Patrick Breen

Radio is a good human-interest story that was inspired by events in 1976 in Anderson, South Carolina. Cuba Gooding, Jr., who plays the mentally challenged Radio, does such a good acting job, you will believe he is the real Radio. His real name is James Robert Kennedy, and he was nicknamed Radio, because of his radio collection and listening to the radio all the time. Radio spends his days in this small town pushing or riding a grocery cart down the street, talking to no one. After some football players harass Radio, the football coach Harold Jones played by Ed Harris takes Radio under his wing. Radio begins to help out at football practice and sits on the bench at games. In time, Radio begins to trust the coach. However, some people in town think Radio is a distraction to the team, and they want Radio to go. By this time the coach and the team are all friends to Radio and they want him to stay. Douglas Young (the-movie-guy)

The cast of an old 1980s space-adventure television series, Galaxy Quest, spend most of their days attending fan conventions and making promotional appearances. Though the series' conceited former star, Jason Nesmith (Tim Allen) (who played Commander Peter Quincy Taggart, the commander of the NSEA Protector and main character of the series), thrives on the attention, the other cast members -- Gwen (Sigourney Weaver) (who played Lieutenant Tawny Madison, the ship's communications officer and the only officer aboard who can give orders to the ship's computer), Alexander (Alan Rickman) (who played Dr. Lazarus, the ship's science officer and a member of the Mak'tar, an alien species known for their super intelligence and psionic powers), Fred (Tony Shalhoub) (who played Tech Sergeant Chen, the ship's chief engineer), and Tommy (Daryl Mitchell) (who played Lieutenant Laredo, a precocious child pilot) -- resent him (as Jason has an out-sized ego and doesn't treat his colleagues as his equal) and, to varying degrees, the states of their careers. At a convention, Jason is approached by a group calling themselves Thermians (Before that Jason also met a few diehard fans led by Brandon, whom Jason ignored as he was busy hitting on Gwen. Later he scolds Brandon by saying its just a television show), led by Mathesar (Enrico Colantoni) and Teb (Jed Rees), a Thermian and Mathesar's second-in-command, who request his help. Jason thinks they want him for a promotional appearance and agrees (he is also humbled by hearing some comments in the bathroom about how he has not had a real acting job in 20 years and that Jason is pathetic since his buddies hate him and he has no clue). The next morning, when the Thermians pick him up, Jason is hung over and does not grasp that the Thermians are aliens and that he has been transported to a working re-creation of the bridge of the NSEA Protector, the starship from Galaxy Quest. Believing he is on a set and must perform in character, he confronts the Thermians' enemy, the evil warlord Roth'h'ar Sarris (Robin Sachs), who demands the "Omega 13", a secret super-weapon that has never been used and whose capabilities are unknown. Giving perfunctory orders, Jason manages to temporarily defeat Sarris. After the grateful Thermians transport him back to Earth (with a universal communicator), Jason realizes the experience was real (after returning to Earth he again runs into Brandon, and they drop their communicators (Brandon had the fake one) and they get exchanged). He attempts to convince the other cast members but is rebuffed. When the Thermian Laliari (Missi Pyle) appears and requests Jason's help again, the cast, thinking it is a job, joins him, including Guy (Sam Rockwell), who played an ill-fated redshirt in one episode of the series. Aboard the Protector, the cast learns that the guileless Thermians believe episodes of Galaxy Quest are true historical documentaries. Inspired by the crew's adventures, they have based their society on the virtues espoused by the show and manufactured a functioning replica of the Protector. Mathesar tells them how the entire Thermian society is based on Jason's team's "historical records" (transmissions of their show). Mathesar also tells Jason about how their previous commander was tortured and killed by Sarris. Sarris returns and attacks the Protector again (Jason tries to run away, but the ship's generators overheat when he presses for boosts for far too long), and the ship barely escapes by going through a magnetic minefield. But the ship's power source, a beryllium sphere, is severely damaged and the humans must travel to the surface of a nearby planet for a new sphere. The planet seems to have an abandoned mining colony and many beryllium spheres. But it also has an abundance of critters-like aliens who eat each other as well, when hungry. When Jason's crew tries to take a sphere from the mine, they are