. Some of you will find this statement "sexist" but i must admit that feeling like a real man is almost without equal.I imagine it's the same for women. I cannot comment on the homosexual experience except to say that it might be more meaningful if it were to become a little less genitally based.
Throughout the years of ministry I said "no"to three marriage proposals and I broke some hearts because I was too afraid to leave the priesthood. Also I enjoyed the mutual admiration society that parishioners share with their priests. Living outside the boundaries, saying one thing and doing another always has its consequences. I was worshiping a golden calf and the calf was me. The Church kicked me out, the women went away, and I'm not sure where I fit in anymore.
Many times in the confessional I heard the lamentations of persons who were suffering from the guilt of their sins and they knew not that I was one of them. Yet conferring absolution to contrite sinners was an overpowering sign to me that God's love, grace, and forgiveness is much stronger than any kind of personal sin.
Why the personal confession? I'm 61 years old, alone, and surprisingly unemployable. The Diary of a Teenage Girl, a marvelous movie, stopped me dead in my tracks. Here it is: Would I have been a faithful and happy priest, had I had an adolescent experience more typical and more inclusive of the cultural norm like Minnie's? Has my life been lived in compensation? Will I ever again find happiness? Is life's greatest regret not the things we've done but the thing's we haven't done? A great movie? Yes! Why? When was the last time a movie made you question almost everything about your life? On a more positive note, is it the dirt of our life that not only brings pain but acts as a kind of fertilizer helping us to grow along life's journey ? A nice little movie!
Big Eyes (2014)
The "Eyes" have it!
Movies are funny that way...we watch them for entertainment- as a means to momentarily sidestep our own personal turf, and then blow-hards like me and you can't wait to subjectify and project the movie experience to our own complex inner life. Important movies, like "Big Eyes" display universal themes. In this case the theme of commercializing one's inner truth and beauty makes for a lifetime of regret, and is for me a reminder that every day I compromise part of me to fit in or get ahead. Marriages, jobs, parenting, all feel the "pull" of needing to belong to contemporary standards and codes of conduct. Meanwhile our hearts and souls suffer from character malnutrition. Amy Adams keeps us watching and Christoph Waltz makes us look into the mirror. The atmosphere of the movie recaptures a pre-cynical yet forever petty world. What's not to like-unless you make a living reviewing movies...well then....you have to fill a page with words that sound profound.
Into the Storm (2014)
Best Ever
Natural disaster movies come and go and usually reflect the limited science and technology of their day.I've never seen a more realistic and compelling n. disaster flick. So super realistic we might as well be experiencing it ourselves in real time.When the action is this good, the storm itself is the plot and the lead actor. The actors themselves play 2nd fiddle to the drama contained in the action. None of them grabbed me and many of them were typical of a disaster movie like this. I don't care because I was immensely shaken up by the action. If a movie like this has a plot it might be: live our lives with more humility because so much of it is beyond our control and at the end of our lives we might end up like one of those flying airplanes. We do need to hug each other more and share our love with others. That's not a bad message. This is an epic motion picture so much better than the rest. Don't let life pass you by-now that's a recipe for disaster!