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| Almighty God, the fountain of all wisdom, you know our necessities before we ask and our ignorance in asking: Have compassion on our weakness, and mercifully give us those things which for our unworthiness we dare not, and for our blindness we cannot ask; through the worthiness of your Son Jesus Christ our Lord, who lives and reigns with you and the Holy Spirit, one God now and for ever. Amen.
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 The Normal Guy's 50-Word-or Less Plot: Tells the story of a brother and sister who, over the years have drifted apart emotionally and geographically. They are forced to come together to care for their aging and abusive father.
Lenny Savage (PHILIP BOSCO) is a senior citizen suffering from dementia and living with his elderly girl friend in Sun City, Arizona. She drops dead one day and Lenny's adult children Jon (PHILIP SEYMOUR HOFFMAN) and younger sister Wendy (LAURA LINNEY) are notified of his need for care. Jon is a theater professor who has never been close to his dad and has some attachment problems. He doesn't seem to be able to marry Kasia (CARA SEYMOUR) his longtime girl friend. Wendy is an aspiring playwright and has problems of her own; unemployed, suffering from low self-esteem and in an adulterous relationship with an older neighbor named Larry (PETER FRIEDMAN). Jon and Wendy have to figure out what to do with a dad who was emotionally abusive and distant and who physically abused Jon.
They decide to put him in a nursing home but this decision is attended by anger and guilt because they are being forced to care for someone who did not care for them. Wendy believes they can care for him on their own but it's clear that won't work.
The film is aptly titled. We think we are so civilized but at the core, humans are very savage. We hear it all the time. Hundreds of thousands of homes are occupied by abusers and the abused. What makes this all the more disturbing is due to bonds in families the abused often feel something for those who have abused them.
This was not a funny movie. It was more bitter than sweet because of the subject matter. Tamara Jenkins (SLUMS OF BEVERLY HILLS) wrote and directed this film based on her own troubled childhood (abused by her father, mother absent). Jenkins manages to fill the material with good dialogue and she kept it from being a maudlin film. The stellar performances by Linney and Hoffman made it work but only to a point. Nothing insightful comes of the plot.
If you are fans of Linney and Hoffman, you will like this film because they having commanding presence. The acting and writing keep the movie out of the dumpster and it was not melodramatic in any way. You won't like the film if you are looking for a good laugh or if the subject matter hits too close to home.
I liked the film overall, even though the plot needed some treatment and there is no ready or apparent redemption for any of the characters. I found myself wanting Jon and Wendy to be rescued but they seemed incapable of accepting it. The truth of the matter is rescue is possible but it's outside of us.
Content advisory: sex and nudity present
Themes: parent/child relationships, adultery, guilt, death, emotional and physical abuse, familial dysfunction
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 Tony Snow was buried today. I have to say when I heard of his death last week after his second bout with colon cancer, I was sad. From what I saw and read of him over the last 2 years, I could tell he enjoyed what he did as tough as it was and he had great character.
But this is what caught my attention and confirmed in me his strength and resolve. When he found he had cancer for the second time, he told his doctors and family something to this effect; "I am going to embrace life." This is courage.
But there was something beyond this idea which confirmed everything I felt about him.
Read it here: http://www.christianitytoday.com/ct/2007/july/25.30.html?start=3
Here's part of the homily:
"The measure of this man's life can be found in his character, in his optimism, in his joy and humor, in his courage, in his passion for what was good and right, and in his love for God and family and neighbor and country. Tony Snow did not need a long life for us to measure. It was, rather, we who needed his life to be longer."
What a guy!
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|  Normal Guy 50-Words-Or-Less-Plot: A woman buys a painting at thrift shop for $5. She finds out it is possibly a genuine painting done by the mid-20th century American artist, Jackson Pollock. This is the documentary of her struggle to get it authenticated.
Meet Teri Horton. She is a former truck driver who purchased an unsigned painting for $5 at a thrift shop. It turns out after some research by her and others the painting may be a genuine work by Jackson Pollock and worth millions. Ms. Horton has no more than an eighth-grade education and she has lived hard. She’s also smart. As she pursues her quest to get this painting authenticated, the documentary centers not only on her life and Jackson Pollock but the debate between connoisseurship (offered the art pros) and forensic science. Director Harry Moses tries to make Horton somewhat colorful and his agenda seems pretty clear. Moses calls into question the idea of provenance (something I knew nothing about). The idea is you have to be able to trace the painting back to the artist by way of who has owned it. But Moses tries another route; forensics. The art snobs draw their line in the sand to keep out Horton and people like her. But their hackles go up when these self-satisfied protectors of an artificially narrow type of legal art insider trading are threatened by forensic science (fingerprints and all). You learn Horton turned down a $2 million offer for the painting, no questions asked. She was also offered and refused a $9 million offer from Saudi Arabia after the documentary was complete. She claims authentication of the work is not a matter of money, but of principle. If you’d like a view of the art world you’ll like this movie. If you like siding with the underdogs against condescending experts, you’ll like this movie. I liked it for what it taught me about the art world and Horton’s strange story. But it seemed a little drawn out as though Moses was trying too hard to prove his point or start an auction.
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 O Lord, mercifully receive the prayers of your people who call upon you, and grant that they may know and understand what things they ought to do, and also may have grace and power faithfully to accomplish them; through Jesus Christ our Lord, who lives and reigns with you and the Holy Spirit, one God, now and for ever. Amen.
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