A Holiday of Movies

I spent the holidays at the movies. In our early days of marriage, my husband, Dan, and I would spend every weekend at the movies. People would ask us, "Have you seen—(fill in the blank)?" and we would answer, "Yes!"

But in recent years, Dan and I have slacked off in the movie-watching department. Maybe it's because we watch way too much television now, and we don't have time to go to the movies; or we spend more of our weekends attending live theater performances; or during certain parts of the year (e.g., music program time), I just want to crash in a catatonic state on the couch.

Whatever the reason, we reverted back to our old ways this holiday season and watched lots of movies. I won't review the movies though because I like pretty much everything.

On one of early our dates, I remember Dan saying, "Most movies are entertaining, even if they're not that good."

Most of the time, that's how I feel too. We'd make terrible critics.

So here are my non-reviews of the movies we saw this holiday. I guess it would be best to call it a "list" of the movies we saw this holiday. Yeah, I'm basically going to just list off movies now.

The Hunger Games: Mockingjay, Part 1
I kind of wish Part 2 was in theaters now. I haven't read the books, so I'm interested to see how this saga is going to end.

The Theory of Everything
If you participated in the Ice Bucket Challenge in 2014, you should probably see this movie so that you can witness how debilitating ALS really is.

Into the Woods
I was actually impressed with the singing in this film. And I'm not often impressed when actors, not trained musicians, take on some of the most difficult music in the theatrical canon. (By the way, I'm getting ready to perform the role of Cinderella in this Sondheim musical, so this was technically research for me. Can I write it off on my taxes?)

The Hobbit: The Battle of the Five Armies
It was basically one long battle scene. I mean, what do you expect with five armies? It was a good conclusion to a trilogy that didn't necessarily need to be a trilogy.

Wild
I read this book when Dan and I visited Crater Lake National Park last summer. While we were there, we even hiked a tiny section of the PCT, just to say we had done it. Nick Hornby wrote the screenplay, and his characteristic wit and cynicism works well with Cheryl Strayed's story.

Big Eyes
Good biopic. This was a more subtle movie for Tim Burton, but his hand was definitely in it. Expect some quirkiness and humor despite the rather dark subject.

Even though my free time is dwindling, I'm still hoping to see these films in the not-so-distant future: The Imitation Game, Unbroken, Inherent Vice, and Selma.

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