Afterlife movies tend to be amiable in a goofy way, one that ends up tamping down the stakes. Once you’ve arrived in the afterlife, you aren’t going anywhere, and you’re not going to die (not again!). There’s always that moment, early on, when the hero or heroine realizes what’s happened to them and is cosmically jarred, hit by the awareness that there’s no going back. The thing is: The afterlife, in movies, doesn’t look all that different from regular life; that’s why most of these movies are comedies. (That’s the underlying joke.) In Albert Brooks’ “Defending Your Life,” Brooks’ deceased advertising executive visits the afterlife cafeteria only to be
→ Continue reading at Variety
