Richard Linklater, like Stephen Soderbergh, is something of a divided director. His films can usually be blatantly distinguished as either art house or populist but Bernie, Bernie is something different, this one is an arthouse film about a crowd pleaser. The titular mortician (though that is no longer the preferred nomenclature), Bernie, is just about the most pleasant person that you could ever imagine meeting and not in a schmaltzy of sarcastic way. Even as someone who questions that overwhelming merit of those most mainstream moral virtues (like churchgoing, charity work, etc.) I found him to be utterly adorable. Bernie is laid back, generous and old fashioned, he is the epitome of the Texas ideal and so it comes as something of a shock when he commits a cold blooded murder midway through the movie, even though that is the advertised synopsis. Read the rest of this entry »