Movie Review: The Grey

Okay, here's the short of it: this is one of the best, most powerful movies I've seen in the theatre in a while. It's the sort of movie that sticks with you whether you like it or not, haunts you, makes you think and keeps coming back to you long after the last moment of the film. I can also say with complete honesty that I haven't been this terrified by a movie,maybe ever. My dad said the last time he had been this frightened by a movie was when he saw Jaws when it was first released.

The Grey is the story of John Ottway (Liam Neeson), a specialist hired by an oil drilling company in Alaska to keep their crews safe from wolves. On the way home from a remote location via plane, a hard-boiled crew from the company crash land in the Alaskan wilderness. The survivors of the crash find themselves in the "kill zone" of a pack of gigantic wolves and must brave the elements, the wolves and each other as they try to survive and make it back to civilization. I heard that this movie was intense. I thought, yeah, I've seen a couple of "Man vs. Nature" movies, I know what to expect. I was wrong.

This Tuesday my dad and I trekked off to the theatre to watch The Grey and it was everything you would want in a thriller: exciting, lots of action, clever moments of innovation from our heroes, chase scenes and people working together to overcome the worst sort of odds. But it was also scary. There weren't a lot of cheap scares, either (i.e. s guy is just talking and SUDDENLY A WOLF BITES HIS FACE OFF ACCOMPANIED BY LOUD MUSIC). In fact, a lot of times the subtlety of the filmmaking, implication and suggestion made it even more frightening, like in one moment where the wolves are just outside the light of the campfire, but when they howl you see their breath rise up into the light. The sound, too... I couldn't believe how much of the tension in this movie comes from the sound of the wolves howling.

Honestly, my dad and I stood in the parking lot for a while after the movie between our two cars, trying to figure out when we should walk away from each other and toward our cars. Because, you know, there could be wolves here in the city parking lot. It's totally possible.

 The amazing thing about this movie, though, is that while it would have been a complete success purely as an action film, it's a great deal more than that. The philosophical underpinnings of the movie are extremely well done, entertaining and thought provoking. It's not a movie about surviving the elements, or wolves, or even man versus nature, it's a movie about love and loss, embracing our mortality, masculinity, fighting for life, the existence of God (and our questions, struggles, fears and frustrations about this question). In fact, this level of the movie made it even more enjoyable. I found that questions that would pop up in my mind ("Would wolves really do that?") were completely silenced by the philosophical and metaphorical levels of the movie ("It doesn't really matter, does it, because that's not a wolf, that's the fact of our mortality. That thing is Death itself.").

 In the days since watching the movie, I've been thinking about it a lot. Not just the movie, but about my own life. Who do I really love in life? Am I treating them the way I should? Getting the time with them that I should, given the fact of my own mortality? Am I ready, when that time comes, to live and die well? Am I brave enough to run toward those who are in trouble and suffering and facing death rather than away from them? Which is all to say: this movie is terrifying, entertaining and profound. We need more movies like this one. It's life changing. I loved it. And, for those of you who want to know about the technical side of things... everything was done well in this film. The writing, directing, cinematography and acting are all beautifully done. The sound was amazing. The effects for the wolves were excellent. It's a great film, and you should see it on the big screen.

 So, if you're looking for a movie tonight, or this weekend, check out The Grey.

 Here's the trailer: p.s. Apparently there's been some manufactured controversy about the fact that the wolves in the movie are hungry forces of nature bent on destroying all the humans. To which I can only say, lighten up, people. That is not the point of the movie. What next? Are you going to complain that the blizzards are trying to kill them, too? Why are blizzards always bad guys? It's not fair. Boo hoo.

Why the movie Limitless deserves cold and unfeeling rejection from you and everyone you know

I went to see Limitless last night, a movie based on Alan Gynn's novel, The Dark Fields. How did I like the movie? Hmmm. Well, if this movie were a person, I would have punched it in the face, made a citizen's arrest and thrown it in jail.

The story is about Eddie Morra, a washed out leech want-to-be author who is living off his girlfriend. Eddie runs across an old acquaintance who offers to help him overcome his writer's block using a new drug that will "unlock his brain's potential." Meaning that Eddie will soon be using 100% of his brain instead of 20%. There are going to be ***SPOILERS*** below. Because you should never see this movie.

