When we come across some of the most extraordinary people or find ourselves in the most fortunate situations, we are least looking for those. At times we are presented with the greatest of gifts that, at one point, we could never have imagined and, the next, you can’t imagine how you ever functioned prior. I imagine this is how you might feel when you know you have found your lifelong partner or when you have a child. I’ve had three of these moments in my life. While I have discussed these other two moments very, very infrequently with anyone, there is one that I will share often. It involves my wonderful niece Jessica. Today (February 17, 2013) is her birthday. She just turned 25. She recently married her high school boyfriend. She’s a teacher. Besides me, Jessica is the only teacher in either of our extended families. She is as wonderful of a human being as you will ever meet. She is and has always been so sweet, kind, and intelligent. She’s wise beyond her years but still has this youthful appreciation for life’s little gems. I love her so much and am so proud to be her uncle. I was asked to be an usher at her wedding this past fall, which was one of my life’s great honors. With only a 12-year age gap between us, I do think of her as a little sister as much as I do a niece. I’ll touch on more of this later in this review.
Continue reading The Sessions (2012)
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Life of Pi (2012)
Life of Pi is a visual masterpiece that film purists should not miss. If this movie is all intriguing to you, I recommend seeing it as quickly as possible. To experience the true value of this movie, it must be seen in the theater. The 3D effects are superb, but just as important is experiencing this movie on the largest screen available. As I told a friend, if you only go to the cinema a handful of times per year, there might be better movies to see. I might even recommend a film that isn’t as good as Life of Pi based on your preferences. But if your goal is to see as many great movies as you can in one year, this is not to be missed.
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Zero Dark Thirty (2012)
This review will be brief. Unfortunately, I need to be more well-versed to write a comprehensive review of this movie. I certainly can’t write one as well as a critic who reviews movies as their profession. I’m sure I can’t write one as well as somebody who knows the facts of the takedown of Osama bin Laden. Like the movie Lincoln, this movie is an important educational tool and should be seen by many, but as a vehicle of entertainment, it underwhelms. I told my friends after our viewing that I’m growing a little tired of movies being an hour or longer than they need to be. This is the case with Zero Dark Thirty. Not only was it over two and a half hours long, but it felt like it was two movies in one.
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The Impossible (2012)
The Impossible is flat-out the best movie of 2012. I went into the movie thinking it would be one of the ten best of 2012, but I didn’t think it would crack the top five, let alone take over The Dark Knight Rises. As I’ve stated many times, a great movie has an advantage over other great movies if it is based on a true story. Not “inspired by a true story” or “based upon true events” but “based on a true story.” A great movie can lose a lot in my book if it turns out that much factual information is exaggerated or incorrect. Remember The Titans went from being in my all-time top 25 to fall out of the top 150 because of how factually incorrect it had been. Rather than winning the state championship on the game’s final play, as depicted in the movie, the TC Williams Titans won that game handily 27-0. And while I haven’t sought out any discrepancies between what was shown in The Impossible and what happened, I haven’t heard anybody say that the events were untrue.
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Promised Land (2012)
If you can set aside your belief system for a movie that tries its hardest to be believable, you will enjoy Gus Van Sant’s (Good Will Hunting, Milk) Promised Land. The film takes on a highly controversial topic and an issue that will continue to be discussed more and more in the near future. Because the subject is so contentious and so important, it seems highly unlikely that just two natural gas company executives, played by Matt Damon (The Bourne Identity, The Departed) and Frances McDormand (Fargo, North Country), would be the sole representatives trying to win over a rural town to vote for their company to move in and start drilling their farms.
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