Matt Greene "Age is hard for everyone, but she falls from a greater height." These two Hollywood heavyweights are such likable subjects, and their unique relationship is impossible not to ire. It's an interesting look at how big-time show business interacts with a family caught in the eye of it. And, of course, it's even more powerful knowing this mother and daughter died within days of each other, and only weeks before this movie's release. A nice little film artifact for anyone still enamored by movie stars.
mark.waltz Get out your hankies, Carrie and Debbie are together again, along with Heat Miser, aka George S. Irving, their "Irene" co-star who died the same week they did. "Tsumommy", as Carrie calls the wonderful eccentric lady she calls mom, someone my mom had introduced me to at under 10 years of age. Every year was either Molly Brown or Sister Anne or both. "Oh just do what mom says. It makes life easier", Debbie says, and if my mom said this, I'd do it just out of respect, more for the memory of those Sunday evenings of long ago. Or perhaps the memory of seeing Debbie on stage from the third row of the orchestra at the Pantages in "The Unsinkable Molly Brown", balling my eyes out within her vision during "I Ain't Down Yet". Add in seeing Carrie in "Wishful Drinking" at Studio 54, and I think I know these people, whom I really don't. It is with great love that Carrie shows off everything personal in her life, and it is much about Carrie as it is Debbie. There's also Todd Fisher and his beautiful wife Catherine Hickland, a soap opera star I've known in screen since I was 20 on "Capitol", following her to both "Loving" and "One Life to Live" where she played wonderful vixens. Carrie, immortalized as both a pez dispenser and a blow up doll, has been a champion of saying, "Hey, I'm messed up and I know it, and there's nothing I can do about it, so I'll deal with it, and the world just needs to get over it." It is obvious that they love their fans, but the longing to be themselves in quiet dignity as just mom and daughter is there, even if they are immortalized on screen as Meryl and Shirley in "Postcards from the Edge".Christmas 2016 was a downer with their sudden deaths, and in watching this, I have hope for their souls. Drugs schmugs, I say to the detractors who dismiss Carrie for her addiction. She's funny, honest, real, easy going, complicated. Imagine if this was the Judy/Liza or Lorna syndrome, Janet Leigh or Jamie Lee Curtis, but with Carrie, it's just honesty from start to finish. Debbie is so vibrant on stage, so when they deal with her aging, it is heartbreaking, and these last few weeks were like losing my own mom, not something I've gone through yet, but a reminder of what you must do to prepare for that time. I cherish those moments I shared with my mom watching "Molly Brown" and "The Singing Nun", her memory of going to see "Molly" with her mother in law (my beloved late grandmother) at Radio City Music Hall and my seeing live with her sly wink towards me after seeing me weep, and later seeing the film on the big screen at the Egyptian. It must be said that for younger fans, if Debbie Reynolds is known as Princess Leia's mother, that makes her a queen.
larry41onEbay Bright Lights is an illuminating look inside the homes and lives of two legends. I love Carrie Fisher cooking a soufflé for her mother Debbie Reynolds and then walking out Carrie's backdoor across their shared backyard and into her Debbie's back door to share a meal with mom. They share more than that with us. It's like sitting on their living room couch and going thru the family album, warts and all. How were they able to live thru all their tribulations? Maybe that they learned to talk about it and deal with it instead of letting if fester and burst inside. And there was laughter, and stories about other celebrities and other heartaches. But what I liked most was their humanity towards each other and that unsinkable spirit that kept them going until all energy was gone from them. What I liked least about it was these two wonderful women should have know the damage drugs, alcohol and cigarettes would do and avoided them. I heard Carrie drank up to 16 Cokes a day and I wonder if the Coke connection with her father had something to do with her addiction to sodas. And Debbie could have had someone to stop her from performing until she was ready to drop. I know it was her choice but they both could have been saved from themselves by their friends. Thank you ladies for all that you gave and shared and God Bless Todd now alone
