Some Movies Recently

Hope everyone had a great Thanksgiving! Just wanted to recommend a couple movies I have seen recently. On a side note, I loved the latest Twilight and was sad I broke the tradition and couldn't see it with all of you but I saw it in a nice theater in Oregon with my mother in law and sister in law. I loved it, my favorite of all the movies by far. Thought it followed the book well and loved the ending. Tore my heart out and then sewed it back together quite nicely. I was NOT ok with Carlisle dying. I loved how they ended it with Edward reading Bella's mind with all the memories, going through all the actors, and loved the song at the end. I cried, I'll admit it. :)

Anyway, we also took Allison to see Wreck It Ralph while we were out in Oregon as well. We all loved it! If you don't catch it in the theater definitely watch it when it comes out. It is great. We thought the humor was great and the story is unique and very creative. I think all of you would like this movie. There is also a nice twist at the end. 4 stars.

We have free HBO right now so we have recorded and watched a few movies and one we watched the other day was We Bought a Zoo with Matt Damon and Scarlett Johannson. It is a true story and just a all around great feel good movie. It is about a dad who is recently widowed and has a teenage son and 7 year old daughter. His son in rebelling a bit and they are just losing their relationship. He decided to start fresh and move to a new house and ends up buying a house on a whim that is also a wildlife park and they have to learn how to run it. It really is a great movie, we really liked it. Rated PG. It also has that cute girl from Super 8. Also the daughter is so adorable and reminds me soo much of Scout! Watch it peeps! 3 stars.

For the Jane Eyre Fans

"****"

(4 stars) - well, maybe 3 1/2...

The Flight of Gemma Hardy by Margot Livesey

I read a book this weekend that a friend recommended to me and I thought I'd share it because I just couldn't put it down.  This novel is a modernization of Jane Eyre (by modernization, I mean set in the 1950's-60's.)  I thought it was very well written (for the most part- more on that in a minute), it was very compelling and fun to wonder how she is going to fit the parts of the Jane Eyre plot into this version and how they will be changed.  I'm not going to spill the whole book and how she did it, but I will tell you a few things.  This Jane (Gemma) was born in Iceland and is brought to Scotland by her uncle when her parents die.  So most of the book takes place in Scotland instead of England and "Mr Rochester" lives in the Orkney Islands.

Now I'm going to explain my "for the most part" in hopes that if you know going in what I do now, you may be less disappointed.  1. there is no Bertha equivalent......... I KNOW!!!  I waited and waited for something crazy in the attic and there is nothing, she chose to leave that out entirely, so don't wait for it. How could she have left that out?  I have no idea.  2. (perhaps this is just my own opinion) but I thought the romance between the leads fell pretty flat.  We can discuss this further if you read it, and I don't want to go into more detail, but they didn't quite sell it to me.  Perhaps I just find Jane and Edward's relationship so adorable it's hard to live up to. 

Those grievances aside, I really enjoyed reading this book.  I really liked Gemma's childhood and school time.  I also loved what the author did after Gemma left the Orkney Islands.  I liked the tale modernized.  It all was very compelling and like I said- hard to put down.  An enjoyable little read I'm sure I will go back to.