I Love a Good Movie

I love a good movie.  I love escaping from my reality for a couple of hours and experiencing another reality.  When I was growing up we didn’t watch many movies…not because my parents were against them…they just weren’t into them.   The only movies I really got to see were the made-for-TV movies which back in the 70s were mostly lame.  I vividly remember the first movie I saw in the tiny local theater in our small town.  I was six or seven when we went to see The Apple Dumpling Gang.  I think we went mostly because my parents were big fans of Don Knotts.  Then, two years later “Star Wars” was released, and I BEGGED and PLEADED to go see it, because every kid in school was raving about it.  It took a good bit of convincing, but eventually my dad gave in, and we went to see it at the same  tiny, old, somewhat dilapidated hometown theater.

It was a watershed moment for me.  The movie both entertained me and scared me a little.  The Cantina scene where the creature gets his arm cut off freaked me out a bit, but it was the movie that made me the movie lover I am today.   I was awed by it.   I drew pictures of the scenes and fantasized that I was Princess Leia for months afterwards.  Now, in a kid’s world  that is testimony that the filmmaker did his job well.

Fast forward some thirty-odd years later and I would definitely call myself a movie buff…maybe not on the level of some, but a buff nonetheless.  I love a good story.    I love how everything looks larger than life on the big screen, and I love it when the actors are spot-on with their acting and make you actually believe they are that character.

Last night I saw the movie “The Help” .  I hadn’t heard of the book or the movie until just a few months ago when the previews started playing in theaters.  I found the storyline and setting (Mississippi in the early sixties) intriguing.  I wanted to see the movie but not until after I’d read the book.  So, a couple of weeks ago I downloaded the book on my Kindle and started reading.

This is a rare observation, but honestly, in this case the movie was better than the book.  I think what made it better is because the film was so wonderfully casted and acted.  There are so many great actors in this film, and the film truly did a wonderful job of relaying what it felt like to be white and black in the Deep South in the 60s.  Of course, the main story is about the discrimination/oppression African-American maids experienced during this time period, but it also balanced that by showing that some employers treated their maids like family.  One featured story is about about how a maid’s employer bought two acres of land just so his maid could have an easier walk to/ from work.  He’d bought the two acres after the previous landowner had threatened this maid with beating/imprisonment for using this land as a short cut.

There is even a CNBC element to it.  *SPOILER ALERT*  One of the maids helps her employer through a traumatic miscarriage  and also becomes her confidant.  She had had multiple miscarriages but had never told her husband about any of them for fear he would leave her. *END SPOILER ALERT*

Speaking of CNBC elements.  This preview that played prior to “The Help” caught my attention:

Innnteresting…

Anyway, sometimes a good movie is a good escape, especially when you’ve been thinking too much about life’s problems (a constant problem for me).  Sometimes a good movie will inspire you make changes in your life, but sometimes it’s just fun to watch a good movie for whatever reason!

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