I grew up in the wrong generation for movies, music, cultural relevance, politics.....the one decade that no one ever reminisces out like the Roaring Twenties, the post-war boom, the Hippie 70's, the classic movies of the 80's, the emergence of hip-hop in the Nineties.........Nope, I came of age in the "Aughts," the 2000-2010s that was highlighted by the Bush Presidency, pop music, and.... a mishmash of movies, sequels, remakes, but once in a while there's a movie that I really relate to and can feel like I'm back in 2007 again. Tonight, that movie was "Bucket List" starring Morgan Freeman and Jack Nicholson.
Very underrated movie. I watched "Prey," the 2022 prequel of the Predator franchise right after (rated 92% on Rotten Tomatoes), but it was just didn't have the human touch as Bucket List did, something we can all relate to: the fear of dying alone, having terminable cancer, the end of life, etc., and trying to make the best of our lives in the little time we have left. And, o yea, what am I kidding, it's another movie that has scenes from Jeopardy! in it, joining "Rain Man" and "White Man Can't Jump" on the leaderboard. I can't make this up, I've been watching tons of Jeopardy re-runs on PlutoTV (24/7 Jeopardy, all day, all night!) and wanted to take a break with something completely different, and right in the first 5 mintues Morgan Freeman's character turns out to be a trivia expert who watches Jeopardy religiously. Go figure.
Morgan Freeman and Jack Nicholson certainly looked the parts of terminal cancer patients in this movie, and the fact they're still alive 15 years later in 2022 is something to cheer for! They meet as fellow patients living in the same hospital room, so it gives that familiar feeling of being a patient in a hospital room; I'll have to get MJ's take on how realistic the nurses and doctors behaved in the movie (MJ was shocked at the unrealistic portrayal of the incontinence ads on Pluto TV).
Hard to say anything profound about "Bucket List," but I guess that was a "Naughties" movie: big on sentimentality, made you feel a bit like home, but didn't deliver the KO punch it needed to be a classic. Just a cool story about 2 older dudes bonding and spending the end of their lives together, and it makes me look forward (well, not too forward, I don't necessarily WANT that day to come) of being at the end of life and summing it all up, trying to get some closure on it, and reflecting on all the adventures I've had.......and then violently experience-splurging on all the stuff remaining that I had wanted to do. It does make me realize so many things I wanted to do (say, since 2007) that I said I would eventually get to, I never got to......but that's OK......the bucket list is just a concept, it's not a check-off list that must be completed at all costs. It's a gentle reminder to enjoy life and have something to look back on with satisfaction at the end of one's life.
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