Movie Reviews

I saw three movies over this Memorial Day weekend, and unfortunately, not one of them was a war movie, to align with the tradition my husband and I usually try to partake in during this particular holiday!

I just got around to watching the Pride & Prejudice dvd that I got for my birthday. I'm surprised I didn't see it when it first came out - Sense & Sensibility is one of my personal classics. The first time I watched it I had the kids in the room, which meant I only picked up on about every third sentence of dialogue. But Trinity and I enjoyed the dancing scenes and reenacted them with fervor. I got to watch it again in the middle of the night (sciatic nerve issues), but I kept dozing, so I got to see about every other scene that time. From what I've gathered, it was pretty good! My biggest feedback is that if you have seen S & S or Little Women or most of that genre, you have seen P & P. Stoic oldest sister, rowdy second sister, lots of other sisters, affectionate dad. I've heard lots of fussing about how some of the dialogue is not true to Jane's original message, and there is the debatable kiss at the end, but that didn't bother me. I know some of my friends would be incredulous to learn this, but like the movie, somehow I missed reading this novel. I may need to rectify that.

I also watched the dvd for Walk the Line, the Johnny Cash & June Carter Cash love story. As my husband said when he gave it to me, this is required for all Cash home libraries. Johnny and I are fourteenth cousins (seriously!), descending from William the Mariner, the first Cash to live in American in the mid-1600s. Not really relevant to a movie review, but a little fun fact I'm sure you needed to know! I thought it was a very well made movie - not as ugly as I had thought it might be. Joaquin Phoenix, although he didn't sound like Johnny when he sang, did a great job. Reese Witherspoon was amazing! I have always liked her, but her singing and acting abilities shone in a new way in this film.

In a strange alignment of the stars, Allan and I actually got to enjoy a theater experience! Well, kind of. We were on the very front row - a rather nauseating experience actually - for X-Men: The Last Stand. I liked the other two X-Men and this one stood right up with those. The great thing with the X-Men series is that they can kill off (maybe temporarily) main characters and keep things fresh by bringing in new and cool mutants. There were some good surprises along the way. Jean's character bugged me - she stood around the entire movie looking oh-so-domineering, even during most of the big fight scenes. I had heard this was the last one, but they definitely left that door wide open at the end.

So, although none of these movies is life-changing in its spectacularity (I think I just made up a word), I liked them all and would recommend each in their own way. Enjoy!

Three Weeks With My Brother

For some reason I'm a little embarrassed to post about a Nicholas Sparks book. When I did a little blog search to see who else has reviewed this particular read, it seems that those who read Sparks are just who I thought they'd be...people who adorn their blog with dancing hearts and those who say, "Oh my gawd, I love Nicholas!" Am I being a snob?

[sigh] So, here I publicly admit that I do enjoy Nicholas Sparks books. The guy knows how to put words down in just the right way to totally tug a woman's heart. I think my mom even has a crush on him! She's usually the supplier of this particular drug.

Three Weeks With My Brother is actually one Sparks book that I could totally recommend to the most manly of men. He weaves two stories together in a very nice way. The first is the retelling of an around-the-world adventure with his older brother, Micah (hence, the Three Weeks). The second is the story of his life from childhood up through when he becomes a bestselling author. The reason why I think a guy could really enjoy this story is because of all of the mischief and mayhem he and his brother caused as kids, as well as the struggle to find himself and his career path as an adult.

The aspect of this book that I enjoyed most was getting the backstory to his other novels. He had such a tough road in a very short time, coinciding with the take-off of his most famous stories. Message in a Bottle was inspired by his father's road of grief following the sudden loss of Sparks' mother. Drawing inspiration from his sister's battle with cancer he wrote A Walk to Remember. Immediately after her death he began to pen A Bend in the Road, thinking of his brother-in-law. Each story, especially in those early years of writing, was inspired by a horrific and trying life event.

I humbly recommend this book - for those with hearts on their blog and those without.

Tears of the Giraffe

I did not have high hopes for the second book in the No. 1 Ladies Detective Agency series. Although the first was entertaining and a pleasant read, I wondered how long the series could keep my attention if the strategy was to simply add additional light mysteries for Precious Ramotswe to solve. This installment, though, brought us more into the personal life of Mma Ramotswe, especially with her new fiancee' Mr. J.L.B. Matekoni. We also get to know her secretary turned understudy, Mma Makutsi, an amusing character and graduate of the Botswana Secretarial College.

Alexander McCall Smith, as I stated in the earlier post on the first book, obviously has great first-hand knowledge of this culture. He colors a detailed picture that draws the reader into life of this lady of Botswana. From what I have gathered from his bio and picture, he is a white Westerner. There were times that I would catch myself thinking, "I'm not sure an African would think that". He seems to add a Westerner thought process to his main character in order to teach his audience about African life. I'm just not sure rural, native Africans think about the white experience that much.

Mma Ramotswe found it difficult to imagine what it would be like to have no people. There were, she knew, those who had no others in this life...Many white people were like that, for some unfathomable reason; they did not seem to want to have people and were happy to be just themselves. How lonely they must be--like spacemen deep in space, floating in the darkness, but without even that silver, unfurling cord that linked the the astronauts to their little metal womb of oxygen and warmth...

That one criticism, though, is fairly insignificant to the overall experience. Tears of the Giraffe was another pleasant, easy read.

****