Welcome to another edition of Five Things Friday. This week I'm sharing five things I've recently seen.
It's strange, but after about a year and half of not seeing anything in a theater, Philip and I saw three movies at our local movie theater in less than a month.
1. Free Guy
We saw this on, I think, the last Monday night it was still in theaters. So we had the theater to ourselves and it was a great experience. (Also, this was the first thing we saw in a theater after a long time of not being in one. So we were more than ready to thoroughly enjoy it.)
I thought I might write more about this movie in a separate post but in case I don't get around to it (likely. Life is BUSY, amirite?) here's a brief synopsis of how Free Guy reminded me of our classical education focus on Truth, Goodness and Beauty (mild spoilers ahead):
The video game world is ugly: violent, rude, and profane. (The movie is PG-13 for a reason, beware!)
Guy ("Blue shirt guy") is sweet, honest, and attractive. (This point is helped along if you find Ryan Reynolds good looking, so YMMV, obvs.)
Mills is looking for her lost / stolen paradise. (A beautiful, peaceful, dare I say perfect, place.)
Guy is growing and changing throughout the story, but he remains good.
At the end Mills thinks Guy is all she wants, but he points her instead to something (someone) greater: "I am the love letter, but somewhere out there is the Author."
And that’s our goal in a classical education: We want our children to find and focus on the True, Good, and Beautiful not as ends in themselves, but to see the Author.
Anyway, like I said: it's PG-13 for a reason. The video game world is not lovely. But for a movie I thought was going to be an action / adventure silliness fest, it turned out to be surprisingly thought-provoking. And if you're Gen X it will likely resonate with you too.
2. Dune
Or, as the fan boys are saying all over my social media: DUUUUUUUUUNE.
Saw this in the theater, as it is intended to be seen. (This is a spectacle.) My husband, being all read up on the Dune books was, um, anxious, to say the least, about seeing this one ASAP. So we did.
I am not conversant with the books. I have seen the 80s Lynch movie and the 2000s SyFy miniseries so I am at least somewhat clear on the Houses / Motivations / Weirdness within.
I am not a Timothee Chalamet fan (he's one reason I'm not a fan of the most recent Little Women movie, but by no means the only reason. Don't get me started!) but he carries his role well here. I bought it. (But I also enjoyed just thinking of him as the son of Kylo Ren and Rey walking across that desert.)
I am an Oscar Isaacs fan and he is tremendous, as always. It's nice to see him have a little more to do than run around, jump into a starship, and talk to BB-8. *cough*
Anyhoo, it's not my new favorite thing and it is too long (I may have checked my phone in certain bits) but it's worth seeing in a theater if you're into sci-fi at all. And yes, I'm glad there will be another movie. And I will see it in a theater too.
3. Rifftrax Live: Amityville 4
This is the other thing we saw in a theater, mere days after seeing Dune. (Who ARE we? We never see two movies in less than a week!)
This was their Halloween movie so...definitely not a new favorite. I watched through my fingers a couple of times. I don't mind scary but I HATE blood and grossness and this had several scenes of both.
But anyway, we're MST3K and Rifftrax fans from way back and we always try to go to these shows if we can.
4. The Courier
This list is out of order because we actually watched this before all these other things. It's good, particularly Benedict Cumberbatch (always one of my faves) and Merab Ninidze (not familiar with his work before this, but he's great here). Plus some of my Brit-TV favorites popped in for a minute. (Anton Lesser, looking at you.)
This is the kind of movie that makes me mad about the Cold War all over again. Here I am, a child of the 80's, thinking I have nothing but love and peace in my heart toward the Russians, and then I watch a movie like this and I just want to yell out my window something like, "Mr. Gorbechev, tear down this wall!" You know, just for the record.
5. The Lizzie Bennet Diaries
Pride and Prejudice 4-eva, have I said that this week?
I know: I'm late to this party. This web series came out in the early 2010s and I missed them somehow. But I watched the entire 100 episodes (plus a few of the extras) in a span of three days so I guess you can say I caught up.
I found some of the updates delightfully refreshing but just a few things didn't really work for me. The acting is kind of like watching a stage play. You can enjoy it but it never quite rises above the "I'm watching people act" feeling.
Gotta say: the Lydia subplot actually made me cry. (I think it was episode 87 or something like that. But Lydia crying "Why doesn't he love me?" Wow. It definitely got to me.) Lydia, overall, is a lot more sympathetic in this retelling than I think Austen meant her to be in the original. But that's OK too.
So, anyway, this is Austen via internet, GRRL Power, and modern eyes. It's clever and mostly doesn't take itself too seriously. (Which is honestly one of my problems with Joe Wright's 2005 Pride and Prejudice. "THIS IS CINEMA. IT IS IMPORTANT. WE ARE IMPORTANT," it shouts at me. But Austen herself basically considered P&P froth, so lighten up movie makers! Beautiful doesn't have to mean pretentious.)
Other stuff
Philip and I are still watching Chuck. We're almost through Season 3, which honestly has not been my favorite season...but it definitely has some high points.
And we're also springing for Disney+ again after many ("TOO MANY" our children might say) months of not having it.
I'm kind of hoping to watch the Mysterious Benedict Society series because I just read the first book aloud to daughter #4 a few weeks ago. The older girls are planning to catch up on all the Marvel series they haven't seen yet. Philip will probably want to watch them too but I am O.U.T. of the Marvel scene with no wish to be dragged back in.
