The End of an Era

I came late to the Harry Potter thing; Cindy Lynn’s piano teacher showed me the book and I agreed with her that it looked far too scary for children.  But then Alisyn read it and told me how great it was and I was hooked.  Cindy Lynn, Russ, and I waited eagerly for each new book, fighting to see who got to read them first.  I was thrilled when a new one came while I was on bedrest with the triplets—what a diversion that was!  I also credit Harry Potter with turning Jason and then Josh into independent readers.

When the movies started I wasn’t sure what I thought.  How could books that were so rich, filled with such lavish adventures, be adequately transformed into film?  Some things I liked, others I wasn’t so sure about.  But I would never have missed seeing them.

Most of the movies we saw on opening day with Ken and Alisyn and their kids.  Knowing that we often celebrate exciting experiences with a new Christmas ornament, they gave us a Harry Potter Christmas ornament after the first Harry Potter movie.  I can’t remember exactly what happened but the ornament broke right away, leaving the string attached to Harry’s head and his body/broomstick separate.  Every year we laugh about “Nearly Headless Harry” as we hang his head on the tree and put his body up on the mantle. 

 

I loved the last Harry Potter book.  I was amazed at how deftly JK Rowling tied up loose ends and at the emotional intensity of the final battle.  I was sad to think that this was the last book, but not overly sad because at that point there were still 3 movies to go.

 

Now we have seen the last movie, and it is still hard to believe that it is All Done; that our 14 year journey with Harry Potter is at an end.  We went (with Ken and Alisyn,their kids and Ann) to the IMAX in Raleigh and watched the last movie in larger than life 3D. 

One of the most fun things was that the entire theater was decorated for the movie. 

The movie was amazing.  Terrifically true to the book, and emotionally riveting.  We were exhausted by the time it was all over, and some of us were in tears more than once. 

Now I think my kids are ready to go to Hogwarts.

 

What an adventure—thank you JK Rowling, from the bottom of my heart!

A Week of Movies

It is a rare week if I see one movie.

What does that make this week; a week in which I have watched 4 movies???  (And two of them in the theater?!?)

On Monday for family night we went to Palace Pointe to see Megamind.

 I did not really want to see Megamind.  I did not really want to see any movie.  But, we had coupons for a movie that expired tomorrow.  And being family night, I thought it would be poor form if I told my kids that I would rather stay home and blog. 

So I went.

And laughed, and laughed, and laughed.

Two thumbs up for Megamind!


Thursday our Netflix movie came in the mail.  The last few have been nature documentaries, but this week's movie was Toy Story 3.  I'd heard great things about this movie when it came out, so I was excited to have a family movie night Friday and watch it together.

At the last minute I decided that I didn't want to watch Toy Story 3 last night--I decided that I needed to watch Harry Potter 6 again, so that I would be perfectly up to speed for the big movie today.  Sadly, I couldn't persuade my kids (who all just watched Harry Potter 6 with me last weekend) and so we watched Toy Story 3.

I believe that when Toy Story 3 was in theaters I heard someone say that it made them cry.

You can add me to that club. Cause I bawled like a baby!

Two thumbs up for Toy Story 3!!


As the little kids were getting ready for bed my most wonderful husband grabbed Harry Potter 6 and put it in the player.  What a man--he heard me!

Then he put his head in my lap and slept while I watched Harry Potter 6 again.  By the end I felt quite ready for the movie today.

Two thumbs up for Harry Potter and the Half Blood Prince!!!



Finally it was time for the main event; the 2.5 hours that we've been building towards for weeks now.  All week I have searched for reviews of Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows, trying to figure out whether or not we would take the little kids.  They have never seen a Harry Potter movie in the theater before, but now they've listened to all of the books more than once, and we really wanted to do this as a family if we could.

I finally found some good reviews on Thursday, and based on that information we decided that we would take them.

Here is our happy and excited group.

And here are some of us in shock and horror afterwards...

Actually, the truth was...

We LOVED it!

It wasn't nearly as scary as we had expected.  It was dark, but I didn't think it was as dark as HP6 was.  (And, as I have just mentioned, I'm not an authority on HP6!)  The locket scene did bother me, but I think it just grossed my little kids out without scarring them permanently.  I can't wait to see it again, and we are so excited now for July 15th!

Three thumbs for Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows!!!!


This concludes my week full of movies.  Next week I'll be back to my regularly scheduled (boring) program!

Disney’s Oceans

When we watched Disney’s Earth last year we were so excited to see that this year they were scheduled to release a movie called Oceans.  Now there is the movie for me, I thought…

Russ and I finally went to see it a couple of Saturdays ago.  What did I think?

Not exactly sure.

Here’s what I liked & didn’t like.

Liked:

• beautiful underwater scenes
• beautiful animals
• great shots of unusual creatures
• nice soundtrack

Disliked:

• Pierce Brosnan as narrator.  Just didn’t work for me.
• Narration was a bit forced in several segments.  I personally would have been fine if they’d identified the animal and then just been quiet while we were watching it!

I’ll definitely rent it again for a buck from the redbox.  But I almost think I liked the IMAX “Under the Sea” movie better…

------

After the movie we waited for Josh by the fountain.  I was fascinated by the patterns of water against the beautiful blue sky, and so I grabbed the purse cam and took some pictures.  What I really wanted to do was lay right down on the bench around the fountain to control what I was shooting better, but there were just too many people there.  So I didn’t.  But I still did get some interesting shots.