Now, let's just stop here. If you had a sudden infusion of brain power that made you five times smarter and gave you, as Eddie claims, a "four digit IQ" what would you do? Go on, pick a couple things. Write a book, maybe (Eddie does that). Solve world hunger? Cure cancer?

Eddie the Super Genius borrows a hundred grand from a violent Russian mobster. Because he's not making money fast enough on the stock market, where he is "quintupling" his investment every day. He's already up to 7 grand. But instead of waiting TWO DAYS to get to over 100 grand he borrows the money. FROM A VIOLENT RUSSIAN MOBSTER. Yes, that's right. Eddie is the dumbest smart person in the world. And then when he immediately quintuples his 100 grand he doesn't go pay the mob off. Because he wants to have a violent run in later.

Now that Eddie has a vicious gangster after him, he uses his enormous brain power to seduce some women, get rich, and make some party friends. Oh, and get his girlfriend back. And keep his other women on the side. And maybe kill one of those girls he meets at a party (he's experiencing some weird memory loss stuff by this point, a side effect of his genius. He's not sure if he killed her ). He does other smart stuff, too, like keep his entire stash of irreplaceable Smart Drugs hidden in one place. In a conch shell on his girlfriend's coffee table. And encouraging his girlfriend to try the drug, knowing that it causes sickness and death if you stop taking it, and he's running out of pills.

At this point, you start to suspect that maybe, just maybe, the filmmakers know what they are doing. You start to think, "Aha, what we have here is an unreliable narrator who is extolling the virtues of his drug because he's a junkie. The drug doesn't make him smart or invincible. It makes him feel smart and invincible. And eventually, like any junkie, he's going to hit bottom. And that will only be right and just and what happens in the real world."

Or, you know, he could easily overcome anything that comes after him, turn his rock bottom moment (which was absolutely disgusting) into a victory, and destroy all his opponents (who are mostly after him because he is the world's dumbest smart guy and he brought it on himself) by TAKING MORE DRUGS THAN THEM. Yeah. That's what happens.

The movie ends with the junkie claiming he's off the drugs. But you sort of doubt it. Oh, and he's on the road to the White House, because he's just that smart.

THE END

I suspect, by the way, that the original ending of the movie might have been bleak punishment for Eddie. Which is what should have happened, and I'm sure that's how the book ends. Thanks, Hollywood, for giving us a "happy" ending instead, where the moral of the movie is, "DO DRUGS! Do them at higher dosages and for longer periods of time and by more insane methods of ingestion than the people around you, and you will be a hero."

Which leads to the ultimate conclusion, which is that the best thing about this movie was the company I saw it with. I had fun, guys, thanks for inviting me. 

Sigh. Here's the trailer.Oh yeah. Robert deNiro does a cameo-ish appearance as Warren Buffet. To show how smart our hero is, that he can outsmart Bobby deNiro.

17 Again

Krista and I went on a date tonight. We went out to dinner and then went to see this movie:



The story is basically "Big" in reverse... a grown up wishes he was small and he becomes a high schooler and has adventures and of course it's a love story and a family story (Etc, etc) but mostly it's about Zac Efron working as a sort of magnet for the money of every young woman who walks near a movie theater. The movie was enjoyable, overall. Genuinely funny in places. I have to admit I felt awkward when I told the movie ticket guy which movie I wanted tickets to see. And I felt awkward again when the thirty or so people in line ahead of us were walking into the same theater and they were all aged 13-17 (female).

But we had a good time.

And since I'm sure anyone who stumbles on this blog post may well be coming from the intended audience I will now include some reviews snagged from YouTube from some young ladies who have posted their thoughts:

"omg. i watched it tonight, and i LOVED it. i am soooooo buying it when it comes out on DVD!!! ahhh, i'm so excited. the scene when he comes out of the car, with his aviator shades on....TOTALLY HOT. i almost hyperventilated in the theater...not gonna lie. geesh. and the movie made me cry in one part...watch it, and you'll know what i'm talking about."

