The Bucket List (2008, DVD, Blu-ray)

Rob Reiner's comedy about living and dying with terminal cancer finds Morgan Freeman and Jack Nicholson improving upon the manufactured material by the sheer strength of their talent and chemistry. 

This unlikely, feel-good fairy tale allows its two main characters to live out their life's fantasies by compiling a bucket list of all the things they want to do before they officially kick the bucket.

Since their wishes are steeped in financial extremes--no average person struggling with, say, the cost of health care could afford such extravagances--the movie eschews reality for the balm of going out with a bang.

While there is a kind of dreamlike joy to be had in watching these men live out their final days in spite of the unlikely energy they have found to do so, anyone on intimate terms with cancer might be left lifting an eyebrow or two at the ease with which the realities of the disease are dismissed.

Read the full, unedited review here.

Rated: PG-13. Grade: C+