Year of Learning: The Thin Man

Well... this is odd... I am writing about this movie twice in the same year. I did the movie earlier this year when Alaina finally got the chance to watch it. When I found out that this was originally a book I really wanted to read it. I wanted to see everything play out in it's ending and how Nick and Nora interact with each other.

Ladies and Gentleman The Thin Man. 

Like I said I was really excited about reading this book. That is until I read the other books that were in this type of drama and I was regretting it. The other books were really hard to get through and I didn't care for them much. Thankfully when it came to this book I didn't have any problem getting into it. I really did like reading this book. It helped me to understand the characters a little bit better and to follow along with what was happening.

The relationship between Nick and Nora was great in the book but when putting it from book to screen they made it funnier and they made more fun. Which is fine by me cause I hope to have a relationship like theirs one day.

There was one part of this book that I was really looking forward to reading. The end! The part  is the movie where all of the suspects are invited to dinner and then he talks about how it was done and who the culprit was! I was really disappointed when they didn't happen in the book! Like that was what I was waiting for and it wasn't there! I guess that is alright because it worked out really well for the movie!

I have to say that the book was great but this is one time I have to say the movie was better.

Tome Hanks Hustle: A Beautiful Day in the Neighborhood

Toward the end of 2018 I heard that Tom Hanks was going to be playing Fred Rogers. At the time I honestly could not believe there was a better person out there to play him.

Then after seeing the trailer I knew they could not have picked a better person! When I was younger I did watch some of Mister Rogers' Neighborhood but not a ton of it. It's really been when I joined facebook and all of the wonderful stored about Fred Rogers started to go viral and I got to see more of the show. I got to know more about him and his life. When I read up more about him and saw the videos all it did was make me wonder why a movie about this man has not yet been done before! 

I am very pleased to say that this movie was excellent! 

As great as the advertising was the this movie is really failed to mention what the movie was about. Yes, it's about Mister Rogers but not about his life or the work he did, or how he saved PBS. The story is really about Lloyd Vogel. Mr. Vogel was sent by the Magazine he works for, Esquire, to do a segment about heroes. One of the people that they wanted interviewed was Mister Rogers. Vogel got the job because Fred Rogers was the only one person willing to be interviewed by him. Vogel has a reputation for digging up some not great information on the people he was interviewing. He met his match when he met Fred Rogers. 

One of the wonderful things that I have read about Mr. Rogers over the years was the fact that he was a hard man to interview. This was because Fred Rogers wanted to get to know the person who is doing the interviews himself so the interviewer became the interviewee. He really did have a heart for people. All people of all the shapes and colors that you can think of not just children. 

It was because of this fact of Fred Rogers that the move rally focused on Lloyd Vogel. It was about his work, and family, and his friendship with Fred Rogers. Yes, we did get to learn more about Mr. Rogers but really we got to see how Fred Rogers' friendship changed one man's life during some big changes in his life. Lloyd Vogel just became a father, and he was loosing his father at the same time.

However, meeting Mr. Rogers really helped him to cope with his anger and confusion in a way he never knew how before. This is what Mr. Rogers' show was all about. Showing how we can express our feelings of sadness and anger without hurting those around us. Doing this really helped Lloyd Vogel cope with how to be a father he never really had and for trying to get to understand his father in a way he wanted before he dies.  

I was really surprised about how well Tom Hanks did as being Mr. Rogers. It was amazing just how he acts and he really seems to become Mr. Rogers. One of the best scenes in the movie was when he asks Mr. Vogel to have one minute of silence. It really was a whole minute in the movie of where everything became silent. Not just in the movie but the whole theater that I was in with people they all got silent as well. I could not hear anyone take a breathe, no one ate their popcorn, no one talked, whispered or coughed. I have seen many a movie in the theater in my day and extremely few bring an audience into one single moment as a unit as that scene in this movie did. To make everyone pay attention to that moment to that silence was not deafening, it was not uncomfortable. It was warm and hopeful. It was how you would feel if Mr. Rogers was really with you in the moment. It was.... Beautiful.

I have to say that this is one of Tom Hanks' best performances. This is one of the best movies I have seen this year. I would be disappointed if neither the film or Hanks were no nominated for an Academy Award. I guess time will tell for that. I think though this is a film that everyone needs to see and enjoy. Even if you are not really familiar with Mr. Rogers it should still been seen. 

 

Tom Hanks Hustle: Toy Story 4

So, I apparently forgot to review the 4th movie in the Toy Story franchise. It's a Tom Hanks movie and I can't believe that I forgot about it!

Ok... 

So there is a reason that it's was forgotten... because it's a forgettable movie. I am not sure why it's was thought necessary to make a 4th movie. Like I did want to know what happened to Bo Peep. I wanted to know she was ok and stuff but I didn't need a whole movie about it.

Then to come to the end of the movie to find that Woody splits with everyone else to go with her! WHY!! We spent 3 movies on the importance of staying together for him to just leave!

Nope. No happy with the movie at all...…..