Also:

"omj omj this movie is awsome i saw it today its soo funny my fave part is when zacs dancing with the mom and alex walks in and is like do you always dance with your friends mom? no no no! its soo funny!! this movie rocks <3"

But the point is that I had a good time hanging out with my wife. Yay for dates with my wife!

The Tale of Desperaux -- Movie Review

This last weekend we ended up being invited to a free preview screening of The Tale of Desperaux. Of course the kids were thrilled, so we trundled off to the theatre to see it. After a terrifying moment of perhaps not getting into the showing, we got the last two seats for the four of us.

The Tale of Desperaux is a computer animated adaptation of Kate DiCamillo's Newberry award winning novel of the same name.

It's the story of a young mouse who doesn't fit into mouse society because he wants to be a knight, not a cowardly rodent. He befriends and pledges allegiance to a human princess, and their fortunes are all mixed up with several rats, a castle maid, a chef, some sort of weird food genie, a dead queen and a mourning king.

As for the movie itself, I would say that (unlike many animated films) the best thing about it is probably the voice acting. Matthew Broderick, Sigourney Weaver and Dustin Hoffman all lend their voices, and all the performances of the actors are solid.

By far the worst thing about the movie to my mind was the ugly character designs. Even the characters that were supposed to be cute and charming were unattractive. And the ones meant to be ugly (like the leader of the rats) were so ugly as to be repulsive. Krista felt the same way, that the characters were a bit hard to look at. I think it may be that as CGI is advancing and characters look more lifelike, the exaggerations of certain cartoon styles begin to take on a sort of grotesque appearance. Maybe this is just us, though. The kids certainly didn't notice it.

I could have personaly done without the narrator, as well, who often distracted from the story by telling us the moral behind it by saying things about Forgiveness being the most powerful thing we can feel and so on. On the other hand, if you're going to have a didactic narrator, by all means, let's have Sigourney Weaver.

I actually liked a lot of the scene design... a lot of clever innovations in both the mouse and rat worlds (although my kids could have done without the skulls).

The movie was enjoyable, overall, and moved along nicely. It's not rip-snortingly funny or cute or adventurous. It watches a bit more like a fable... an entertaining story where every character seems to point us to a moral by the end.

At the end of it all, here's the most important thing. My kids loved it. Just adored it. They were thrilled to be there, loved watching it, and were bouncing around afterwards. So if you have kids and you're looking for a family movie, this is the one for you. And I can say without reservation that it was a million times better than that ridiculous trainwreck called WALL*E. Yes, feel free to send me your hate mail, but I was ready to send that little robot to the scrap heap. And my kids were bored in that movie. But they loved Desperaux.

Desperaux is rated G and releases this Friday, December 19th.

Here's the trailer:

BOLT in 3D

My parents and I took the kids to see BOLT, the new Disney animated movie in THREE DIMENSIONS today.

The last movie I saw in 3-D was Captain Eo.

Bolt is the story of a puppy who lives on a television set and believes he really is a super-dog with super powers. Through a series of events he ends up in the "real world" and has to try to save his owner with only the help of a delusional hamster and a cat "prisoner".

The movie was decent. The kids loved it. Little A cried at one point, she was so sad for Bolt. The television-show within a movie concept was a little confusing for both kids, as were the family situations (the owner had a single mom in "real life" and a single dad in "television life", and then an "agent" in real life who had sort of a paternal interaction with the kid). Overall, though, it was fine. Some good laughs, pleasant, no offensive message.

As for the 3D, it was fun to watch a 3D movie again. The glasses they hand out now are quality. Sometimes the movie distracts with the use of the 3D... "LOOK! The rock at the front of the screen is sticking out while the action goes on behind it"... but actually they were pretty relaxed about it, not a lot of things flying out at you all the time.

But let's be honest, 3D movies are meant to involve either space aliens or enormous monsters attacking things. And the best line from a 3D movie remains, "HOOTER ATE THE MAP!"

Tell No One

Krista and I went down to the Fox Tower Regal Cinemas tonight to see the French thriller "Tell No One."

A man's wife is brutally murdered. He's suspected of the crime, but we the audience know he's innocent. Eight years later he receives an e-mail that tells him his wife is alive... but to tell no one because he's being watched.

