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.

Year of Learning: The Hunger Games

"May the odd be ever in your favor"

The best line to quote from the movie or book, The Hunger Games.

So, way back when this book first came out I had no clue it existed. It wasn't until after the second book, and the announcement of this first move that it was even on my radar. The only reason it was on my radar then was a friend of mine made me read the book.

Now, I read the book because my friend made me. I basically read the book just to get through the book and said I read it. That is how I read the whole series.

There were one or two things that really stuck out with me. However, the rest never retained in my mind. I went to the midnight premiere, you know when those used to be a big deal, and saw the film. I even dressed up. For whatever reason the movie didn't stay with me either. It kind came and went and I was over it. I bought the blue ray when it came out but I don't remember it after that really.

However, I am older, wiser, and I actually wanted to read the book this time around and I missed out on so much the first time.

I was really dreading reading this book because I was thinking "what if I read it just to get through it again"? Thankfully, when I started it was interested and did feel a need to rush through it. There was a lot more background set up than I remember but after watching the movie, and seeing how much was missed, I realized why it was so important. That set up does a wonderful job of setting up relationships, how Katniss sees them, with the people in her life. The love for her sister and father, the coolness to her mom after her father died, the stress of being the one to take care of the family after her father died. Her friendship with Gale, her love of hunting, and how she sees what District 12 is like. It sets up how Panem came to be.

It is all of this set up that shows the depth of her choice to take her sister's place in the Hunger Games. It is also the depth that the movie doesn't fully provide. They do their best, and there is depth here that the rest of the film comes off of, but when you read the book you feel like the people who haven't are really missing something. The fact that we don't get a running dialog from Katniss's head we miss out on so much.

The theme of togetherness was hardly played in the movie at all. When Haymitch, Katness, and Peeta are on the train and going to the capitol they start prove to Haymitch they are fighters and starts to help them come up with strategies. In order to do that he has to know if they want to train with him together or separate and they choose together. From that point on he tells them that they need to be a united from and a team. They need to work together and come into the games as a team. They wear the same outfits in the the opening ceremonies, they hold hands as well (not in a romantic way mind you), they train together at every station in the prep room for the games. They work together to develop skills, and that is something Katniss sees from the beginning. That ever other district how two tributes but they are not a team. They want to beat the other more than anything where Katniss and Peeta want to survive. That is why Katniss finds out that Peeta wants to train alone hurts so much because she was trusting him a little and she thinks that he just ditched her.

Peeta and her's relationship is really something to is so complicated in the book and it being played on screen lacked everything really. In the book there is this constant back and forth from Katniss of trying to act like she falls for her, trying to be "madly in love" and he is doing most of the heavy lifting cause we know that he is in love with her. She doesn't feel that way for him. Peeta does all of the work to make her desirable. Once Haymitch and Peeta know she can't act to literally save her life, Peeta does everything he can to make it real and desirable. In the film none of it is shown as it should have been. Like in the book during the interviews before the games all of the Tributes go out and are called up to do the interview and everyone sees everyone else facial reactions. They all share a stage. So, when Peeta comes out and says he is in love with Katniss she is shocked but also has to play it cool cause she is on camera. However, in the movie they didn't share a stage and she looses it after they are safe away from the public eye.

It's these complications that we don't know the depth of that a lot of small things were left out of the movie. Like when we find out Peeta is working with an alliance to find her and comes out of the tree and smirks like that was the plan all along. In the book she does this and thinks something to the effect of "let the Capitol figure out what that smile means". These loss of inner thoughts also loose to a few facts of "slower" days in the arena. Like she she finds out that Peeta has been severely injured. Or her thoughts on Rue and how much she cares for her. How much of a threat Cato is. Like that fact that he is hunting her down. How much the bow and arrow means to her cause she is "no longer prey". How Foxface got her nickname, cause Peeta says it once in the whole movie but Katniss had been thinking it through the whole book. There is a lot of those character development that are missed for that.

Then there are a some big plot points that not mention but I remember play roles later on! Peeta was really injure the hunger games and lost a leg! He was never the injured in the movie and never went to surgery. Actually, neither of them were hospitalized after the games. They came out, got dressed and went to the stage. Katniss was supposed to have totally lost her hearing in the left ear. While, she went momentarily deaf in both ears in the movie, she got her hearing back. From what I remember the second book that was a big deal! She was going to use that excuse a scapegoat to finding the edge of the arena I think (It's been a while since I have read the books remember). Also, in the end of the book it's reveled to Peeta that this was all act for her. He really is in love with her and she is not. He thought something really changed in the that time together and she realizes she might have the potential one day to love him (which is way more than what she thought she would ever have) but at this moment doesn't. Where in the movie you are not sure if he was ever really in love with her. It's like both of them are an act.

