My Ten Greatest Inspirational Movies of All Time (Part II)

When we talk about inspirational movies, we're usually talking about sports films. However, there's a wide range of movies that didn't involve sports that were also inspiring. For my list, the rules are simple.

One, I have to have seen the film.

Two, the film needs to have have an impact on me in a visceral way. I know that sounds strange when you're making a list of inspirational films, It's just, how many times do you see movies like Brian's Song, released in 1971, on that list, and the writer is under thirty. Not that it isn't a good story, but come on.

Like most lists, this is completely subjective. And I'd love for your feedback as to movies I missed and ones that I should have included.

One final note. A movie doesn't have to be about someone achieving something, whether they become champions or famous, to be inspirational. That needs to be said, because I'm sure a number of people will look at some of these choices and may wonder how they're inspirational. That's why a list like this is subjective.

These films inspired me, and as such, have probably been watched multiple times.

If you're looking for films that didn't make the list, but might interest you, check out my Friend's Suggestions on yesterday's post. 

So here they are, my top five inspirational films of all time!

#5 A Knight's Tale

Paul Bettany makes every movie he's in a good place to go, and (the departed) Heath Ledger is wonderful here, too. So is the rest of the cast. Call this movie "airy" or "silly" if you like, but if you want to be inspired, throw this one on. You won' regret it.

Favourite Moment: As with alll these films, there are so many. But I particularly love when the Black Prince exonerates William and knights him. Great stuff.

#4 SHAKESPEARE IN LOVE



This film won best picture, and then was criticized as being "an idealist's choice." Nonsense. It's clever and accessible, and both Joseph Fienes and Gwyneth Paltrow do their best work here. There just isn't anything that isn't inspiring here for me. Wonderful, wonderful film.

Favourite Moment: The final play, when Paltrow plays the role of Juliet. The ending is fantastic as well.

#3 IT'S A WONDERFUL LIFE



It has stood the test of time. Surprisingly, it wasn't nearly as popular when it was released. But the basic question is one that can't help but get you, and Stewart's performance may me be his best. A Christmas tradition, and a movie that never does anything but inspire you.

Favourite Moment: Auld Lang Syne. Nothing else needs to be said. Oh, and pass the Kleenex.



#2 ROCKY




I was going to include the trailer, but the trailers they made forty years ago were garbage. Anyway, this film still holds up after so many years. For me, it's one of the best romantic films in the past forty years. (Both I and II) After that, the films devolve into entertainment. But this film won eight Academy awards for a reason.

I watch this film a few times a year, sometimes more. With its low budget and gritty framing and terrific writing (by Stallone), it never feels "untrue." I can't think of a better compliment. Forget how Stallone became a caricature of himself and watch Rocky again. He was great, and so is this is this film.

#1 RUDY




When I first started compiling this list, I thought the race for Number One would be complicated. Difficult.

It wasn't.

Without question, this is the greatest inspirational movie of all time. It's based on a true story, and while the film takes some fictitious license, that license is limited.

I grew up a Catholic, a third-generation Notre Dame fan, but what makes this film work is the earnestness of a true underdog trying to do something that no one believed he could possibly achieve. More, he didn't win a championship, this isn't that kind of film. It's focus remains solely on an underdog who does everything he can to attain his dream. Glorious.

Favourite Moment: When he sits on the rock and finally opens that acceptance letter from Notre Dame. Tears. Every. Single. Time.

And THIS is my greatest inspirational film of all time.

Movie Review: Passion Play (2010)

Directed by Mitchell Glazer

Most of us don't realize it, but our brains do not register concepts or ideas. They don't store information like a computer either, in ones and zeros. Rather, it does all that needs to be done, the sorting and predicting and shuffling through the endless torrent of stimuli, with pictures and emotions. From the most abstract concepts of math and physics to the most widely known, such as love, our brain works only with pictures and emotions. That makes a visual medium such as film an ideal place to explore simple concepts in new and profound ways. Perhaps new is the wrong word, as some film goers immediately sense that you are talking about some new film maker that artistes consider brilliant but that most of us can't follow because the story itself is abstract. Sometimes simple is better. Sometimes smaller is better. And sometimes it takes a single frame, a single illustration to remind us again why film is the single most powerful and prolific story telling tool we have. That is, when it's done well. And in Passion Play, it's done very well indeed.

Mickey Rourke stars as Nate Poole, a washed up, former jazz star in Mitchell Glazer's new film Passion Play. Rourke revitalized his career with a tremendous performance in Darren Aronofsky's The Wrestler two years ago, which earned him an Academy Award nomination, and apparently some good scripts from which to choose. Once again, he has chosen well. Rourke is 58 now, so unless you're of a certain age, you won't recall how Rourke, always a physical specimen, was a rising screen star in the 1980's, perhaps culminating in his performance with Kim Basinger in the erotic drama 9 1/2 weeks. His life then became a cautionary Hollywood tale of hard living and bad choices, not the least of which was his decision to go back to professional boxing, and the subsequent plastic surgery needed restore some of the damage the boxing had done, which only made it worse. These days, the looks are gone, but the presence remains. If anything, as he showed in The Wrestler, and even further here, the once vaunted physicality has been whittled around the edges, like a smooth piece of driftwood, and so there is little about him that isn't natural. In Passion Play, the raging emotions and energy crackle to life in his character, Nate Poole, but not often. Nate has been beaten down, buried under a sea of politics and passions and excuses every drug user knows, managing to survive, but only just. From the world of excess and celebrity, he has found an existence crawling amidst the night dwellers and dealers, the brokers of cheap rent and rummaged lives. There is something still alive in Nate, you can hear it in his music, but it no longer finds its way to the surface. But then, why would it? What good is strength and hope when you realize that those things belong only to the people who have chosen pragmatism, for people who dwell in the normative and who have controlled their emotions and affections for a life more stable? For someone like Nate, the world makes little sense outside of the clear, soft jazz of his trumpet. It probably never will. Who do you trust when you no longer even trust yourself?