 

Did you know that that’s what water looks like in a fountain? 

I surely did not!

Movie Review: Hachi--a Dog's Story

Friday night I invited a group of women over to watch "Young Victoria" with me.  One of my friends needed to bring her kids and so I decided to pick up a movie for the kids to watch as well.  At the Red Box I just scanned the family movies, and picked one because it looked like it was about a dog and my kids love dogs.

One of the previews on the "Young Victoria" dvd was for "Hachi," and as I watched it I started to worry.  It looked like a tear jerker.  But Martha was sure her kids would be ok even if the movie was sad, and so I let them keep watching it.

Ninety minutes later my two girlies came downstairs with tear-streaked faces, needing hugs and wanting to tell me how good and how sad Hachi was.

Tonight we all watched it together while I cleaned up my room.  Well let me clarify that.  During parts of it I cleaned my room.  And during other parts I sat and hugged my kids and we all cried together.  Like babies.

This is such a sweet and tender movie about a man and his dog.  The story is actually true—it happened in Japan in the 1920's.  I won't tell you what happens, but I recommend it to anyone who has some kleenex available.  One of the reviews I read (after the fact) said that every single person in the theater who saw this movie was crying— even the men!

PS—there is some confusion as to what the movie is actually called.  Some places list it as Hachiko—a Dog's Story, and some as Hachi:a Dog's Tale.  Or vice versa....

Memorable Movies: The Dish

When Russ asked me if I wanted to watch this movie I was very confused by his description and not really enthusiastic. But a movie is a chance to snuggle up beside him for several hours, and it had been a long week, so I said go for it. I was pleasantly surprised at how much I enjoyed the movie.

When I was a small child my parents watched on their small black and white tv as Neil Armstrong descended from the lunar landing module and stepped onto the surface of the moon. My dad loves to tell the story that after we had watched it on the tv, he took 2 1/2 year old me outside and pointed to the moon, telling me that that man was up there on the moon.

I confidently pointed back into the apartment towards the tv and said "oh no, daddy, he's in there!"

Because of this family legend I've always known that the moon landing was televised. What I didn't know before watching this movie was how difficult of an accomplishment that was. "The Dish" tells the story of the satellite station in Australia that was chosen by NASA to broadcast the moon landing, and of the difficulties that they ended up having. It was definitely a feel-good movie with nothing to object to, and it was also really interesting to see some of the science involved with such an undertaking.

Definitely worth watching if you're looking for an excuse to snuggle with your significant other some night!

Memorable Movies: Racing Stripes

Boy did we have a movie night last night. I'm not sure that I've ever watched 3 movies in one night before, but we did last night! Perhaps not our smartest move since Russ & I were up until 1AM, but we enjoyed it. (We were waiting for the boys to get home from the Halloween dance, so we just kept watching.)

First on our movie agenda was a movie for the kids called Racing Stripes. After watching this movie I can now see why Netflix has labeled our movie watching preferences:

Sentimental Underdog Movies for Family and Children.

Yep, that's us. We are sentimental and we like underdogs. And Racing Stripes fit that description to a T. When I'd seen previews long ago for this movie I was a little uncertain about how I would like a movie with talking animals. It didn't look as cheesy as I'd feared, and some of the animals were quite entertaining.

Racing Stripes is the story of a father & daughter who raise a zebra who 1)doesn't know he's not a horse, and 2)wants to race. The father is overprotective because his wife died in a racing accident, and the other horses are angry that a zebra wants to race with them. It was easy to watch and ended happily ever after, which is of course our favorite ending. I think the little kids loved seeing all of the animals talk. I loved watching the horses racing. Although I must say that a running zebra just doesn't have the same beauty--those long legs do make a difference!

Memorable Movies: Disney's Earth

I've been thinking for a while about adding some movie reviews to my blog. When Cindy Lynn started college and we got real poor, we had to get rid of Dish Network. (And a bunch of other things, including food and electricity. :) ) When things eased up again we considered adding Dish back into our lives, but just never could bring ourselves to do it. Eventually we tried Netflix for a month and decided that it was a better deal for our money. Since then we've had a steady stream of movies come in the mail, but we've also sampled a lot of the movies that are available to watch online. Russ is good at finding obscure movies that we end up really enjoying, and I thought we would pass those finds on to you.

Tonight's movie was the documentary Earth by Disney. What a gargantuan undertaking this movie was. It took 5 years to film, used 40 film teams, and over 2000 days in filming. It is unbelievably beautiful. The score is also beautiful and the fact that James Earl Jones narrates doesn't hurt either. (Though I did see one reviewer say they felt like Darth Vadar was telling him about the earth!)

This isn't an easy movie to watch, though, and I'm not sure it's for young kids. It follows the year long journey of three animal groups; a mother polar bear and her cubs, a herd of elephants, and a humpback whale and her calf. (You know I loved that part!) The film shows that the circle of life often means that for one animal to eat, another has to die, and that when an animal can't find something to eat it will die. Even though it was filmed and narrated gently it was really heartbreaking to watch at times. It might also scare young children to see the great white shark jump 32 feet out of the water! But we thought that part was cool.

I'm going to go watch it again, and then I'm going to watch the bonus "making of" feature. I think this movie is a great tribute to the amazing world that was created for us.

Rachel said at the end of the movie,

I'm glad I saw this movie, so that now I know what nature is really like. I had to learn sometime!

Next year (Earth Day 2010) they're coming out with a movie entirely about oceans. I think I'll have to see that one in the theater!