Movie Review: True Grit

Based on the book by Charles Portis.

Version: 2010; starring Jeff Bridges; Matt Damon; Domhnall Gleeson

Genre: adventure; classic

Plot Summary: [from goodreads:]  “Mattie Ross, 14, from Dardanelle, Arkansas, narrates half a century later, her trip in the winter of 1870s, to avenge the murder of her father. She convinces one-eyed “Rooster” Cogburn, the meanest available U.S. Marshall, to tag along, while she outdickers and outmaneuvers the hard-bitten types in her path.”

My Review: Disclaimer*: I have not read the original book, so this review will not by comparing it to that novel.  Only as a story in and of itself, totally unrelated to the book.  

I’ve been wanting to watch this film for a while, but you should know by now I’ve never been up to speed on pop culture.  I have never seen the John Wayne movie made in 1969, so I cannot compare it to that or the book which (as stated) I have not read.

I could immediately see why this story is such a classic.  The plot sounds like one that could easily be written today.  One could also appreciate the detail and attention taken in the production of this movie.  Much of the story’s tone is cold and austere, the characters are often grungy and hardened.  This gave it a believable feel, taking place in a tough atmosphere and time period.

I was struck by such a quick-witted heroine only aged 14 years.  She is forced to grow up far too early and therefore she is mature and capable.  She doesn’t let any scoundrel monkey with her and isn’t shy in standing her ground.  She makes for a very admirable character!  The question isn’t whether she has true grit, but whether others are up to the task of staying faithful to their word even when the trail grows cold.

I wanted to give thought to the choice of background music.  Orchestrated by Carter Burwell, much of the theme delineates from the hymn, “Leaning on the Everlasting Arms.”  At first I wondered why this choice was made.  The sound fits well in the background, but what about that song connects it to the story?  After thinking about it, I realized that although the film is not overtly religious and many of the characters do not recognize God (except through swearing), our young heroine Mattie Ross does come from a God-fearing family.  Mattie is not after personal revenge per se, something the Lord commands us not to seek.  But she is after justice which is a major attribute of God.  After local officials refuse to take correct measures, Maddie pursues her case with a local bounty hunter.  She wisely chooses a man she believes will not be soft on the matter of holding a wrongdoer accountable… Rooster Cogburn.  He isn’t an easy character to deal with, but Mattie is not faint of heart.

It’s a good thing she isn’t timid because there are plenty of gorey scenes that aren’t so pretty.   This isn’t exactly a family-friendly flick, and also contains some amount of swearing.

But overall, I was glad to be able to watch this movie at last and counted it as a positive experience.  I would encourage fans of both the book and the previous film version to give this a try.  No, Bridges isn’t John Wayne, but I believe he made the character all his own.  I especially got a kick out of Matt Damon’s egotistical Mr. LaBoeuf.

 

Movie Review: The Book Thief

Based on the book by Markus Zusak.

Version: 2013; starring Geoffrey Rush and Emily Watson

Genre: drama, WWII

Plot Summary: Liesel Meminger has been orphaned by the circumstances of WWII and adopted by a new set of parents in a different town.  She is also new at school and ashamed to admit she cannot read.  But Papa helps to educate her as he learns to improve his schooling as well.  Meanwhile, there are other things to be learned while living in Germany during the time of the Third Reich.

My Review: Disclaimer*: I have not read the original book, so this review will not by comparing it to that novel.  Only as a story in and of itself, totally unrelated to the book.  

This was a film that had my interest from the first, but I didn’t have a chance to watch it until a little while ago. The trailer looked so intriguing, and I guess I get my interest in WWII history from my mom.  Plus, it doesn’t hurt that it included the actor Geoffrey Rush in a major role.  His voice is one of my favorites (he played the voice of Nigel the Pelican on Finding Nemo).

The Book Thief was interesting in that it followed the story of a German civilian (Liesel) throughout the duration of the WWII.  Because of the perspective, it sort of reminded me of The Boy in the Striped Pajamas, another film I would recommend.  Liesel is involved with the Hitler Youth and other activities just like many other young people her age.  Her adoptive parents aren’t too particularly anti-Hitler, but aren’t entirely for him, either.  However, they go with the flow as many do and keep the peace.

