The Majestic

It’s the early 50s, and an apolitical Hollywood screenwriter (Jim Carrey) who’s just been blacklisted suffers a car accident and forgets who he is. He finds himself in a small northern California town, where he’s mistaken for a long-lost World War II hero whose father (Martin Landau) used to operate the local movie palace. When nostalgia, hypocrisy, and indifference to history converge in the kind of shameless Capracorn manufactured here, one can either be stupefied by the filmmakers’ cynicism or fall for the package hook, line, and sinker. If you’re able to conclude, like the hero, that movies aren’t a part of life anywaywhich is why he can remember The Life of Emile Zola but not who he isyou might take a tumble. I didn’t. Michael Sloane scripted this drama, and Frank Darabont produced and directed; with Laurie Holden, David Ogden Stiers, and James Whitmore. 150 min. (JR) Read more