And that's pretty much all I can say. It was a good movie, nice to have a thriller with a slightly more sedate pace (i.e. not summer blockbuster style). The movie is really a meditation on family, justice and obligation. It was interesting and Krista and I had a good conversation about it on the way home.

Not Rated. There were several violent scenes where Krista needed to cover her eyes, and there was a great deal of swearing in French, also some brief nudity. The movie isn't rated, but I'm certain it would be rated R.

Ziggy Piggy Ziggy Piggy

Tonight we had yet another gourmet dinner, only this time Krista and Shasta made it: risotto! Mmmmm. It was great.

We followed up by watching this movie about a girl who is cursed to have a pig nose (and ears) until someone "of her own kind" makes a lifelong commitment to love her. Her own kind is upper class humanity. I'd heard mediocre reviews of the movie, but actually it was charming, fun and quirky. I thought it was good. Afterward I told the ladies a couple of ways I would have tweaked the ending to make it even better and they told me that I was insane. But that is just the cost of being a genius, you know, so I just broke a wine glass on the floor and shouted YOU'LL NEVER UNDERSTAND ME NEVER NEVER! and went to my room and wrote "I love me just the way I am" in my Hurt Journal about thirty thousand times.

The movie is called Penelope, and I can recommend it heartily. I think you will like it just fine. It's a tragedy about a girl mistakenly held captive on a farm for years and years. Wait, no, it's a quirky romantic comedy. No farms are in this movie.

The Visitor

In a rare travel moment, Krista and I watched a great movie on the airplane today. It's called The Visitor. The movie is about Walter Vale, widowed university professor, who heads to New York City for a conference, only to discover that his long abandoned apartment has been, unknown to him, rented out to illegal immigrants. In a moment of unexpected kindness he invites them to stay, and a friendship begins that starts to return life and purpose to Vale's existence.

The writing and acting are great. The story is powerful and moving. I laughed out loud and got caught up in the story... while on the airplane. Amazing. A movie like this could easily veer into preachy politics, but it doesn't. It's a story about people, and the characters take center stage. The symbolism is carefully planned and almost never heavy handed. An excellent movie that Krista and I both really enjoyed.

The Visitor releases on DVD October 7th, and I highly recommend you watch it when you get the chance.

Here's the trailer:



Rated PG-13 for brief strong language. At a moment that deserves some strong language.

Movie Review: Wall*E

We all know the story:

In the 1980s a robot designed for war gets struck by lightning and develops a personality and a conscience, and sets out to spread his message of peace.

Wait, wait. Let me try that again. Seven hundred years in the future a robot designed for planetary cleanup watches "Hello, Dolly" and develops a personality and a conscience, and sets out to spread his message of -- uh -- holding hands. And planetary cleanup (?). Even more spoilers await you if you choose to read on.

If you are an animation fan, you've already seen this movie. Yes, it's amazing in that sense. In fact, the interspersion of filmed clips into the animated bits is virtually seamless. It simply doesn't look that different than the excellent animation.

The story could have been a five minute Pixar short, however. The short before the movie, by the way, was hilarious and I would have gladly watched a movie about the magician and his trouble-making rabbit.

Things that bother me about movies like Wall*E are mostly related to the lazy world-building. Why did the world have a complete ecosystem collapse to make it uninhabitable for seven hundred years? Why would the first photosynthetic occurrence happen inside a refrigerator, where there would be no light (and presumably no rain)? How would this super plant survive the abuse it receives throughout the movie (including being exposed to hard vaccuum in space? Why did the people of earth have the technology to make enormous spaceships and complex robots but not the capacity to let the robots speak like people instead of like voice modulated answering machines? What has caused the complete collapse of human (and robot) personality to the place that the most affable and enjoyable beings in the movie are a beat up robot and a lone cockroach?

Why is it that even the villain is unclear? Is it the vast Wal-Martish corporation? Perhaps, but they are also the movie's saviors, as they invented Wall-E, kept the human race alive for seven hundred years and then returned them to earth. Is it the robot programmed to keep the human race alive and in space? I guess. He's about as threatening as a rogue paperclip, though. Or perhaps it is the combined forces of ubiquitous trash and an unstoppable flood of human obesity. Not exactly great enemies for a movie of this type.