That is, until a young Jewish man enters their home and they are compelled to hide him in their basement. Liesel doesn’t completely understand what is going on, only that Max is her friend and she wants to protect him.

I really did enjoy this movie, but I get a sense that the book was probably better. There were parts (mostly at the beginning) that I didn’t understand.  Why was Liesel’s mother taken away?  What exactly happened to her brother?  What was the burgermeister’s reasons for banning Liesel?  What’s the deal with the abstract narrator called Death?  Although the story was called “The Book Thief”, that really wasn’t so much of the plot.  It was hard to suspend disbelief when several years go by, yet Liesel and her girlhood crush Rudy don’t appear to get any older.  But I did get a kick out of the Christmas scene in the basement, where the family smuggles in snow, has a snowball fight and builds a snowman.  “This is the stupidest thing I’ve ever done!” Rosa states.  😀  I also really liked the scene where Liesel enjoys a good book at the burgermeister’s library.  The colors, mood, and design are something I would like to replicate someday for my own personal library.

Another thing I appreciated is that the end of the story takes a different twist that I did not expect, as real life sometimes does. It was sad, but not altogether so.  There is not really ‘content’ issues.  This film is based on a YA book and I was glad to see it kept age appropriate.  But there is what you would expect in a story that takes place during such a time as 1940’s Germany, and there are beatings, bombings, etc.

I would recommend this, but parents will probably want to watch it with their kids and decide what age it’s appropriate for.

 

Interview w/ Aaron Fullan

Greetings all!  Are you fan of Heirloom Audio Productions’ G. A. Henty audio dramas?  I confess I have yet the privilege of getting my hands on them, but I can’t wait until I do; they look like great quality stuff.  I came across this on Facebook this evening and wanted to pass it along to anyone else interested.  HAP’s Associate Producer Aaron Fullan will be on Facebook Live on Feb. 24 at 10:30am (CST) answering viewer’s/listener’s questions.  You can find out more here.

Sorry for the lack of posting lately.  I hope to get more free time soon!

 

 

Quote for Nov. 13, 2016

 

Book Review: Kilmeny of the Orchard, by L. M. Montgomery

“She looked like a very incarnation of Spring– as if all the shimmer of young leaves and glow of young mornings and evanescent sweetness of young blossoms in a thousand springs had been embodied in her.”

Genre: classic; drama; romance

Plot Summary: When Eric Marshall agrees to fill in as a substitute schoolteacher in a small farming community on Prince Edward Island, he doesn’t know it will change his life forever.  One evening, while walking through an abandoned orchard, he hears the unearthly music of a talented violinist.  The beauty of the silent girl captivates him, but Kilmeny has been kept hidden away from society because of a dark secret from her past.  Can Eric convince her guardians to allow him to court her?

My Book Review:  It’s been a few years since I’ve read my last L. M. Montgomery novel, and felt like pulling this off my shelf this spring while waiting for my next library book.  It wasn’t long and took less than a week for me to read (I suspect others would easily finish it inside of a day).

This is a typical Montgomery novel—dripping with apple blossoms and roses on nearly every page.  I think L. M. M. is the only author to get away with this!  The story itself is not extraordinary, and I found it predictable and overly dramatic at times.  However, it was a sweet story and I enjoyed it for all that!  I don’t mind reading of heavenly places full of flowers, star-like heroines, and courtship amid the blossoms once in a while!  Sure, I think it unrealistic that anybody could be quite as beautiful as the heroine (and I think it was just the description coming from a biased lover!), but it doesn’t hurt to sometimes have a heroine who is all things gracious and lovely.  I’d take Kilmeny over Kardashian anyday.  I think it would improve the world for young ladies to aspire more toward feminine elegance than the latest pop celebrity.

