Zero Dark Thirty

Zero Dark Thirty was one of my top 2 favorite movies this year with Argo being first.  Regardless of the different hype surrounding the movie about whether they “did or didn’t do” or “should’ve or shouldn’t have”, that aside – this was an unbelievable background story of how “we” captured Osama bin Laden.  It was a lengthy movie, running 157 minutes, but in its’ defense, it took a while to crunch 10 years of spying into this movie.  It’s a look at the people who put their lives on the line every day in the pursuit of Bin Laden.  As I watched, I couldn’t believe all the man power, sweat, and tears that the C.I.A. poured into the constant quest of this man.  They lost men and women of their team to the cause, they fought through the governmental red tape and as the movie tells, one woman made the connection of the missing pieces and found where he was hiding.  As the movie progresses, you know what is coming.  We’ve seen the footage, we heard the president’s announcement that Osama was found and killed. Even with knowing the ending – it took nothing away from this film.  It was intense, sad, gritty, and thought provoking.  It made me in awe of what the men and women of our government and our branches of services do to defend America!  I’m not here to choose a side of right or wrong I went to this movie to see a part of our history and if we’ve forgotten, the movie will remind us as it starts out with a black screen – the theater is dark – you hear the voices of September 11th, 2001 echoing.  The fear, the anger, and the cries of horror as the planes hit the towers.  This movie is in remembrance of what we lost on that day and the complete and total sacrifices “our” people made in the capture of the most wanted terrorist in the world.

Zero Dark Thirty

I have to agree with Christy 100 percent on this one!  It is a VERY powerful movie.  I normally don’t like movies that are portraying actual events soon after they happen, especially when it seems like I just experienced them – but this one felt different.  It was like more “behind the scenes” of finding and killing Osama Bin Laden and what we didn’t see or hear about the operation.  It also didn’t feel like a documentary.  You get to know the characters involved and what they’ve been through just looking for the tiniest shred of information they can link to anything that can be traced to Bin Laden.  Even though I knew what was coming, I loved how the intensity just built and built the entire movie up until the actual raid on the compound, along with how all-consuming those scenes were!  This movie was a great reminder of what the military goes through to allow us the freedom to live the lives we do.  I highly recommend it!

Life of Pi

I liked this movie.  Pi Patel is a boy that narrowly escapes a shipwreck during a massive thunderstorm that takes the rest of his family.  While stranded on a lifeboat, he discovers he is not alone – Richard Parker is also on the boat with him.  But Richard Parker is not a person, he’s a ferocious Bengal tiger they were transporting!  What would you do???  Especially when that tiger starts getting hungry!  I was amazed at what Pi was able to accomplish on that boat without much to work with.  Overall, it reminded me a lot of the movie Castaway as far as being stranded and no human contact.  I can’t even imagine floating on the ocean for 227 days hoping for a rescue and trying to deal with a tiger on my boat.  For being out on the water, the scenery was amazing, too – incredible sunsets and reflections and lighting the whole movie.  There is a lot more to the story, but I feel like it might “ruin” it if I tell everything.  It’s a movie that really makes you think – and I like movies that do that!

Playing for Keeps

Fluff – that’s all this movie is – fluff.  I wasn’t expecting much from it and I wasn’t too far off base.  Gerard Butler plays George, an ex-soccer player who is trying to figure out what to do with his life after all of his success on the soccer field has faded away.  He moves back to the town where his ex-wife and son live in hopes of rekindling his relationship with them.  It’s a pretty formulaic movie as far the as the story goes.  Hot new soccer coach, lonely housewives, hookups and all the while he is trying to make his ex-wife fall back in love with him and be a better dad for his son.  But, as a romantic story goes – all good things come to play.  It doesn’t have a very strong supporting cast in Jessica Biel, Uma Thurman and Dennis Quaid or even a strong storyline but if you need to pass the night or have something on in the background –this would probably fit the bill.

The Twilight Saga: Breaking Dawn - Part 2

This is the end – the end of the Twilight series.  I have seen all the Twilight movies and this one didn’t disappoint me as a Twilight fan.   You know the characters, you know the story, you know how it was all going to end – but yet I wanted to see the conclusion play out on screen. What I liked about it was that Kristen Stewart finally was acting!  Bella was finally a strong character with power, authority, and some depth to her being.  Edward and Jacob took a back seat in the storyline - but it really was Bella’s final story.  The fairy tale that Bella and Edward had been searching for since they first locked eyes across the cafeteria in the first Twilight book was finally complete.  All the characters you came to know were back to take their final bow and the producers put a spoiler in to throw us for a loop, (which I won’t tell you just in case you’re the one person who doesn’t know what it is).  For any Twilight fan it was a movie that is a must.  It was a satisfying ending to a story that swept away its’ audience with the first meeting of Bella and Edward and it ended with the happily ever after that everybody wanted.