Which may be why the kids kept trying to go to sleep. And Krista and I kept yawning. Don't get me wrong, the movie had its moments. But they were spread out over too long a period. If you had packed all the good stuff into a twenty minute mini-movie it would have been great. Award-winning, even. But as it stands it starts to give you that "I've been stranded in space for seven hundred years and I just want to go home" sort of feeling.

RATED G. Get a good night's sleep the night before.

He Is Legend

Who wouldn't like a movie about an apocalyptic destruction of human society where only one man is left to fight a horde of light-shunning zombie-vampire thingees? Um. Well. Okay, I can think of some potential pitfalls to making a movie like that. But it's either going to be great or unintentionally funny, right?

Tonight my Dad, Krista's Dad and I packed up into the van and went to see I Am Legend. Krista categorically assured me months ago that she wouldn't be joining me for a screening, which made me a little nervous. Reviews did not calm my fears. But I liked the original novel, I liked the strange but wonderful "Omega Man"... so I entered the theatre with trepidation.

And then... then... it was great. I really enjoyed it. For what it is, I mean, which is a thriller/horror film about the end of the world. The scenes of the destroyed NYC were great, the tension built nicely (in fact I won't need my nightly adrenaline shot tonight). Will Smith acted well, and the script neatly played out the effect of the main character being alone for the last three years.

As a pure popcorn movie I don't think there's anything in the theatre right now that can beat it. Others have said that they found parts of it boring, but I didn't experience that. As it progresses, the film explores themes of listening to God, redemption, transformation, becoming fully human, sacrifice, saviors and the viral power of love to "cure" human society, which gave it something to make it memorable once the lights came up.

I would happily give it a full recommendation if I didn't know that some of you would have nightmares for the rest of your life, wake up in the middle of the night screaming, "MIKALATOS! CURSE YOU AND YOUR MOVIE REVIEWS! AND A CURSE ALSO ON MUTATED ZOMBIE VAMPIRE THINGEES!" To be honest, I just can't abide to have any more curses on my head. So let me say this: if you can handle action films with some intense scenes, violence and blood, I think you'll like this film just fine. Otherwise STAY IN THE LIGHT! Don't enter dark buildings, especially movie theatres.

Rated PG-13 for "intense sequences of sci-fi action and violence," which is a silly way of saying it if you think about it. I mean, why all these descriptors of the violence? How many categories are we going to have? Fantasy violence? Mystery violence? Comic book violence? Why the genre categorization? Is it because most of the violence is perpetrated against barely human mutant critters? Remember, if there's one thing we've learned from the X-Men movies (and that's a big IF) it's that mutants are people, too.

3:10 To Yuma

Saturday night Krista and I went to see "3:10 to Yuma".

It's the story of a broke rancher who, in a moment of desperation, agrees to help transport a psychotic outlaw from the town they are in to a nearby town to catch the 3:10 train to Yuma prison. The rancher needs the money to keep his ranch. And of course the outlaw has a bloodthirsty gang eager to keep their boss from prison and the noose.

Krista and I both enjoyed this movie. Russell Crowe plays a character that is, perhaps, the most riveting and realistic portrayal of evil that I have ever seen in a movie. He's charismatic and enticing. Everyone wants to be with him or be like him. He's friendly and polite, even affable... but it's all punctuated by frightening moments of brutal violence. And there is a price to be paid for making friends with him.

Christian Bale also does a fine job as a man trying to do the right thing, to be a righteous man, when the whole world seems aligned against him. By the end of the movie, I think most sane viewers would see that he is the man to be emulated, not the outlaw.

Anyway, Krista and I talked about this movie for hours afterwards and the next day, too. It has deep themes of sin, redemption and the nature of man, and I think lends itself naturally to discussing spiritual things. It's a great movie to see with a friend and to discuss together.

I highly recommend it.

Rated R for violence and some language.

Bourne for Action

I've seen at least seventy-three reviews of the Bourne Ultimatum that are titled "Bourne Again." I thought I would shake it up (barely) with a different title. Boy am I ever clever.