Best Picture Challenge: Green Book

So, after many months I finally got my act together and watch the Best Picture winner of 2018 Green Book. 

Green Book is about the unlikely friendship between Tony Lip and Dr. Don Shirley in 1962 New York. Tony Lip works security in the Copacabana Night Club. During it's renovation he has to find some temporary work. He gets a call that Dr. Don Shirley is looking for a driver for two months. When he goes for the interview he find out that Dr. Shirley is a famous black musician that is going to be doing a tour in the south. The deep south. He needs someone to drive him to the shows, and also to protect him as well. 

Over the years I have watched many movies that are during this time period in America. Segregation is rampant in the south, laws continue to separate those who are white and those who are not. However, most of the movies during this time are about people who made the biggest strides to change the laws, like Dr. Martin Luther King, or schools that had to desegregate like in the movie Remember the Titans. Manly they are about people who worked they way up to be in the history books and be remembered forever. This really is not the typical story we get from this time period in American History.

Dr. Don Shirley is not the typical story of a black man trying to change the world in the 60s. He is a man who has already mad a name for himself, all across America, for the way he can play music. He is already established, has fame, money, and knows what he likes and what he doesn't. He is someone who is "elite" meaning that he is someone who already has more privileges than most of us, no matter what color you are. That is why I have enjoyed this movie so much. 

I think when we got back and look at our history we think of the people of the past like we are now. We but ourselves into their shoes as much as week can. In school when we learn about segregation it's taught about through the eyes of an everyday American. You don't think about the people who have money or fame. You don't think of the people who have names for themselves. We don't even talk about those much other than when the laws changed and who were the biggest players to get the laws to change. We think about being the the sit ins, the protests, the marches. We forget about the "elites" anyone and everyone who has some sort of privilege in means of money, or fame. We forget about the people like Dr. Don Shirley. 

Again, Dr. Shirley was a very well known man across America. He lived in an apartment above Carnegie Hall, he was famous and never wanted for nothing. We, in our modern heads, who didn't live through that kind of separation of people, don't really think about how he was treated when he went places. I think we just assume, well I did, that he would get a "pass" because he was famous. However, seeing this movie really opened my eyes to that not being the case at all. 

This is a man who volunteered to go to the most segregated parts of our country to perform to the people who did pay him to go. He was invited to some of the most beautifully built homes in the south and was still expected to us and outhouse instead of the indoor bathroom. He would be invited to stay in beautiful theaters to play but not allowed to eat in their restaurants. He was applauded for being on stage and performing music like no one else could but off the stage he was still seen as less than a human being. Dr. Shirley has a special gift that people of today would love to have, and would probably get paid great money to perform, but was not treated with the same dignity off the stage as he was on.

I am not going to forget about Mr. Tony Lip. If you just watch the preview of this film and not the whole film you miss a very important detail about Tony. He is Italian. Now, if you go back to your history books you will remember that, even though their cultures are predominately white, Italians and Irish peoples where persecuted in this country too. So, even though we see that he has people being prejudiced against him he is still prejudiced against Dr. Shirley. He originally declines to take the job because he doesn't like the idea of being a drive for a black man. He tells Dr. Shirley that he has to pay him more and then he will go. After thinking about it Dr. Shirley agrees to his demands and Tony becomes his driver. After spending weeks with him out on the road he starts to see what makes Dr. Shirley so special and get to learn about his life. He finds a friendship he didn't expect to get. Not only that but it changed his perspective about how equal people really are.

What this movie was not quite what I was expecting it ended up being a great movie about friendship, self worth, love and sacrifice.  

The List: #46- Go to an Unexpected Concert

Well, after 11 months I finally get to write one of these! 

I get to cross off number 46 on me list. Go to and Unexpected Concert. 

So, confession I actually changed this listing earlier this year. When I decided to write about crossing these off this year I realized there were a few that I had written down that I didn't really want to do anymore. Originally this was go and see a Taylor Swift concert.

That was back with Taylor Swift actually had good music. 

However, I changed it cause I really don't want to see Taylor Swift anymore. However, there was no one else that I really wanted to see so much to put on my list. So, I decided to put and unexpected concert on there instead to see what might happen. 

Oh and all of the things that did happen. 

I have mentioned before that I love the Tennessee Theatre. Over the last few years I have have been very blessed to get to know some of the wonderful people who work there. Which has been great because they have asked me to volunteer for stuff in the last two years. Last night they asked me to check in VIP ticket holders for their Stars on Stage Gala that benefits The Tennessee Theatre. The star on the stage last night was EmmyLou Harris. 

So, here is how this happened. Last week I was buying a shirt from the Tennessee Theatre (long story won't get into it), when I ran into the head of marketing and the Executive Director for the Theatre. They told me they were just talking about me and asked me to Volunteer to check in the VIPs. I said yes of course! They told me that after I was done helping them that I could go to the concert. 

Now, I have heard of Emmylou Harris but I have not heard any of her songs before. So, I was excited to see someone that I had no experience of listening to before. Her concert was really good and it's was really just about the music. There wasn't a whole lot of lighting or changes of scenery on stage. It felt more like we were at a jam session and she was telling us about her career. 

