Movies

Now that we are feeling better, we have ventured out to see some movies.  I would love to see all of the movies nominated for a Best Picture Oscar, but I'll settle for seeing some that look interesting to us.    I should say interesting to me, since Tony has been great about seeing things that I want to see that he may not be interesting in seeing.   

 

So far, we have seen "Unbroken' and "Selma."  How odd it was that while each picture was set in different times and places;  they were strangely similar.

 

Unbroken is the story of an Olympic athlete held in a Japanese prison camp during World War II.  It is a story of perseverance and mental strength.  Selma is the story of the Civil Rights Movement in the '60's.  It too, is a story of perseverance and mental strength. 

 

I enjoyed both movies--they were very well done,  but, I liked Selma more because I lived during that time period.  Let me clarify, I lived during that time, but I didn't know what was going on.   I was shielded from most of it by my parents (my mother would destroy the newspaper if she didn't want us to read about the controversy going on in the world,) so it was interesting to me to see real footage of the march on Montgomery and witness the lack of compassion and, in my opinion, lack common sense and disregard for human life and the law depicted in Selma.

 

I remember a teacher of mine saying, when Martin Luther King Jr., was shot, that "the white people have lost their best friend.  MLK was a minority fighting for civil and human rights freedom in a non-violent way."  I remember my father telling me that if they had only obeyed the law, they wouldn't have gotten hurt.  He said the same thing about the Kent State riots.  If only "they" had followed "the law--the rules."

 

Maybe that's why the "rules" are so important to me.  My father approved of people who followed "the rules."  But, maybe that's also why I sometimes rage against the machine...some "rules" just don't make sense to me. 

 

Both movies made me think...and I guess that is the mark of a good movie.  I thought about people in power during "Unbroken,"  and how power corrupts.  I thought about people without a voice against corruption and how they suffer  in "Selma." 

 

Another teacher of mine said that we study history so we don't make the same mistakes...I don't think we have learned that yet, as we continue to make the same types mistakes over and over.  Go see each movie, they are really good. 

 

Next up, "Black or White,"  a Kevin Costner film that appears to walk the fine line between love and social mores.