Movies
Quick reactions to films we’ve watched as a family—ranging from the bonkers fun of Mission Impossible: The Final Reckoning to indie darlings, animated favorites and rewatching Into the Wild with my daughter. I note what resonated (or didn’t) and who joined us.
Loved the Peanuts Movie.
The Martian
Great movie. Very entertaining. As usual, book was better and the movie cut out a lot of stuff but still highly recommend.
Tammy and I went to Ex Machina this evening. Cool sci-fi movie with a very good story. Recommended.
Had a great time watching “The Imitation Game” with #TeamSPS this evening. Fabulous movie about a giant of computing!
Watching Fresh tonight. I have no need to know anything more about this topic. I believe I’ve read and seen all I need to, but it seems too important to not stay focused on it.
Margin Call
I can’t remember where I first saw Margin Call referenced. The movie depicts a 24-hour segment of the 2008 financial crisis. I’m a sucker for high-finance movies (Wall Street, Boiler Room) and knew I wanted to see it right away. Then I saw the cast and that Kevin Spacey was in it, one of my favorite actors. I was happy to see it on iTunes as an “in theater rental” so we watched it in the new family room last night.
It was an odd movie. The movie has 86% on Rotten Tomatoes, which honestly surprises me a bit. I think if you took some of the star power out and just went on the screenplay it would be much lower. Spacey is awesome, as always. The pacing of the movie I think is what had me off. It would go for long moments at a crawl and then without transition speed along. Similar to one of my favorite movies, Glengarry Glenn Ross, there are no heroes here.
If you watch it, share your thoughts. I’d love to know what others think of it. The Margin Call website is one of the better movie websites I’ve seen though.
Moneyball the movie
Last night Tammy and I went to Moneyball. I read the book a while back and really liked it. I was curious what the movie was going to be like since, to me, the book didn’t read like a movie at all. Brad Pitt as Billy Beane seemed odd to me, but was actually really good. Check out the movie, however, I would still recommend reading the book. If you’re just curious about the numbers behind the book in the movie read up on sabermetrics and Bill James. I was a little disappointed that the word sabermetrics wasn’t even mentioned in the movie, however Bill James was given a number of references.
Tammy and I watched Cedar Rapids tonight. It was fine, but not as funny as I hoped.
Away We Go — fun movie, puts a smile on your face.