Just so you know, I really liked the first Bourne movie. A lot. It dealt with complex moral and emotional issues and had great pace and action. The second film I liked not-so-much. And this, the third, I liked somewhere in the middle. It's great so far as being full of action, but completely lacking in any emotional attachment. In other words, you don't really care about Bourne, his quest, his friends, or anything other than when things will slow down enough for you to unclench your fingers from the handrests. But there are some really great action scenes.

So. Decent movie. A little shaky with the whole hand-held camera thing. I couldn't even tell what was happening sometimes in various action scenes. I realize that this is to make it seem as if we were there. You know, "In real life, a camera would bounce around if a camera man were chasing Bourne up a flight of stairs and then jumping out a window." Sure, I know. In real life the camera man would have stopped about ten minutes into the movie to lay down on the sidewalk and catch his breath. But I don't want to see two hours of that now, do I?

Some strange things to notice about the Bourne Universe if you go see the movie:

1) No airbags in any of the cars. I don't care if it rams into a wall going 120 MPH, you won't see any airbags deployed. Why? Because, as near as I can tell, Jason Bourne has gone around to all of the cars that he thinks he will drive or will be chasing him and disconnected them.

2) The agents of the CIA all use flip phones able to send and receive IMs with pictures. But they never, never use PDAs or anything like that.

3) On the other hand, many of them have pistols fitted with movie cameras. That's nice.

4) If you mean business in the Bourne Universe, you better put your jacket on. "Bourne, someone is coming into the apartment to kill you!" "Hold on, let me get my jacket on." Any time an assassin gets a text message to go kill someone he will put down his cel phone and put his jacket on. Do me a favor if you go to the movie and count how many times someone puts on their jacket. I started late and I think there were seven scenes of jacket-donning. Note the picture above: Jason Bourne is walking through a crowd, a gun in his hand and -- GOOD GRIEF! IS THAT A JACKET HE'S WEARING? Someone is in trouble.

Matt Damon says this is the last Bourne movie (for now) and this is probably because (SPOILER) Bourne loses his jacket somehow along the way.

I would like to end this post by thanking the Bourne movies and Matt Damon for kicking the James Bond and Batman franchises in their collective patooties and forcing them to make some good movies again (or finally, depending on your taste). Gracias!

Ditch the Waitress

Here's a tip: don't go see the Waitress.

Marketed as a feel-good romance-ish independent film, I guess it might play that way for some people. The woman next to us in the theater said it was "the sweetest movie she had seen in a long time." But then again, maybe she's never been to a movie before.

Kerri Russel plays the titular Waitress. She's pregnant because her hated husband got her drunk and she accidentally had sex with him. Meanwhile, she falls deeply in lust with her new doctor, who she's seeing because, well, she's pregnant. He's married, too. I kept waiting for some moment of redemption where everyone would find happiness or at least stop destroying themselves. It sort of happens by the end, but not in a way that I found remotely satisfying.

The film itself is well done, well acted, well directed. But the story is unpleasant. It's hard to make a comedy about unlikeable people whining about how bad their lives are, and trying to make it better by having sex. Which, as it turns out, doesn't work. The only character I found engaging and likeable was the crotchety old man played by Andy Griffith, who keeps reading imaginary horoscopes to people that says things like, "Even though you have a snake of a husband, you shouldn't be cheating on him." It was good for a couple of laughs. Okay, I liked the guy who did spontaneous poetry, too.



Hey Lost fans... notice anything creepy about the doctor/lust interest? That's right! It's Ethan! Creepy, isn't it? He loves pregnant women, doesn't he? I suppose the sequel to the Waitress will take place on a mysterious island, where Ethan has whisked the Waitress away to bake pies for the Others. And she will keep having flashbacks to her life in the pie shop.

After the movie, Krista said, "Maybe we should have gone to Ocean's 13." Which is saying something, folks. Ocean's 13 is not on our movies-to-see list. My comment was simply, "That was unpleasant."

