May 24, 1995

Braveheart

Blew me away. The drawn-and-quartered ending is so sad and gruesome, that I don't have the stomach to watch it a second time. Back in 1995, I was still young and naive enough to hope that someone would save Wallace in the end! Many great things about this movie, at the moment I remember that wonderfully evil speech the feudal magistrate gives right before he executes William Wallace's wife Murron (Catherine McCormack). Murron has been arrested for defending herself against an attempted rape by a soldier:
"All of you know full well, the great pains I've always taken never to be too strict, too rigid with the application of our laws, and as a consequence, have we not learned to live together in relative peace and harmony? And this day's lawlessness is how you repay my leniency. Well you leave me with little choice. An assault on the king's soldiers is the same as an assault on the king himself.
And what makes this worse is, the magistrate then quietly admits he executed her in an attempt to flush out Wallace...(Church Street, Harvard Square)

Also On Memorial Day, Through The Years

I have been to the movies on Memorial Day Monday 13 times in 24 years, but it's not a great track record. 
at