Movie Reviews

Over the holidays we watched several movies. I, personally, am not a big movie lover. Drew is. He would rather watch a movie than just about anything else in down time. I first got turned off from going to the movies when we moved from Mississippi to California.

We were paying $3.50 for a new movie in Oxford, MS which is basically twenty minutes off a main interstate - in the middle of cotton and soybean fields.  We moved to Redlands, CA - sixty minutes from Hollywood itself and movies were $5.50 to $6.00. I just didn't understand why it was such a price difference.  Just felt like it was just people lining their pockets. After that  I made a point of going to the matinee where the prices were lower or waiting  till the movie came out on video - now on-demand or even waiting until the library carries it for FREE! (love that word)

First up this Holiday season was Alice in Wonderland.  I had  ever intention to see this in Guam (especially when it was on base), but  never did. I was able to find it at the library last month.  By the end of the movie I was so glad I got it for free and did not pay money!  It just was not my type of movie - too dark.

The next round of movies we down-loaded from on-demand - Wall Street Never Sleeps  &  The American & The Sorceror's Apprentice.
All were Drew's choices. I honestly can't say too much about Wall Street Never Sleeps because,  I did sleep - right through most of the movie - which tells you how gripping the story was...or rather not. But it definitely showed the greed that moves so much of our world. 

While I didn't sleep during The American, it was very boring!!  I usually enjoy George Clooney, but this had no action and a story that really didn't make sense to me.  He was an assassin that was on what is to be his last assignment, but ends up being hunted by someone - you're told that's it someone from a previous assignment that went wrong, but you don't really understand how he was tracked down. I just needed action to move the story along. Would not recommend this to anyone.

I did enjoy The Sorcerer's Apprentice, but it was  little dark - had a lot of suspense.  So much suspense that William had to leave the room. He hates suspense.  But this movie did have a good story line - very much a fantasy movie.

Sad to say the best movies of the holidays for us were two made-for-TV and one cartoon.  I took the kids to see Megamind.  So cute - and a good story of good vs. evil and how a villain can turn into a hero. It was actually our second choice. We all really wanted to see the new Narnia movie, but here it was only offered in 3-D. Benjamin and I hate 3-D. So, Megamind it was. And a good choice it was.

We caught Hallmark Channel's "Debbie Macomber's Mrs. Miracle" &  "Call me Mrs. Miracle" - both were very sweet and uplifting movies. Of course, Debbie Macomber is one of my favorite authors, I'm a little bias. All of us enjoyed both of them.

Drew caught a few other movies - but I either read a book through them, slept through them, or just avoided them all together. Or watched football....we did see several football games...even if our team did not make it to a bowl game...there's always next  year, right?

On this Saturday night, I see more football in our future - the Saints will be on in an hour. But later tonight, I'm sure Drew will find a TV movie for us to watch....hopefully, it'll actually have a gripping - or at least a good - story line. And characters that make sense. One thing I hate about movies is when characters do things that make no common sense.

I'm not talking about fantasy. I'm all for some of that along with some sic-fi. I'm just talking about good-ole common sense.  We once saw The Recruit.  It was about a young  man being recruited by the CIA.  At one point in the story, the  young man realized he was being followed.  He tries to lose this tail - he ends of on a deserted rail-road tracks where a gun fight breaks out and he kills the man following him. This whole scene made no sense to me. When being followed, why go somewhere where no else is at??  To stay safe, you need to stay in a crowd.  You would think that any fool would do that - but not here.  It's like the writers just wanted a gun fight scene.

Common sense, people! It's not that hard....but then again, maybe it is.