I have to say that being able to cross something off my list and being able to help my favorite place in the whole world is really the best way to spend a Thursday night. Hopefully, more of those will happen in the future!

Year of Learning: The Fault in Our Stars

So, after SEVERAL months of being behind I finally caught up! Well, I caught up to the month I am supposed to be at, November, but I have not read the November book yet. We will be caught up for sure very soon!

Back to our book for October, The Fault in Our Stars. 

Now, I knew before I ever read the book or watched the movie that it was going to be sad. It was going to be wonderful, but sad. It was going to somehow give hope, but be sad. It would bring joy, but be sad. It was going to be sad, but still more sad than I could have imagined. Still, it was going to be. Just be.

All I knew about this plot of the story was from the movie previews. It was about a girl who was sick, and about a boy she meets. That I knew it was going to be a love story or sorts. That's all though. That the thing about movie trailers these days, they show you how cool the movie looks without actually giving you an idea what the movie is about. 

Here is what I have to say. 

Hollywood really sucks at making a movie based off of a book.

I know that I have already proved this to myself a few times this year, but really they do. The book is 313 pages long. The movie is just over 2 hours. How is it that they can not make a movie longer and give it the same timeline and places for parts to happen as they do in the book. Yes, I have said it already I know they changed things to flow better in for a movie point of view. However, this movie would have been perfect to do for a movie. It's already written in Hazel Graces voice. You are already living these same moments with her in the book. You have have done it in the movie too. You could have had her narrate the whole movie and that would have been great. Yet, they didn't. They let it go. 

The best parts of this story is the friendships that were built. Hazel Grace and Augustus had a beautiful friendship that does go to more, however, the movie missed just how much Issac played into the whole thing. Hazel and Issac ended up have a great friendship of their own that is wonderful and really underdeveloped and all but assumed just happened in the film. There are a great many moments that we never got to see from those two, like Hazel visiting Issac in the hospital after his eye surgery. How they played video games together, or enjoyed each other's company. It doesn't even show how close the relationship of Issac and Augustus had at all. It was like Issac was just a guy to put in when they needed him to move a point along in the story rather than being apart of both their lives. 

I hated they showed the relationship of Hazel's parents to her. They did an okay job of showing how sarcastic they are, in a loving way, to each other. However, the other love that they showed, about how much her dad cried, and how much she knew how tired her mom was, was never played out. Her own feelings about what her cancer is doing to them are never expressed in the movie. 

I think that is what is the thing that doesn't make sense for book to movie adaptations. How is it that they can make these great relationships in all kinds of movie but when it comes to this kind of adaptation it is always missed in translation. I mean the book has it literally written out for you and they miss it by miles. Just because the words used to express the emotion in the book are not spoken by someone doesn't mean they should be ignored. 

I will say this about the book. It was sad, I think I have made myself abundantly clear on that, but it did get me thinking about what our own stories mean when we are gone. Augusts feared "oblivion". That after he was gone who is going to remember him and what was he going to be remembered for. I think we all fear that in a way. We all want to be known for something, or at least have the chance to. However, I know that my name is not going to end up in any History book. I will not be in a hall of fame. I write blog that no one reads, or may two or three do, but even though I will not be known for something I know a part of me will go on. I believe that we are not "self made". We don't come from nothing and we don't become nothing after we are gone. Every one of us has a genetic history, personal history, and while the history of me will never be written. The fact my history exists could inspire someone else to go and be a name in a history book one day. Something I have not yet done could start a chain reaction to have someone in the future make a great change in this world. Even, just smiling at a stranger could give them hope at the right time and place to keep going so they can be the inspiration for someone to do something amazing and be known for it. 

We are all build by the people not only in our everyday lives but by those who we see once and never again. The stories, good and bad, that we read or watch or experience get carried with us and get engraved into own beings and gradually change us overtime to become whoever it will be one day. Our lives are the millions of little things that we pick up from the everyday, from every person, and from the little of moments who don't normally think about. Even what I am writing now, if someone is ever reading it, will somehow be a part of your future later. You may not quote what I am saying, or remember that I said it but it's something that will shape some part of you and might prepare you for something that will be coming. 

One of the best quote from The Fault in Our Stars is "Pain demands to be felt". I like the quote because we often try to hide our pain. We try to ignore it. To Push it down. Pain is something that is hard to keep down for long because it comes out of no where. It's sudden not gradual. It's everywhere at once. It's an instant demand. In order to get through that pain is needs to be experienced. It has to happen. We have to make it's presence known so we will be able to move forward to experience the good in life again. Pain helps us to put our lives in perspective. For without it how would we know the the thrill of all the other emotions without something to compare it to. 

Don't forget dear reader...

While joy, sadness, fear, hope, love, and peace do not instantaneously demand to be known as soon as they show up, they still demand to be felt. For it's in some of these moments that remind ourselves what the pain is good for.