attacked by the critters. Jason gets left behind to allow the rest of his team to get away. Fred beams Jason up with a digital converter on the ship and saves his life (The critters had put Jason in a pit where he was being attacked by a rock monster). In their absence, Sarris seizes the Protector (and has destroyed the Thermian home world) and demands the Omega 13. Jason confesses that he is not the ship's commander and shows Sarris the Galaxy Quest "historical documents". Sarris understands they are actors and forces Jason to explain to a disillusioned Mathesar. Sarris activates the Protector's self-destruct mechanism and returns to his ship, leaving the Thermians and the cast members to die. The humans formulate a plan to abort the self-destruct and defeat Sarris' troops on the ship. Jason communicates with Brandon (Justin Long), a Galaxy Quest fan on Earth, and his network of friends with intimate knowledge of the show (Brandon also tells Jason that the Omega 13 is a matter re-arranger which takes everything 13 seconds in the past). They talk Jason and Gwen through the ship's core and help them abort the self-destruct sequence. Meanwhile, Alexander leads the Thermians against Sarris' forces (Fred beams aboard the rock monster that defeats Sarris' soldiers. Fred kisses Laliari, but Quelleck (Patrick Breen) dies from a stray shot and Alexander is distraught. The Thermians still thank Jason, and Alexander is perplexed.) and they take back control of the Protector. With renewed confidence, the crew challenges Sarris and draws his ship into the magnetic minefield. This time, the Protector drags the magnetic mines into Sarris' vessel, destroying it. The Protector approaches Earth to bring the humans home, but Sarris, who escaped his ship's destruction by transporting on to The Protector, ambushes them on the bridge and fatally wounds several crew members. Jason manages to activate the "Omega 13", which creates a 13-second time warp to the past, giving Jason and Mathesar a chance to disarm Sarris before he repeats his attack. The Protector's bridge splits from the main vessel to land the humans on Earth, while the main section departs with Mathesar leading the Thermians. Guided by Brandon and his friends acting as beacons, the Protector Bridge crashes into a Galaxy Quest convention, coming to a stop on the main stage. The dazed cast emerges to the cheers and excitement of their fans, but Sarris reemerges to imperil them again. Jason shoots and obliterates Sarris, and the ecstatic crowd assumes it is all a massive display of special effects. The cast basks in the adoration of Brandon, his friends, and their fans. Sometime later, Galaxy Quest is revived as a sequel series, Galaxy Quest: The Journey Continues, with the cast reprising their roles alongside Guy and Laliari as new characters.

A very true movie. So true I could not watch it until now. From someone who has been there, seen it, lived through it, I can say it was written by someone who was there as well. The story is of a young woman, Ellen (Renee Zellweger) who comes home for the weekend from her busy life in the city and with a possible writing career in front of her to find out from her father (William Hurt) that her mother, Kate (Meryl Streep) is ill. She is about to have cancer surgery and he expects that she will drop her life and come home to take care of her mother. She will need help after the surgery and the following chemotherapy. Ellen does not know what to think. She is a writer, as her father, an english professor, does he not understand what her life and future career mean to her? She has never seen self sacrifice before, or so she thinks. As her mother grows ever weaker Ellen gets a glimpse into her mother's life. She is involved with the community on special ocassions, she refinishes furniture, makes curtains, cooks everything wonderful, and even comforts friends in times of challenge, but most important of all, she makes her husband's life possible. At first Ellen tries to step into her mother's shoes and has a tough time for she is more like her father, she writes, she doesn't cook, clean, and comfort. Soon she finds her mother's shoes are a lot harder to fill than she ever realized. As she gets better at caring for her mother and the home front she realizes just how little her father does at home. Many of us see what many probably don't see, he is not completely self-scentered he simply can't imagine his life without her and can not be around to watch her fade. Ellen does not know this, at one point she believes he is having an affair and becomes very angry with him. She believes all he can do is think about himself. At Thanksgiving her father surprises everyone by bringing home two writers he admires, seemingly oblivious to the fact that this might well be his family's last Thanksgiving together. He asks that his wife whip