There's been a lot written about Megan Fox, who became a star after her performance in Transformers. Unfortunately, when you watch Michael Bay's camera linger on her smooth stomach in that movie and listen to the playboy director discuss his casting decision, you understand the reasons behind the talk. Add to it some other wooden performances and her first leading role, in Jennifer's Body, that only reminded most critics of the decision behind her role in Transformers, and you understand why there was so little to expect from her here, even alongside Rourke. In Passion Play however, Fox gives a performance that should end the discussion about whether or not she can act. Yes, there are moments when you feel her shifting to Soap Opera emoting, the standard for beautiful young Hollywood actresses, but whether it's Glazer's direction or the strong script or the role that calls for something new, those moments are rare. For most of the film, she's actually something of a revelation. She plays against her type, and while certainly the camera and story frame her beauty, it does so in a way you do not expect. As the film progresses, you forget that she is "The Megan Fox", the one criticized and posterized for everything from her previous roles to her plastic surgery to her private life. Instead, it feels as though she is discovering new things through her character, new things about who she is and who she chooses to be, and she shyly invites us all along for a glimpse into her journey.

More than anything else, Passion Play is a look into the lives of people who have been broken, but deep inside still hold out for the faint hope of something more. Of something greater than the numbers, the ones and zeros that too often characterize our daily existence. Throughout the film, Glazer never cheats, never reaches beyond the characters, until one soaring moment when the simple but abstract idea that drives the movie reveals itself in a frame where picture and emotion finally meet onscreen. And when they do, we are lifted along with the characters, through our own remembrances of journeys past and journeys lost, washed away, for a while at least, in the hope of something greater.

****1/2 stars (out of five)

Copyright Stephen Burns 2010

Movie Review: Crazy Heart (2010)

Directed by

Scott Cooper

I've never really understood the appeal of old country music. Guys like Waylon Jennings, whose name I know only from the Dukes of Hazzard theme song, twanging away on their gee-tar and sipping back grandpa's whiskey. For most of my life it has been the one type of music, along with death metal, that actually irritated me. The storytelling in it is bland, the music is three chords, and the lyrics are sappy and melodramatic. What the hell am I supposed to do with that?

I'd heard the buzz around Crazy Heart even before its star, and one of my favourite actors, Jeff Bridges, finally won his first Oscar for his role in it. Even then, I still wasn't sure if I wanted to see it. If I didn't get old country music, why would I want to see a (fictionalized) movie about an old country music star? I wasn't sure that I saw the relevance. (This is what happens when you don't have to review movies as part of your job.) A couple of friends encouraged me to check it out however, and so I sucked it up and prepared for yet another boring, two hour ride into the latest bio-musical pic.

Boy, was I wrong. From the opening scene, I became immersed somehow into this culture, into this old country lifestyle that I'd never understood. The best movies all do this, of course, but some cultures are more difficult to translate to the screen, and even more when the translation is contingent on a type of music that typically needs its surroundings as much as it needs its musicians. But the seamless storytelling and presence of Bridges, who is mostly unrecognizable throughout, provide all that's needed to make the film, and its subject, completely accessible.

Bridges plays Bad Blake, a former old country star, a la Jennings, who hasn't recorded a hit in a long time, and the movie draws us in as we follow Bad into the contradiction that is the world of country music. There's the claustrophobic night life, coloured bright and smoky in seedy bars and hotels and backend bowling alleys. Here the people come, looking to him for reminders of past glories, of dreams past and dreams lost, dreams that fade in time but somehow resonate in the clear baritone of an old man's voice and an old man's song. When the songs fade, and the night along with it, we're thrust into the harsh daylight, a transition made difficult by the wide open spaces and burning light of the desert sun, a sun that seems to crackle onscreen with every aching step of Bad's weathered cowboy boots and every crunch of gravel beneath the tires of his old, worn out truck. By turns his stubbornness and sadness, his anger and hope, percolate and boil over, all of it in tune with the contradictions of the land and the music, between the soft kisses of moonlight and withering noon glare of the Texan sun. Like a carefully balanced song, we feel the inevitable change sweeping through a life that must somehow come to a decision, one that will dictate whether his music will follow his weary heart or if somehow he will find the courage to strum new chords in the future.

Maggie Gyllenhaal is here, and while her intelligence and "old-youngness" make her the perfect choice for this role, her character needed perhaps an extra scene or two. We can surmise a few things from what she says, but in a film as deliberate as Crazy Heart, it should be in the script. Colin Farrell has a small but important role here as well, with an understated but engrossing performance that reminds you what a great actor he can be when he's not making blockbusters. He needs to do more roles like this one.

Ultimately, the movie rests on Bridges, and he delivers one of the best performances of his career. He's more open here than we're used to, more vulnerable than we've seen him since his terrific performance nearly twenty years ago in The Fabulous Baker Boys. It must be said however, that this is not another Ray; it is not merely a showpiece for a great actor. Crazy Heart, at its core, is a story about life, about what happens when we stop believing in the future and when our yesterdays surpass our tomorrows.

I think that's why I never liked old country music. It always seemed so focused on the past. But maybe I missed the point. Maybe the idea is that thinking about the past is not only a good thing, but necessary, if we want to find our future. Too hopeful? Too simple? Perhaps, but then, there's power in the simple answers, so long as we're willing to listen. After watching Crazy Heart, I might finally be ready.

****1/2 stars (Out of Five)

Copyright Stephen Burns 2010