I honestly think I would have enjoyed this more when I was younger (teens), though I could probably say I appreciated some themes in it more now that I am a little older.  Kilmeny’s sweet innocence in the beginning; Eric, who cherishes her as a valuable person and therefore seeks the blessing of her aunt and uncle even if things could have gotten complicated; Kilmeny’s slow blossoming to life, love, and awareness of herself.  I thought the ending lovely in that Eric considers Kilmeny his greatest glory in life.  Even though he doesn’t want to wait long for them to be married, Kilmeny is wise in knowing she needs time to prepare for their life together.

If you’re wanting a nice, light spring read, this will surely send you into dreamy ecstasy!  You can listen to the audiobook for free here.

 

Movie Review: The Giver

Based on the book by Lois Lowry.

Version: 2014; starring Jeff Bridges, Meryl Streep, Taylor Swift, Katie Holmes

Genre: dystopian; sci-fi; drama; young adult

Plot Summary: Jonas grows up in a community that knows no pain or sorrow… or color or music or emotion. When Jonas is selected to be the next “Giver” in his community, he apprentices with an older man who teaches him the memory of what their community has banned. What Jonas decides to do with his newfound knowledge could change everything.

My Review: I had heard The Giver was a great young adult fiction novel, and had wanted to read it for a while. I checked the book out of the library intending to read it but ironically before I could, my mom and I decided to watch it one afternoon when it was in theaters last year. I knew the genre was somewhat dystopian in nature, but other than that I had no idea what it was about.

This was a very good movie. I still haven’t read the book (decided to give it a wait after all), so I don’t know how it compares. But the film version was very thought provoking without including objectionable content to worry about.

There are some heavy subjects within this story. It makes for good discussion after one has seen it.  It includes themes like euthanasia, totalitarianism, free choice, and abortion. There were two things that particularly stood out to me. One was that it was a nice for a change to see a teenage boy showing interest in and nurturing an infant. It struck me how rarely we ever see that, especially depicted in movies. SPOILER: The second was an observation Jonas makes about the fact that ‘releasing babies [which did not meet with development standards] to Elsewhere’  was still murder, just called by a different name. I turned to my mom and said, “They had the gall to put this in a movie?”  I applaud them for this message.  END OF SPOILER. In a teen movie, to boot! It was not labeled a ‘Christian’ movie, yet I have to wonder if it will have more positive impact on culture than a lot of other recent inspirational films.

By all means, make sure you see this (but preferably read the book first!) as it is a well-made story that I heartily recommend.

 

 

Midday Book Club: “The Giver”

Heads up about the latest Midday Connection Book Club today @ 12:00 CT (listen live online here or listen to program in retrospect, free for up to a year here).  Today Prof. Rosalie de Rosset will be discussing the young adult novel, “The Giver,” by Lois Lowry.  I saw this movie in the theater this fall and loved it, and hope to read the book at a later time.  I can’t wait to hear it discussed!

 

Books That Helped Us Grow Up

Do you have any books that you  remember reading when you were young that influenced you so much that they ‘helped you grow up’?  These are usually the books on our shelves that we keep for years and years, an no matter how many other books we read, buy, and eventually weed out again, these have a permanent place on our shelves and in our hearts.

While thinking what to write on this subject, I was struck by how much we are formed by what we read.  It may seem like just an outlet for entertainment, something to do when we unwind, but really it’s much more than that.  What we are feeding ourselves on a regular basis really does have an impact on who we become.  There are many great classics out there, –both old and new—that are classics for a very good reason.  The younger and sooner we can read these great books that came from great minds the better, for it is in our formative years that we are most influenced.

No other book will have influenced me like the Bible.  This is the ultimate ‘growing up Book’ we all could use a daily dose of.  It was my Little Children’s book of Illustrated Bible Stories when I was small.  They’re simple stories for young minds but teach one right from wrong and about the character of God early on.

I was thinking over the books I’ve read when I was a kid growing up and realized that none of the titles I loved so much were books that greatly stood out to me at the time (or even now) as having made me think “Wow!  I sure am maturing as I read this!” Instead, I think it’s the subtle telling of truth and life in fiction form that has the most effect on us.   That’s the power of a good story, by the way.  Or we could think of the opposite: reading books written by someone with a corrupted worldview will lead to us being subtly influenced by lies and evil.  It seems harmless, but it’s like poison to our souls.  I want to cry when I read the majority of book reviews of today’s ‘popular books’.  They’re so dark with no resolution toward the light.