up some great appetizers, as though she were in any shape to do so, which leaves Ellen to make them. Ellen is enraged with the unexpected visitors, famous or not, she wanted a quiet family Thanksgiving. Ellen becomes confrontational at every turn with her father. He wants everything to remain the same, he's not willing to help out with anything, and to top it all off, she believes when he calls to say he is working late that he is with "the other woman" who drops him off in front of the house later that evening. Ellen finally has a bitter confrontation with her father in a diner that ends up with him walking away stating that she will no longer be needed she can return to the city. Before this can even be discussed her mother is hospitalized. They are told the cancer has spread and there no need to continue therapy, all they can do now is make her comfortable. Her mother has noticed what is happening with Ellen and her father and calls her into a room to talk. She looks Ellen in the face and tells her that she does not know anything about her husband that she doesn't know. Life and marriage changes as it moves along and you find yourself accepting things you told yourself you'd never do. That it can be unbearable at one point and joyous the next. That you reach a point where if you remove someone from your life all it does is leave is a great big hole in your life, you live for your family, the ones you love. She then tries to tell Ellen things she might need for later in life and Ellen does not want to hear them. Her mother begins to cry and tells her that she's tired of people not letting her talk when she wants to talk, when Ellen agrees, she thinks a minute then says, I said it already. Ellen is charged with caring for her mother and giving her pains pills, morphine, now that the pain is much worse. Even though Ellen knows she's dying, and that she is in a wheel chair, and that a nurse comes in to help her, all these facts are really made quite clear when her mother calls out for the nurse who is not there and Ellen enters the bathroom to find her mother in the tub unable to get out. For the first time she is not seeing her bulky sweaters and cap; she sees her mother with her half bald head and barely covered bones. She is so skinny that Ellen can easily lift her from the tub. At that moment Ellen realizes exactly what is happening; to know something is one thing, to see it is almost too real. After she gets her mother settled into her chair she asks Ellen for a pain pill, as she takes it she whimpers, "This is no way to live" in her weakened voice that tells volumes. She asks Ellen to help her make it stop, Ellen's mother is now staying down stairs in a hospital bed. When she sleeps you hear her struggling to breathe, eating is no more, drinking is barely so, and talking is barely so. Then we see Ellen take out the small dish we all have for our cancer victims to put a little bit of applesauce to try in vein to get them to eat anything, and to help get medications down. Then she takes out the morphine and begins to smash the pills, first one, then another, then another. Then stands there knowing she can't do this. As much as she knows it would be a kindness, as much as she knows it would make it easier for her mother she can not do it. Her father comes home early, Ellen takes a bath and when she comes down we see her father wash out a small dish, wipe it and put it back in the cupboard. He tells Ellen, "your mother says this is not living, and she was right." Ellen goes into to be with her mother and finds awake and she tells her, "I love you." In the morning Ellen's father comes downstairs to find Ellen holding her mother's hand and staring, he realizes she is gone. Throughout the movie we have seen Ellen telling a man the story of her mother's illness but we don't know who he is, a greif counselor? A priest? It is a man wanting to know how Ellen's mother died of an overdose. Ellen has been providing stories that make it impossible for her father to be responsible, while not implicating herself either. In the last scene Ellen is at her mother's grave planting bulbs in the freshingly dug up soil. Her father approaches her and watches what she is doing and asks her how it went. She tells him it went fine that the man will also want to speak to him as well. Her father then says he admires Ellen's strength, he wanted to do it but could not. Ellen hears him but it doesn't sink in right away. She finally lifts her head and says, "I didn't do it, I thought you did it." They both take a moment and then shake their heads while stating, "oh, she couldn't have, she was too weak!" Ellen's father then shares how much he loved her, that she made his world warm and comfortable, she was his One True Thing. As the movie concludes her father attempts to help plant the bulbs and they work the soil together.