Movie Review: ***^Hope Floats (1998)

This movie excites me as it is a Sandra Bullock movie.  However, in this movie the worst possible thing that could happen does.  Birdee (Bullock) is at a talk show, where her best friend reveals to her that she and Birdee's husband are having an affair, and he now wants to be with her.  Birdee goes home, and confronts her humiliation.  Birdee's mother (Gena Rowlands) is determined to get her daughter up off the floor by reintroducing her to an old friend Justin Matisse (Harry Connick Jr.).  The focus of the film is the change in the family relationship.  One of the most touching aspects is when Birdee explains to her mother what she liked about her husband.
The movie ends with not everything resolved, but with Hope beginning to float after a long winter.  I like Bullock, and Connick is also very good.  A movie like this is built on relationships.  It makes you want to scream to see a family destroyed due to some selfishness.  However, family lives own.

Movie Review: ****The Age of Adaline (2015)

By some fluke, involving drowning and lightening, Adaline (Blake Lively) does not age.  She has a daughter (Ellen Burstyn), and this movie centers around many years later, when her daughter is an old lady, and Adaline is still a young beautiful woman.  Adaline has always been wary of giving herself to anyone, because she knows they will grow old, and she will not, and her secret will come back to haunt her.  However, she finally falls for philanthropist Ellis Jones (Michiel Huisman).  In meeting his parents a predicament arises.  She is recognized by Ellis' father (Harrison Ford) and she quickly claims to be her grandmother.  Father buys this, but eventually realizes his son is in love with the same woman he loved some forty years before.  She immediately runs, but then waivers.  How can this ever be put right?
I always enjoy Harrison Ford, and the two lead characters truly sparkle and do a great job.  However Harrison's wife (Kathy Baker), who confronts her husband's past relationship, after 40 years of marriage, is the one who really has to act.

Book Review: Ultimate Survival Guide

Ultimate Survival guide for Kids by Rob Colson, Marshall Editions, Irvine, California, 2014.
Some kind of survival guide should be in every reference collection.  This book is Tony's.  It gives ideas for surviving many emergencies.  These include animal emergencies, natural disasters and human hazards.  It also has a section on basic survival skills.

Movie Review: ****Parent Trap (1961)

My kids grew up with Hayley Mills, and this as one of their favorites.  Hayley Mills plays two roles, as twin sisters, Susan and Sharon; daughters of parents who split when they were young, and each took one of the children.  I say that was a lousy resolution, and they were lucky this had any good ending at all.  Father (Brian Keith) is caught in a new romance, and mother (Maureen O'Hara) is coming to save the day.  The girls have a belief that their parents will some how get back together.  However, when new fiance, father and the girls end up on a back country camping trip together, the way is paved for the girls to sabotage everything.
This movie is fun.  Hayley Mills delves into music.  Of course who knows if she is really playing.  However she was also good; and I must admit, I like to see Maureen O'Hara.  She is one of my favorite.

Movie Review: Willy Wonka and the Chocolate Factory

This is one of those classic musical movies.  Gene Wilder stars as Willy Wonka, and from the moment we are introduced to him, and he does the somersault before jumping up; we know this is a special character.  The music is superb.  The candy vendor (Aubrey Woods) sings the most popular song, "Candy Man."  Gene Wilder sings "Pure Imagination" which is beautiful.  And then Charlie (Peter Ostrum) and Grandpa Joe (Jack Albertson) sing "I've Got a Golden Ticket."  Then there are the Oompa Loompa songs.
The story goes that Wonka Chocolates advertises a golden ticket, inviting five lucky children to visit his factory.  It is Charlie's dream to see the factory.  He lives close, but he lives in poverty, and money to buy candy is rare.  As people are selected, Charlie's hopes go down.  The other winners are spoiled Veruca, Gum chewing Violet, TV watcher Mike Teevee, and lastly Augustus Gloop who eats everything.  What the contestants don't know is that Willy Wonka is really testing the children.  One by one the children drop out.  Augustus falls in the chocolate river and gets stuck, Violet eats a gum based meal, and turns into a violet, Mike Teevee turns into a miniature size when he transmits himself over TV, and lastly Veruca is a bad egg.  Even Charlie falters.  He and his grandfather drink a fizzy drink which makes them fly.  They discover burping helps them descend when they are close to the vent fan.  Willy Wonka holds this against them, but in the end Charlie's honesty wins the day.
I enjoy this movie, and I enjoy Gene Wilder.  This is the only movie in which appears Peter Ostrum. He was offered more movies, but chose to become a veterinarian instead.
Roald Dahl wrote the book.  He also wrote the first screenplay.  However he dropped out when a subsequent screenplay was written by David Seltzer.  They also added songs against Dahl's wishes.

Movie Review: ***Dunkirk (2017)

This is a big movie, but in the end, trying to tell too many stories made for a jumbled mess.  Their were air force shots, Navy stories and Army stories.  However at times it was night and then day and then night, and it seems the stories didn't go in sequence, and it was confusing.  However, the point that came across is that at Dunkirk there were people helping people in a desperate situation, and in many instances they sacrificed their own lives.  The story starts a week into the surrounding of Dunkirk, and the Allied forces being hemmed in.  The stories are very compelling, that a a French Soldier trying to get out of Dunkirk, a family and their smaller vessel helping rescue soldiers, and a pilot who uses all his fuel shooting down that last plane, before he is captured by the Germans.  That the British were able to rescue so many, proved to be a turning point.  However this movie shows that many did not make it.  It seems ship after ship was being sunk.  The small boats were really the turning point.

Musical Movie Review: ****My Fair Lady (1964)

This is a musical triumph of major degree.  It also has costuming, form the poor to the wealthy which is fantastic.  Rex Harrison stars as Professor Higgins, the linguist who is determined he can teach anyone to speak proper English, and Audrey Hepburn as Eliza Doolittle, his subject.  Higgins' best friend is Colonel Pickering (Wilfred Hyde-White) and the father of Eliza is Alfred P. Doolittle (Stanley Holloway).  This movie has many catchy numbers including, "Wouldn't It Be Loverly?," "With a Little Bit of Luck," "Just You Wait [Henry Higgins]," "I Could have Danced All Night." "On the Street Where You Live," and "I'm getting Married in the Morning."  There is great fun here, and there is a romance included free of charge.  This musical is a Lerner and Lowe (Alan Jay Lerner and Frederick Loewe.