The Road with Viggo Mortensen, the fabulous king-in-hiding in the Lord of the Rings trilogy. On the surface, this could be the most depressing movie ever made. It's set in a post-apocalytic world, where all of the trees are either a) on fire, b) dead, or c) randomly exploding and/or falling down. No animals exist. Food is scarce. Most of the population is dead. We don't know what causes this armageddon, but it's bad...real bad. So, Viggo is the father and he and his son are wandering through this wilderness, trying to survive. I promise. I will never, ever take green grass or standing trees for granted again. Or food.
Okay, so on the surface it's totally depressing. It's bad. But then, I thought about it a bit more, and with Viggo as a Christ figure it makes a lot more sense. There seems some purpose to it. He gives up everything in order to make sure the child is cared for. So, while it's a pretty bleak picture, there is some hope. A father cares for his son--no matter what. And when the inevitable happens at the end, his sacrifice gives the son everything he needs.
Lessons learned: Don't take grass for granted. Enjoy canned pears. Keep a stash of emergency food in a bomb shelter. Know that life has purpose.
Knight and Day with Tom Cruise and Cameron Diaz. This movie is cute. It's a light spy-thriller movie with lots of fun little humorous elements. Pop some popcorn and enjoy.
Lessons learned: Life gets serious. Goof around a little bit.
This next movie, A Perfect Getaway, was a perfect surprise! This seemed like the average thriller/suspense movie, but it actually had so many interesting twists and turns in the plot that I was totally engrossed. Sometimes with a little persistence, you can find those gems while mining through the boring rock pile of average movies. (There is some bad language in this movie, so parents of young 'uns should be aware.)
Lessons learned: Don't judge a movie cover by the thousands of others made like it that suck pretty bad.
Also, I watched The Beach with Leonardo DiCaprio recently. This one is a bit (okay, more than a bit) bizarre. There's some supernatural-ish stuff going on, as well as some hippie commune stuff, some pretty nasty violence and a beautiful, perfect beach. Eh...probably not worth it, but the images and the concept behind it were kind of cool. Everyone longs for that perfect beach getaway. (This one is definitely not for kids.)
Lessons learned: It's probably not a good idea to get off the beaten path when traveling in Thailand.
For those of you who know me fairly well know that I have never really liked horror movies. But when I had the opportunity to go with my husband, my son, and my son's girlfriend to see Paranormal Activity 2, I decided to suck it up and do it. Spoiler alert: Freakiest scene #1: in the kitchen when the cabinets open (those of you who have seen it know what I'm talking about). Freakiest scene #2: when the baby starts being sucked out of his crib. Not good. The good news is that I didn't have nightmares, and didn't even get freaked out until some (literal) bumps in the night woke me up. Weirdly, these movies scare my husband and son more than me.
Lessons learned: Don't make pacts with the devil. Seriously. Don't.
So, those are the ones I can think of recently. Any good ones you've seen lately?
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