Then in the movie there is the thing that we see what is happening outside of the games at some points. Like when Haymitch tells the person in charge of the games to not outright kill Katniss but make the capitol believe in young love. He is the reason for the rule change during the games. However, in the book we don't know why that happens. Then when Katniss buries Rue in flowers and give the symbol to District 11 they riot. Where in the book we are not sure if they riot or not but they band together and send her bread. She took it knowing how much of a sacrifice that was for them. Also, seeing Gale during the cave scene while she was kissing Peeta gave the idea that was going to be a thing later when in the beginning of the movie there was nothing romantic at all. It was weird seeing what was going on while the games were happening. I know that it there to help set up things in the next movie but in the book we were oblivious to all of this. We were living int he moment with Katniss the whole time.

There are a few things that I like better in the movie than in the film. I love Haymitch! Ok, he was better written in the book but I love seeing Woody Harrelson really is all it is. When I was reading the book I remember who played him and that I all I could see in my head. The other thing that I like more in the movie was Peeta.

Peeta in both the book and movie come from homes that are not as happy as you would think. They both share the same skill set. They both do a really good job of winning the crowd over to like him and Katniss. However, in the book sets up to the plate when he needs to but is really not "take charge" other than when he is in front of the camera. After he is injured and brought back to health he is kinda throwing a pity party the whole time. She complains and wants to go back to the cave, he is easily pushed around. He got on my last nerve sometimes. In the movie. He know when to take charge and when to step back. He doens't throw a pity party ever chance he gets. He has one right after he is chosen to be Tribute and tells about what his mom saying about Katniss winning the hunger games. After that he is determined to find out everything he can to survive. He isn't easily offended and he doesn't seem to be living in la la love land so often. In fact we don't even know at the end of the movie is he loves her or if that was his plan all along.

The very first time I read the book and watched this movie I thought it was the best adaptation I have ever seen. Now, doing both again I see I was completely wrong. The lack of depth of Katniss's thoughts really left me wanting more. I am sure this is something that people who have never read the book would miss but I did. I think I will reread the other two books and watch the movie but I will have to do that later next year cause there will be no way I can before the end of the year. It will be interesting to rediscover all of these books and movies again.

Just Another Movie Monday: Grumpy Old Men

The next movie on Movie Monday we watched Grumpy Old Men. 

Now, I know that I have seen the very ending of the movie. However, watching the whole movie was great!

However, It was extra great cause Alaina recognized Jack Lemmon! Which does this this heart a whole lot of good!!

Anyways, this is another case of great casting! I mean Jack Lemmon, Walter Matthou, Ann Margret! I mean I love all of them!

What I do know there is a sequel to this movie that is going to be great to watch! Which I don't think I have seen any of that movie. However, it's going to be a lot of fun watching this with people I love!

Just Another Movie Monday: What Women Want

So, in the last post I said I liked the movie from last Monday a lot better that Jerry Maguire or however you freaking spell the name.

The movie that we ended up watching was What Women Want. 

Now, I know there was a remake of the movie recently and honestly I wasn't interested in it. However, Jeannie told me that it was going to be great cause the original was really REALLY good!

The fact that the movie started out with Big Band Music, and Frank Sinatra and the Rat Pack singing gave me hope that it was already going to be better.

Then watching all of the names coming across the screen, Mel Gibson, Alan Alda, Marisa Tomi, Hlen Hunt, and so on. I was really excited that this movie was going to be far superior.

AND IT WAS!!!!

Oh my gosh! If I wasn't sold from the music and the cast, I was totally sold when Mel Gibson was totally pulling a Fred Astaire dancing with the coat rack to Frank Sinatra singing!

The only real problem I had was for like half of the movie I was trying to figure where I have heard Mel Gibson's voice before.

Yes, I know Braveheart but I knew that I knew it from a cartoon.

I felt like the worse Disney fan every when I had to look up what else he had been in and find out that he is the voice OF FREAKIN JOHN SMITH in Pocahontas.

However, I am shocked that I have never seen this movie before. Ok, I think I have seen the very end of this movie in passing but I really never knew what it was about. I loved it! I love the cast, I love the music, I loved how funny it was! I loved how sweet it was! I will totally love all of this again when I watch it one day!!!