Julie and Julia – A Movie Review

Based on two true stories, “Julie & Julia” intertwines the lives of two women who, though separated by time and space, are both at loose ends until they discover that with the right combination of passion, fearlessness and butter, anything is possible.It’s not the movie of the year, but Streep and Adams and outstanding, and all the supporting characters are excellent. The screen play is very interesting, and the two stories are woven together nicely. This is is a movie well worth watching.

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Extract – A Movie Review

Joel is one step away from selling his flavor extract factory and retiring to easy street when a freak workplace accident sets in motion a series of disasters that put his business and personal life in jeopardy. We watched this on DVD a couple of weeks ago, and it was reasonably good movie.

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Lovely Bones, The – A Movie Review

Susie Salmon, a young girl who has been murdered, watches over her family — and her killer — from heaven. She must weigh her desire for vengeance against her desire for her family to heal. Lay and I watched this several weeks ago. I really wanted to like it, and while there was good tension, I was overall disappointed.

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Trouble the Water – A Movie Review

This is one of the most interesting films I’ve watched all year, and it is basically an “accidental” film. On the day before Hurricane Katrina–just blocks away from the French Quarter but far from the New Orleans that most tourists knew–Kimberly Rivers Roberts, an aspiring rap artist, turns her new video camera on herself and her 9th Ward neighbors trapped in the city. “It’s going to be a day to remember,” Kim declares. As the hurricane begins to rage and the floodwaters fill their world and the screen, Kim and her husband Scott continue to film their harrowing retreat to higher ground and the dramatic rescues of friends and neighbors.

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Book of Eli, The – A Movie Review

In the not-too-distant future, a solitary man walks across the wasteland that was once America. There is no civilization here, no law. The roads belong to gangs that would murder a man for his shoes, an ounce of water… or for nothing at all. But they’re no match for this traveler. It’s not his life he guards so fiercely but his hope for the future; a hope he has carried and protected for 30 years and is determined to realize. Overall, this movie is probably worth watching, but wait until it is out on video.

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Avatar – A Movie Review

AVATAR takes us to a spectacular world beyond imagination, where a reluctant hero embarks on an epic adventure, ultimately fighting to save the alien world he has learned to call home. Reborn in his avatar form, Jake can walk again. He is given a mission to infiltrate the Na’vi, who have become a major obstacle to mining the precious ore. But a beautiful Na’vi female, Neytiri, saves Jake’s life, and this changes everything. Jake is taken in by her clan, and learns to become one of them, which involves many tests and adventures. This would normally be a film I’d recommend seeing, but suggest waiting to see it on DVD. However, I have to suggest watching it in the theater on a big screen.

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Taking of Pelham 1-2-3 – A Movie Review

In early afternoon, four armed men hijack a subway train in Manhattan. They stop on a slight incline, decoupling the first car to let the rest of the train coast back. Their leader is Ryder; he connects by phone with Walter Garber, the dispatcher watching that line. Garber is a supervisor temporarily demoted while being investigated for bribery. Ryder demands $10 million within an hour, or he’ll start shooting hostages. He’ll deal only with Garber. The mayor okays the payoff, the news of the hostage situation sends the stock market tumbling, and it’s unclear what Ryder really wants or if Garber is part of the deal.

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Being Friends with God

Today in Sunday School, We still going through the Rick Warren book. This discussion was about being friends with God. The discussion went off in a number of directions, and I’m not sure how much I got out of this week. Today is also the Birthday of Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr., so I wanted to work in a reference to that in today’s prayer. I heard a great story this morning on NPR about how King had once been asked, in his teenage years, what he was looking at as he stared out the Window. He was watching the gas lamp lighter going along lighting the gas lights. King said he was watching the man, “knock holes in the darkness.”

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Boondock Saints II: All Saints Day – A Movie Review

When a priest is murdered in Boston, the MacManus brothers abandon their secluded life in Ireland to look into the case. Don’t let the lack of promotion for “Boondock Saints 2” fool you. The plot picks up in Ireland where brothers Connor (Sean Patrick Flannery) and Murphy (Norman Reedus) McManus are hiding out after the events of the last movie. A priest shot in Boston, in the same style the brothers are known for, makes them the prime suspects. Writer/ director Troy Duffy is going for the old-school Charles Bronson-style vigilante movie, and achieves something pretty close to that.

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