Thanks for the memories!

Pretty Good

Yes, absolutely, there is fun to be had, as well as many, many things to go boom, all amid an atmospheric urban jungle.

The film never slows down or bores, plunging from one harrowing sequence to the next.

Morrie Schwartz (Jack Lemmon) is a life loving professor. Then in 1994, he starts suffering from symptoms of Lou Gehrig disease or ALS. Mitch Albom (Hank Azaria) is a workaholic sports reporter for the Detroit Free Press who doesn't have time even for his girlfriend Janine. Then he sees a TV report on his beloved dying college professor Schwartz. He goes to Boston to see him. They used to talk in his office on Tuesdays and end up spending Tuesdays together with Morrie learning life lessons.The Oprah prologue sets this up too much. This movie won't surprise anybody but it still works. It is the performance from Jack Lemmon. It's one of his last starring role. The connection is undeniable. There is a real sense of a life fully lived. Hank Azaria is good. There are some parts that get too sentimental but the heart-felt moments from Lemmon is terrific.

Tuesdays with Morrie didn't begin as a movie nor even as a book; it began as a sacred tradition between real people. I thought the movie was as true to form as any secondhand representation could be, adhering quite closely to the text of the original bestseller by Mitch Albom, who experienced its events and emotions firsthand. I write to recommend the movie as a viewer but, more importantly, I feel compelled as an English teacher to respond to the negative reviews by some of the film's more cynical amateur critics. To those of you who didn't intuit from the film's title, cover and/or description that it was not an action or a comedy, admit that your inattentiveness to detail is at fault for your dissatisfaction and not the work of the filmmakers. Just as I urge my senior English students to whom I read a great deal of this book aloud, I urge you to take a temporary vacation from what's "cool" and allow yourself to absorb Morrie's messages. In dismissing him simply because he's sentimental, you only provide more evidence and incidence of what he's observed: the meaninglessness of our lives if we continue to be disconnected from one another and motivated by our fears. We are obsessed with consumption and hardly concerned with contribution. Yes, it has a tendency toward triteness and cliché but only if we apply it to those terms in the interest of sounding evaluative and intelligent (which is, again, something we've been taught to do in pursuit of status). Hey, if a bunch of seventeen-year-olds can take a break from hating themselves and judging one another…can't we try, too? Give Tuesdays with Morrie a chance to make you cry. It would be even more cliché to refuse.

Even though Oprah funded / supported this film with the change she had in her left pocket, her involvement in making this film possible was worthy. Jack Lemmon gives another brilliant / unrecognized performance as Morrie, the old friend and teacher who is preparing himself to die. Hank Azaria is surprisingly good as well. For a change, Azaria moves away from his work in comedy and many of his character driven roles to play a heart-filled character. By the second half of the movie, you forget that he is the voice of many Simpson characters. The ending of this movie is worth watching this movie again and again and again. If you have ever had to say goodbye to a loved one, you will understand and be a fan of Tuesdays with Morrie.

One of a kind film that teaches us to enjoy each day and not take anything for granted. Also teaches us about amyotrophic lateral sclerosis (ALS) and its devastating effects on even the most fun-loving of people (Jack Lemmon) and how someone's illness and imminent death can affect those closest to the victim (family as well as close friends) in both a sad and positive way. I thought this was a beautiful film and Jack Lemmon gave an excellent performance. When he was saying goodby to his "favorite pupil" on his deathbed and lectured him one last time "I'll be buried by a beautiful oak tree, you talk, I'll just listen." This movie has both a sad but beautiful ending in getting across the message that death is a part of living and shouldn't be feared. Maybe this message is too heavy for some of the other so called critics but we all have to face up to it eventually.