Movies

I was gonna put some sort of cool-sounding clever title, but I realized that'd be really cheesy and stereotypical for a blog, so I ditched the idea.

Em and I talked a while back about getting basic cable for our apartment. We only were paying for internet and DVD collection, and Emily and Grace were getting bored with the selection during the daytime (or Emily was getting bored of Grace's collection). We settled on a Netflix Account with two DVDs at a time plus all their online movies. It's been pretty good. Works well for all of us. With Hulu still hanging on with free watching, we're pretty set. And Netflix exposes us to all sorts of movies we've forgotten about or would never consider watching. Plus they have tons of Nick Jr and PBS kids shows on there for Grace to watch.

Here's my quick reviews of some of what we've watched lately:

Empire of the Sun- Christian Bale's first movie and he's a semi-pubescent teenager playing an English brat living in English neighborhoods in WWII China and getting separated from his parents and living in internment camps, etc. Cool, historical fiction but ends kinda weird and abrupt.

The Jane Austen Book Club-fun romantic movie. I'd probably get more out of it if I knew Northanger Abbey and the other one book they focus on but can't think of the title right now. Emily and I are in agreement that Grigg makes us both think of me, at least in personality. It's weird, but I dig it. Doesn't happen often where you see someone on screen that reminds you of yourself.

Step Up 2: The Streets-mostly cool with some cool dancing, mostly B-Boy crew type stuff, and contrived unbelievable ending. A large number of the cooler dance moves were Michael Jackson type moves, and it works well (the guy could move, more people should copy him). The main character reminds me a great deal of my youngest sister.

Speed Racer-this movie's just friggin' cool. Light-hearted, purposefully fun, bright eye-catching and appealing cinemotography and effects, with an amazing amount of extremely well-thought-out detail thrown into the more subtle aspects that make it awesome to watch. Like the side panels of the race course that turn into animations when the view points sideways, or the amazingly mind-blowing maneuvers Speed pulls off in the car that obviously required some genius choreography just to think of. It's like watching a full-on kung fu fight, but wait, they're in cars!

Beyond the Gates of Splendor-documentary about 5 American Christian missionaries living in the Amazon who get killed by a remote violent tribe in the 1950's and how their wives and kids end up teaching the tribe about the Bible, living with the tribe, and becoming family to this clan that had killed their husbands and fathers. Pretty cool. The documentary takes some work to follow the style of storytelling and for some reason it's listed as being 90 minutes long but was really only 40.

Peter and the Wolf-modern day, stop-motion, version of the story with the very familiar score and music. Won an oscar for best animated film. Only 30 minutes. Excellent, highly recommended. Not as kid friendly as the old Disney cartoon version. Grace and I watched both together and she very much liked the cartoon better.

Empire Records-I guiltily admit this was a really fun movie to watch. Deals with lots of teenage-high school-coming of age-figuring life out-having a good time stuff centered on the employees of a record store the day before it is going to be sold to a large chain franchise. It very much deserves its PG-13 rating, but is typical of what I remember about high school (or what I remember everyone else going through during high school).

Forever Strong-about Highland, UT Highland High School multi-championship rugby team. Em and I really liked it. Definitely worth a watch. A troubled rugby-player from Flagstaff gets sent to a juvenile detention center in Salt Lake, and gets a chance to practice with the Highland rugby team. He learns the "secrets" to their success and changes his own life to match his teammates before getting sent back home and having to take what he learned with him to permanently change his life for the better.

And to reward the patient few who read this far, here's a couple of pics for your trouble. One is of me learning to give local anesthesia on a classmate, the other I found on the web and thought it was a major WIN.