The Help

"You is kind. You is smart. You is Important."


My wife signed up for Audible so she could listen to books for her book club. She put on the Hunger Games series and for Mother's Day I got The Help for her. My commute is about 2-3 hours each day so I listen to them too. I finished listening to the Help a few months ago. It was a fantastic book. I was very excited to see the movie. I know movies are never as good as the book. You can never fit the detail of a 12 hour book into a 2 hour movie. So, keeping that in mind Heather and I went with our friends, the Ainsworths, on a double date.

The Help is a story about a Lady name Skeeter who lives in Jackson, Mississippi in the 1960's. Jackson was one of the strongest enforcers of the Jim Crow laws. Skeeter wants to be a writer and she end up talking to a Mrs. Stein about making a book about being a black woman in Jackson in the 60's. She wants to write this book from the view of the help. This was a bi no-no at the time. Anyone who spoke out for anything close to equal rights was shunned or much worse.

The characters are fantastic. Skeeter is played by Emma Stone. I expect we'll see her in a dozen movies in the next two years. The ladies are played by Olivia Davis and Octavia Spencer. The both are fantastic. It has the usual race film points that make you angry, but also has the parts that make you laugh pretty hard.

As usual the books are more informative and detailed, but this film gets the point across. It is a great starting point before you jump into the book.

7.3 out of 10

Midnight in Paris

"You can fool me, but you cannot fool Ernest Hemingway!"



Woody Allen seems to put out a movie every six months. I never see them not because I don't want to, but more because of their ratings and the fact that they are never played in local theater. When I hear about this one, I knew I would have to see it.

Midnight in Paris is about a screenwriter from LA who goes with his Fiance and her parents to Paris to shop and plan for their wedding. Late one night Owen Wilson goes for a walk and gets lost. He sits down on a step and at midnight a car pulls up and whisks him away to Paris in 1920's. He meets famous writers and painters and a beautiful Marion Cotillard. He begins to question his own life and his relationship to his fiance.

Owen Wilson, Rachel McAdams and Marion Cotillard. There is also a great supporting cast in Cathy Bates plays the great Gertrude Stein, Adrian Brody is an amusing Salvador Dali. My favorite had to be Corey Stoll who played Ernest Hemingway. He was so serious all the time and when he would talk it was like he was reading a paragraph from a novel. I had to laugh.

I thought this was a great date movie. It had all the elements that my wife would like and also enough humor for a guy to like. This was just another good movie to add on to the ever growing list of good movies of 2011.

7 out of 10

Soul Surfer

"I don't need easy. I just need possible."




I wanted this movie to be good. I really did. It did have it's good moments. I liked the surfing. I liked the settings. It was even full of great actors like Dennis Quaid, Helen Hunt and starred AnnaSophia Robb. A movie about a shark attack survivor and her struggle to get back into surfing. If I could change one thing to make this film a much, much better film it would have to cast Mandy Moore in place of Carrie Underwood, or better yet just leave her character out of the movie altogether.

The movie is a true story about Betheny Hamilton a teenage girl who lives and surfs in Hawaii. One day as she is surfing with friend she is attacked by a shark. She loses her left arm. This may seem like a gruesome scene to show in a family film, but they don't show much. The attack lasts all of two seconds. Her recovery process was pretty good. I'm sure that hearing about it from the real Betheny would be better, This movie became a bit too Born-again for me. I'm glad they had a deep faith and that it helped them through it, but most scenes that had her church group were pretty annoying. The story was good enough on its own.

It is a good story overall. I like the tender moments and the scary moments. Unfortunately I liked the idea of this movie more than the actual movie. It is a good family film though. The morals it teaches are great. The support of a family, friends, and a whole community. It teaches kids that all things are possible with determination, support and a little faith. Betheny went on to be a National champion surfer with only one arm. She is an inspiration to many and continues to serve others.

5 out of 10