So I guess you all owe us a thank you. We took a bullet for you. We watched that thing so you don't have to. If you've been thinking about this movie, my suggestion would be that you go to some restaurant and watch the waitresses there for a couple of hours. Chances are good that it will be more entertaining than this movie.

Rated PG-13 for sexual content, language, thematic elements and because the rating people were hoping that children under 13 might be spared from being taken along to this movie and could perhaps live a happier life as a result.

Movie Review: Music and Lyrics

Krista and I rented Music and Lyrics last night. Or rather, I rented, we watched.

Do you remember the good old days, when British rock, synthesizers and pop ruled? Have you ever owned a "Wham!" album (or wished that you did)? Do you like jokes about Debbie Gibson and Tiffany? Then you will think this film is radical. :P

Krista and I both enjoyed this movie. Drew Barrymore was her usual self. And Hugh Grant was somehow, inexplicably, likeable and charming. How did that happen?

Hugh Grant plays the washed out former member of an eighties band. He can't write songs worth listening to anymore. He gets a chance to submit a song to a famous performer, but he has to write it within a week. He discovers that Drew Barrymore has a gift for lyrics, and soon they are chained to his piano, trying to put together a song that will reignite his career. Of course they will fall in love. Oops, spoiler. Sorry about that.

Krista compared this movie to eating candy. In other words, fun but with no nutrition. She meant it in a good way, though. We all like candy, right? It was a fun, goofy movie. It's not "Footloose" but hey, what movie is able to take on a comparison like that?

RATED PG-13 for sexual content. SPOILER: They have sex. Under the piano. That's right. Under the piano. But it's tamer than some television, folks. ANOTHER SPOILER AND A COMPLAINT: You know, I think that someone should get married at the end of a comedy. This is how we know it's a comedy. In fact, any single person in the movie should get married at the end. So we know everyone's happy. And if it's a tragedy, let's see some dead people. In fact, kill 'em all. Unless it would be more tragic to have someone left alive and feeling sad about all the dead people. That would be acceptable. All that to say, no one dead, no one married at the end of this thing. Is it a tragedy? A comedy? We are left to guess for ourselves.

My children respond to Star Wars (Episode IV)

My kids watched Star Wars for the first time in their young lives. They had many excellent comments to share, but here are my two favorites.

Z, our five (almost six) year old was mostly interested in the Princess angle. Lots of questions about Princess Leia. Also, because I've told them the Star Wars stories before, a lot of questions like, "Does that mean that Luke Skywalker is a prince?" But her best comment was from when she first saw Princess Leia and she said, "Princess Leia has beautiful brown hair like me."

A, our four year old, was reasonably convinced that Star Wars was meant to be a comedy. She told me multiple times that the movie was alernately boring or funny. The boring parts seemed to be the ones that she deemed "serious." The funniest moment in this side-splittingly hilarious comedy came when Luke and Han, disguised as stormtroopers, take Chewbacca into the detention center to free Princess Leia. Then they start shooting everything, and they throw Chewie a rifle and he starts shooting everything, too. Here were A's comments on this:

A: HA HA HA HA! That is funny! Even the dog is fighting.

Me: That's not a dog, that's Chewbacca.

A: The dog's name is CHEWBACCA? Ha ha ha! This movie is VERY funny.

Amazing Grace: Movie Review

We just came home from watching the movie Amazing Grace. Basically, it's the story of William Wilberforce's efforts to abolish the slave trade in the British empire.

You need to go see this movie. I can recommend it without reservation. Go! It's inspiring, moving and beautiful.

Krista and I talked about the movie on the way home and we had a lot of similar thoughts. We were both struck by the power of a "call" in Wilberforce's life, and by the way he stood up for justice and human dignity at any cost. We left the theatre eager to be part of changing the world for the better, and certain that the task is achievable.

In that sense, it's more than a simple entertainment. It was, in fact, entertaining, and we laughed at parts, I had chills once and yes, I cried, too. It was an uplifting and powerful reminder of the power of God in human lives to effect positive change in human society.

So, please accept my highest recommendation that you go see this movie. Take a friend. Take off work and make an office party of it. It's well worth your time.



And, if you would like to be part of the modern day efforts to crush the slave trade once and for all, check out The Amazing Change website.