So it seems lately I’ve been in a slump with watching or
writing about movies. Not much seems to
be grabbing me like I “have to” watch it.
It makes for a quieter blog for sure but Eric seems to be picking up the
pieces and writing for the both of us.
But, as I have done before in the past, I’m writing about another movie
that I have seen at the theatres but wanted to share my thoughts on it. I have been a fan of the Fast and Furious movie series since it came out. I read that it’s been 15 years since the
first one! Crazy to think that this cast
of characters are still going strong but they are. If you’ve seen any of these films then you
know that they are known for their extreme stunts and cars! But it’s also more
than a “car/action” movie - it’s about family.
You get to know these characters as you do any TV series that you watch. So it was a blow when Paul Walker lost his life in a real life car crash. He had already started filming Fast 7 – and we all wondered how would they finish the movie
and what would they do with his beloved character! Well, unlike real life, his
character survives this movie and the final scene of the film is of him, his
wife, and his son on the beach and his family looking on with tears in their
eyes. It was strange to watch because
you knew this was his last film, his last ride with Vin Diesel and his
character. It was with gratitude, I’m
sure, that the film directors relied on his brothers to fill in the gaps where
Paul wasn’t able to finish. What amazing
brotherly love! They had no prior acting
skills, but yet, they were able to fill in where if you didn’t know, you
wouldn’t have known it wasn’t Paul.
There will be a Fast 8 and it
will be interesting to see where it goes without Paul. But it still has all the things you want from
this franchise – fast and crazy action with genuine respect towards the cast
whom have all become more than friends.
As the movie ended, there is a tribute to Paul and as I sat there it
felt like I just attended a funeral for a friend. But that’s what you want movies to do - to
move you in some way and this movie will stand alone as a bigger, badder, Furious than all . . . but also with the
love that only true friends can give another friend.
Cake
Posted by
Eric
This
movie had Jennifer Aniston in quite a different role than I’m used to her
playing. Her character is Claire
Bennett, a woman who is struggling to deal with both debilitating, chronic pain
and the loss of her child from an accident they’d been through together. After someone from her support group commits
suicide, she becomes fixated on those types of thoughts for herself and starts
acting a little irrationally, along with taking painkillers constantly. She even contacts the husband of the woman
from her group and starts a relationship with him and his little boy when
they’re both trying to deal with their loss.
It was hard watching her struggle every second of every day just trying
to have a normal life when she was in so much pain, but also felt more like
real life than a movie in that way, too.
If you’re looking for “Rachel,” you won’t find her here. This is NOT a happy movie, but if you want
something that is an honest portrayal of how difficult life can be when a
tragedy occurs and you need to pull yourself up and try to move on, this movie
is very relatable. I didn’t enjoy it,
but I enjoyed it…
Wild
Posted by
Eric
Reese
Witherspoon plays a woman named Cheryl Strayed who is completely lost in her
life after enduring a family tragedy and the fallout from that event. When she is at the end of her rope and doesn’t
know what else to do, she decides to go on a thousand mile hike on the Pacific
Crest Trail. With zero experience doing
anything like this and being alone on her journey, it all turns out to be much
harder than she had anticipated. But,
every obstacle she overcomes helps her to find a little more of herself again
and help her deal with all of the feelings she’s been trying to work
through. It reminded me a little of the
movie Into the Wild, except instead of trying to escape all of “life,”
she was just needing a break from her own life for a while. This film also reminded me of that old saying
how “sometimes you have to lose yourself in order to find yourself.” After watching this and seeing all of the
amazing scenery, it makes me want to hike the trail, too!
The Imitation Game
Posted by
Eric
“Sometimes,
it’s the very people who no one imagines anything of who do the things that no
one can imagine.” This line is used a
few times during this movie and it couldn’t be more true! Benedict Cumberbatch did a great job playing
Alan Turing, a brilliant, socially awkward mathematician who is part of a team
assembled to try to break the unbreakable codes of Germany’s World War II
Enigma machine. I also enjoyed Keira
Knightly as Joan Clark, who worked with him and the rest of the team as they
spent all day, every day trying to crack the codes. Turing had a dream of creating a machine that
could go through codes faster than any human could ever dream to – and spent
most of his time trying to create this “computer.” Just as he’s starting to make progress, a
secret he has been hiding his entire life comes to light and threatens to
completely ruin life as he knows it. This
was just a great story of never giving up, not judging a book by its cover and
fighting against impossible odds. They
say Turing’s machine shortened the war by two years and saved an estimated 14
million lives, which is an incredible achievement, and I’m glad the story has
finally been told!
Interstellar
Posted by
Eric
To say this movie
messed with my head would be an understatement!
Matthew McConaughey plays an ex-NASA test pilot that is chosen to join a
mission to find another planet for humans to live on. Earth is no longer able to sustain any crops
other than corn, which will ultimately lead to extinction if no other solution
is found. Lucky for him and his team, a
wormhole has been discovered near Saturn that allows the team to travel through
it into another dimension and galaxy to hopefully find other planets with
suitable environments. As you can
imagine, not everything goes smoothly and it gets a little hard to keep track
of everything when he’s going into all kinds of other dimensions and different
space and time. It’s also a struggle
watching how much of his own life he misses out on with his family and how they
all react over the years to him being gone for almost their entire lives. There were other big names in the movie along
with McConaughey, like Anne Hathaway, Jessica Chastain and John Lithgow, to
name just a few. The movie was also
almost 3 hours long – which isn’t that bad when they’re covering around 100
years of time, I guess. Overall, I did
enjoy it and also thinking about what we would do if that type of situation
does ever arise for us and our planet.
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