Books can help us grow in so many ways.  It can challenge us on a practical level.  I remember tackling “A Connecticut Yankee in King Arthur’s Court” when I was in 7^th grade.  It really was a book for a higher reading level than what I was accustomed to (which up until that point mainly consisted of “The Sadie Rose Adventures” by Hilda Stahl).  There were many words I didn’t know how to pronounce, and the wording was a bit thick.  But I persevered because the story was so exciting and I felt good when I finished it.  It broadened my vocabulary and led me to try other classics like the Sherlock Holmes mysteries.

Of course, the most obvious ways great literature impacts us is by modeling what excellent character looks like.  I know I enjoyed the Little House and the Grandma’s Attic series when I was little, and then books like “An Old Fashioned Girl” by Louisa May Alcott and “Sense and Sensibility” by Jane Austen when I got older.  Heroines I tried, and still do, aspire to.  Usually the characters in these books are growing in life as well, and the reader grows along with them.

When the characters in fiction are so realistic we often feel we identify with them, and this can help us feel as though we have a comforting friend in a good book to help us through a hard spot in life. I have a few like that.  It’s why I like the book “Christy” so much, and “Wives and Daughters” by Elizabeth Gaskell.  These heroines are so inspiring and inspiration is a good thing!  It helps us form a vision of who we’d like to become, which is the first step in the growth process.

I realize that a lot of these books are ‘girlie’ books (I am one, after all)!  But there are great character-building books out there for the guys as well.  But this in no way excludes girls from enjoying these adventure classics!  I find that the great ‘guy books’ of literature can teach us females what a true man should be, even if some would argue they are too old-fashioned.  Hey—true manliness is never out of fashion, for the record!  “Ben-Hur,” “Treasure Island,” “Ivanhoe,” “A Tale of Two Cities,” and “The Tenth Man” are all very good books in this gender genre.

I’ve included the titles of many classics in this article, but that doesn’t mean that there aren’t worthwhile modern books that may not even be considered literary classics that can be healthy reads + good fun, too.

What are some of your favorite books that helped you grow up?

 

Journaling Our Journey: 3-D Perspective

Confess: Have you ever read someone else’s diary?  Maybe it was completely fiction, like the popular Dear America books or the Royal Diaries Series I read in fourth grade.  Or maybe it was a published genuine diary of someone famous, like The Diary of Anne Frank, or Bring Me a Unicorn by Anne Morrow Lindbergh.  Perhaps you are fortunate to own the diary of one of your ancestors who moved out west on the Oregon Trail, or lived through WWII.  In any event, we are able to see these peoples’ lives (whether real or fictional) with a bird’s eye view.  We know that the hardships they’re going through won’t last forever; we may know who their descendants are and even more importantly, what happened because of these people’s choices in life.

Sometimes our lives can get pretty discouraging because we don’t know how our story will turn out.  We can’t see in the present moment of our lives what will be the result of our actions today.  What’s more, we’re usually not aware of the consequences our decisions might have on others coming after us.  That’s probably a good thing sometimes, since I’m sure we would become so anxiety-stricken that we would never make a decision to save our lives!  I’m thankful we can choose God to be our Author who sees the end from the beginning, and who can work all things together for our good, even when we make mistakes.

When I get a new blank journal, I wonder what sort of events I will record on the white pages.  Sometimes I even write a little note to myself on a random page somewhere in it where I say something like, “I wonder what will happen on this page?”  When I eventually make my way to that spot, sometimes I’m surprised that whatever it is I’m writing has happened to me and I never would have guessed at the beginning of the journal that I’d be writing about that!  Blank pages can give us hope beyond tomorrow.  Life is not static.  Even when we’re caught in a rut, eventually life has a way of churning something up that will cause us to respond in some way, and then we’re faced with a choice.

