2014: Week 16: Heaven Is for Real

Heaven is for Real

Genre: Drama

Main Players:  Greg Kinnear, Kelly Reilly, Connor Corum

General Gist:  The story of a 4 year old who goes to Heaven as told by his father.  Based on a true story.

Tiff's Take: 
So, I didn't read this book.  To be honest it just didn't seem like my cup of tea.  I'm very open minded about spiritual experiences and such but for some reason I wasn't horribly interested in reading this book.  I thought the movie would give me a good snippet about what the hype was all about and I could call it a day.

Well, I think I would have been better off just reading the book and calling it a day.  I'm sure the movie did not do the book justice in the least.  I wasn't invested in this story at all.  I didn't really feel the emotions that some people might get from watching this.  There was a decent amount of people who clapped when this movie was over.  It obviously moved some people.  Not this girl.  I was actually bored towards the end.  I believe this was an amazing story for the people involved.  But the movie just left me feeling uninspired.  

Tiff's Rate: Don't Bother


Deb's Take:  
Hmm.. This movie was disappointing to me.  I was expecting big, Big, BIG things from this.  I am a very spiritual person.  I believe in the power of miracles, visions, Angels, a greater being and spiritual experiences.  I enjoy hearing people's encounters with things not normal.  I expected whole heartedly to come out of this movie with a sense of peace, and connection.  I did not.  I felt like half of this movie was a sermon.  I felt some sort of lesson was trying to be pushed through the cracks, but in the end got stuck.  Spiritual encounters are meant to be powerful, life changing and awesome.  I believe that this story is all of those things, but the movie deflated the experience.   I felt the acting was good, but the writing and directing was not.  Connor Corum did great!  I also liked Greg Kinnear.  Kelly Reilly was lacking, and sort of annoying, as were many of the supporting roles. The story is amazing, but stick to the book because I feel like the movie ruined it. 

Deb's Rate:  Don't bother, just read the book.

Preview: Pre-screening of  "The Other Woman"

2012: Week 16: Think Like a Man

Think Like a Man

Genre: Romantic Comedy

Main Players: Michael Ealy, Jerry Ferrara, Meagan Good, Regina Hall, Kevin Hart, Taraji P. Henson, Terrence Jenkins, Romany Malco, Gabrielle Union, Steve Harvey

General Gist: 4 women use a new book "Act like a lady, Think like a man" to catch the men of their dreams, while 4 men try to manipulate their actions to "beat" the game and avoid letting the women manipulate them.


Tiff's Take:
I'll start off by saying this wasn't a movie I was exactly excited to see.  The pickins are a little slim right now so this one was our best bet.  Although I wouldn't say this movie was a huge success I will say I enjoyed it a lot more than I thought I would.

I enjoyed the general concept of four different couples with different personalities and how they try to work things out.  It's like taking one of those tests that tells you whether you're a dog, otter, lion or horse.  (I totally made up the animals. :) I don't think those are right but you've probably heard of similar tests.)  I enjoy taking those kinds of tests and this movie reminded me of something like that.  Weird connection I know.  It sounded better in my head.

I did think it was pretty funny too.  Again, not exceptional but I laughed and enjoyed it.  The punch lines seemed a little off at times and I felt like I missed some jokes.  Still trying to figure out why that was.  I hadn't heard of a lot of the actors but they worked well with each other.  The chemistry between them all was decent.  So, my expectations were pretty low but it ended up being decent.     

Tiff's Rate: Matinee

Deb's Take:
We got to go see a movie with mom this week, although I was disappointed in our choices, not much out on the homefront right now.  I, unlike Tiff, was expecting a little more from this movie.  Seemed like it should hit the spot for my ultra relationship personality.  There were a lot of relationship moments, romantic "AH HA's  in the movie, and people were laughing (unfortunately not me really). I don't know what it was about this movie, but I just wasn't into it.  Maybe my humor button was on low, or maybe I didn't get all the jokes.  I will say, it was a little predictable, but generally when it comes to romantic comedies,  I like predictable.  I just wasn't on my movie night game, I think.  I have tried to figure out what the problem was, but the movie really had most of what I love about movies.  The actors were good, there was romance, comedy, a few twists...yet, it just fell short of enjoyable to me. 

Deb's Rate:  Rent it

Preview: Let's hope we can find Something...ANYTHING.....Please?

Week 16: Hanna

This week we saw Hanna.  I thought this looked like an interesting movie.  I was excited to see Saoirse Ronan as the main character.  She was the one in The Lovely Bones and I thought she was really good in that one so I was hoping the same for this one.  And she was good.  She really did a great job of playing this fearless 16 year old with amazing skills.  Although I will say she looked more like a 13 year old. 

The premise behind the movie is that a CIA agent, played by Cate Blanchett, was doing this research to try to make a super army by fiddling with the DNA of unborn babies. (Official terms I know.)  Well, something happened that she had to abort the project as well as all the "subjects".  Hanna was the only one who got away with the help of rouge CIA agent played by Eric Bana.  He taught her all these crazy skills on survival so she could defend herself from Cate's character, Marissa.  Of course, it was action packed and full of suspense.  And can I say that Cate played this southern talking crazy lady very well.  She even creeped me out a little.   

My brother in law said that he's seen a few movies like this with the same general concept so apparently this isn't a super original idea but it was for me.  Maybe if you had seen those other ones this wouldn't have been so interesting.  But I  thought it was well acted and worth watching. 

To Sum it up:  Good acting, creepy characters and kept you on the edge of your seat.