Killer story, perfect job by Costner, bad movie, I liked it a lot. Go figure. Macfarland is a small California town that dominated in cross-country under the tutelage of a former football coach who figured out how to coach running on his own.
Netflix took this thing over from the BBC (or some British network) and carried on the tradition well I think. It’s the same uncomfortably twisted characters and follows the same uncomfortable story line; both of which are fine with me.
Movies with choreographed violence prompt a guilt response in me. I think they’re cool and enjoyable, but feel that I shouldn’t partake. I do have a tendency to over-indulge at times. This is one of those movies, it got some good reviews and I’ve found myself needing escapism recently.
I contend that Gail and I saw this movie about 20 years ago. She disagrees. After watching it again, I still contend that we saw it in the mid 1990s and she still contends that we’ve never seen it, together at least. Who cares really. Just know that I love (and loved) this movie.
Denzel Washington is a top provider of entertaining violence. You don’t feel guilty watching a shoot-em-up if someone with Denzel’s acting chops is involved. That’s just me rationalizing stuff again, but there is an element of truth to it.
I loved this movie. Loved it. Loved it. Loved it. It could be that I harbor this desire to hike a big long trail like Cheryl Strayed did. Or it could be that I just like messing with outdoor equipment. Or maybe it’s inspiring for me to hear about people pushing beyond their limits. Regardless, this movie hit all those notes smack on!
The story of Louis Zamperini is pretty awesome. The guy ran in the Olympics in 1936, then went to WWII, then crashed in the Pacific and spent like two months on a life raft, then got captured by the Japanese and spent two years in a prison camp, then forgave his captors and ran the Olympic torch through Japan when the Olympics were in Nagano. The movie, however, wasn’t as great as his life, in my view.
It’s interesting to reflect on Chicago-based romantic comedies in my life time. I cannot even come up with a handful and I don’t necessarily thing they’re all that great. Sure, one specifically, could be crowned somewhat of a standby and potentially used as the measuring stick, but I’d probably be ridiculed for making the proclamation.
Gail and I see these Hunger Games movies reflexively. Same with Divergent. We didn’t read the books and we don’t have any sort of connection to the stories really besides the fact that our nieces like them. They’re just kind of cool I guess. It could be the big draw for us is sci-fi, which we seem to consume a lot on the screen but not so much in books.
Gail puts every Colin Firth movie in her Netflix queue. In this one he’s divorced and has a bad relationship with his son, so he fakes his death and heads north from Florida to Indiana in hopes of landing a gig as a “golf pro Arthur Newman.” He’s really just some working stiff who happens to be decent at golf.