A diary can help us view our lives with a little more 3-D perspective.  Sometimes I look at troubled teens in the world and wonder how much good the habit of journal writing might do them.  I know keeping a diary won’t solve the world’s problems.  But I think this discipline (which is usually best instilled at a young age) causes one to ponder the results of their actions a bit more.  Especially if we’ve read others’ personal stories, we start to take into consideration how the people coming after us will view our lives, instead of just living to please ourselves.  Ideally, I think we would like to lives we would like to write down in a book.  No one’s perfect, and a good dose of honesty keeps a personal story human and identifiable.  But in general, I think recording our lives will help us keep in mind to make choices that will leave the world a better place.    Of course, a lot of all this is determined by your worldview, values, and beliefs.  But I don’t know anyone who wants to live their life as a waste.

We don’t intentionally do so, and yet sometimes we go through seasons where we feel just plain stuck for one reason or another.  Keeping a journal can help motivate us to do something worthwhile with the time we’ve been given.  I’ve never tried this, but I’ve always thought it would be interesting to write my journal in third person.  What a perspective that would give one!

How has journaling helped give you a motivating way to view your life?  Feel free to leave comments below!

 

Movie Review: My Brilliant Career

Based on the book by Miles Franklin.

Version: 1979; directed by Gillian Armstrong; starring Judy Davis and Sam Neill

Genre: classic; drama; romance

Plot Summary: Sybella Melvyn is a headstrong young lady living in turn of the century Australia. She longs to be able to follow the path of a career for herself, even though her family is struggling to make ends meet in the country. When she is invited to stay with her wealthy relations, she jumps at the chance … and is reacquainted with handsome well-to-do Harry Beecham. When he starts showing interest in her which leads to a proposal, she is forced to choose between a life a with Harry, or a life of independence.

My Review: Disclaimer*: I have not read the original book, so this review will not be comparing it to that novel.  Only as a story in and of itself, totally unrelated to the book.   When I first noticed this film on Netflix, I was surprised to see that it was only rated PG. What, really? I thought, and decided to check it out. The last time I saw a ‘PG’ on the back of a DVD case I thought it deserved a more of a degenerate rating, so I was watching this with fingers crossed. It turns out that yes, this really is rated PG (in my opinion).

I really enjoyed this movie. I knew nothing about it before I watched it, but was immediately taken in by young Judy Davis’s amazing voice (I’m going to check and see if she ever narrated audiobooks!). Was Sam Neill really that young and handsome once? Oh, yes! I appreciated the slow-moving build up of Sybella and Harry’s romance. Not rushed. Not forced. Not much said. Making them wait. Making you wait. All resulting in a quietly culminating plot.

This is a story that gets you to thinking. SPOILER ALERT: Did Sybella make the right decision in the end? It’s hard to say, and I probably will want to go back and watch this again in order to think more about it. On the one hand, my first reaction is that apparently Sybella knew herself well enough to know that she couldn’t ever be really happy with Harry.  I think that she made the right decision for herself at that time.  Two complete people make for a better, stronger marriage.  Sybella seems to make her choice based on the fact that she knows she would not be able to make Harry a satisfactory partner if she didn’t have some time in which she could figure out who she really was first.  But on the other hand, perhaps Sybella makes a blinded choice based on her self-hatred.  Could it be that she loathes her looks and personality so much that she denies herself and the person she truly loves happiness?  If this is the case, then maybe Sybella still made the right choice in that her persistent dislike of herself (left undealt with) could make a life with Harry miserable.  END OF SPOILER.

Some may find this movie boring. It definitely is on the quiet side, but I was not bored due to the suspenseful build up of the plotline. Sometimes we may struggle with liking the main character, but I chose to see her as an imperfect heroine figuring out life just as I am. She makes a mistake here or there, but we all do. Yay for people who know exactly what they want at age 18 and never change their minds and never regret their choices, but I’m not one of them and neither are most people, I’m guessing.  Undoubtedly some will probably read more into this story than I have when it comes to themes of feminism. I just took the story as I saw it..

Have you seen My Brilliant Career?  What did you think of it?  Share your thoughts below!