The Judge

WE LOVED THIS MOVIE!  It was very powerful.  There were so many storylines that all tied together without being complicated and were so full of depth.  Robert Downey Jr. plays Hank Palmer, a big city lawyer who has disconnected from his family that returns home for his mother’s funeral.  After having as much of his family as he can handle and is ready to leave, Hank gets a call that his father, played by Robert Duvall, is being charged with a murder.  The interesting twist is that his dad had been this town’s judge for many years and is now going on trial – and eventually is represented by his own son, even though they have a very rocky relationship.  This movie was so much more than just a murder trial.  It was about family and their connections, right and wrong, living in the past, looking to the future, forgiveness, life and everything in between.  I connected with many different parts of this film and felt completely worn out after watching it.  It was great!!!
 
Eric and I both agree about this movie – it was great!  I can’t say enough about this movie.  It was enthralling and very touching and I would watch it again.

Gone Girl

This movie wound up getting pretty twisted – much more than I was expecting.  Ben Affleck plays a man who comes home on his anniversary and finds his wife is missing.  The longer the story goes on, the more he starts being looked at as a suspect in her disappearance, and possible murder!  How do you prove you didn’t do something?  Especially when the facts and clues all start pointing toward you, no matter what you say or do.  How honest is he being?  Before long, it becomes a huge media circus that gets out of control and makes finding the truth even harder.  This film made me think about how much we really don’t know about people – only what they “want” us to know.  Also, what lengths people will go to just to protect themselves, no matter how much it hurts others.  There are a lot of different angles to look at this story, and I can’t seem to stop thinking about all of them!

Million Dollar Arm

A sports agent, played by Jon Hamm of Mad Men, is on the verge of losing his business and comes up with the “crazy” idea of getting attention and publicity by going to India and recruiting locals to try out for professional baseball in the United States.  I was thinking that was pretty much what the movie was going to be, but it was more about what happened AFTER they had been selected.  They had never picked up a baseball in their lives, so you know training them won’t be easy, but the story became more about everything else they were dealing with having never been out of India, missing their families and life there along with being thrown into Los Angeles and American culture.  I liked seeing the main character transform from someone who only cared about himself and has always been about the bottom line into someone that actually cared about other people and doing what’s right instead of money and business.  It’s all based on a true story and was one of the better sports movies I’ve seen in a long time.