When a movie messes with a book

Here's a great example of when a movie really messes with a book and overstays its welcome...


Movie Title:      The Divergent Series: Allegiant

Grade:   D

Rating:   PG-13, 2 hours 19 minutes

In a Nutshell:    Filled with TONS of CGI and special effects, this third installment in the Divergent franchise stretches out the story probably more than it should.

You definitely need to have seen the first two movies in the series in order to understand what the heck is going on in this one.  This isn’t really a stand-alone movie.

Click here to read my movie reviews  for Divergent and Insurgent and be sure to watch the movies in the correct order so they make more sense. 

Uplifting theme: 

•  “Great leaders don’t seek power.  They’re called out of necessity.” – Johanna (Octavia Spencer)
• What do we do when we lose our humanity?
• ‘I don’t know who told you that being different was a bad thing…” –  David (Jeff Daniels)
• “Maybe it’s time to start embracing everyone instead of dividing them into groups.” - Tris Prior (Shailene Woodley)

Things I liked:

• Shaleilene Woodley looks more grown up and beautiful.  Super cute hair cut.
• I liked the concept of the cool bubble things that surround people and allow them to float, although it definitely looked CGI and fake.

Things I didn’t like:

• Everything looks fake.  While “Star Wars Awakens” used a lot of CGI, they were successfully able to create enough real sets that made the scenes truly believable.
• Characters are paper thin.  
• Lots of crowds of extras yelling and shaking their fists halfheartedly.
• “Purify the human genome” sounds a lot like what Hitler was trying to do…
• That’s hilarious that the other side of the wall has such advanced technology, yet a lot of their areas still look like beat up warehouses.
• The chase scene towards the end was super fake and lame.
• Some of the actors seemed as bored as the audience.

Funny lines:

•  “This is fun.  I’m glad we did this.” – Peter (Miles Teller) 

Interesting lines:

• “You are the only one worth saving.” - David
• “Hello.  I come from outside the wall, where we have all but destroyed each other.” – narrator
• "We created factions to create peace.” - narrator    (What kind of logic is that?)
• “Sometimes walls are designed to protect us.” – announcement lady on screen
• “It’s impossible.” – Tori (Maggie Q)       “So.” – Tris

• “People are sheep and they need a shepherd to guide them…and when they resist, they are slaughtered.” – Max (Mekhi Phifer)
• “Why did you go to war with Janine if you were just going to become her?” – Four (Theo James) 

Tips for parents:   

• Point blank shooting in the head.
• You see Shalene’s naked body (silhouette)  in the dark.
• Lots of shooting, explosions, fighting
• Dead bodies on the ground
• No profanity.

What someone who loves books said about my newest book!

Do you love to read books? Shauna Wheelwright loves books so much that she created a blog about it!   In fact, it's called "I love to read and review books". 

She recently read my newest book "Ready Resource for Relief Society" and had this to say about it:

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I am really impressed with this resource book!
I mean REALLY IMPRESSED!

This gives a teacher of Relief Society a plentiful supply of materials to supplement the lessons from the Church Manual.

In this resource guide you get for EACH LESSON:

*Hymn selections that correlate with the lesson.
*A brief summary of the lesson.
*Quotes from Apostles and Prophets
*Picture ideas to use from the Gospel Art Kit
*Church video suggestions

and my favorite part...

*it gives you OBJECT LESSONS to use to bring more understanding to the lesson!

But that's not all...

You also get:
*Ensign articles to use

*Scripture Mastery verses to expound the lesson
*Correlating pages from Preach My Gospel
*AND a CHALLENGE to help the class members put the lesson to practice in their own lives.

And if that is not enough...
*There are handouts all ready made for you!

This makes teaching SO EASY!

------------------------------------------------------------

The book hits stores THIS WEEK!  Woohoo!
To grab a paperback copy or an ebook version of it, buy it online at Amazon.

Thanks Shauna!

The Wolverine comes to life and death from comic books to the big screen

Don’t you just love Hugh Jackman?  He’s like an action figure that can sing and dance.   The Wolverine is a journey into one of X-Men’s most conflicted and developed characters on screen.  If you love Wolverine, you’re going to love this movie.  If you’re not familiar with the famous steel-taloned superhero from the comic books, you’ll still be entertained.

 

Within the first ten minutes of the show, the audience is treated with some background story, amazing CGI of the blast at Nagasaki and a close-up view of how a superhero recovers from atomic burns.  Wolverine saves a young Japanese soldier from the bomb, who later wants to repay his kindness before dying as an old man…a rich old man.  Most of the film takes place in Japan, combining ancient Japanese tradition with the ageless history of Wolverine.

 

For the ladies, Hugh Jackman is often topless, revealing an impressively sculpted body and evidence of a hard-working actor.  Movie critic Roger Ebert calls him a “metal-clawed mountain of muscle.”  For the guys, Jackman shows off some cool action moves and quick fighting sequences, enough to match skills with the most awesome of ninjas.  And yes, there ARE ninjas in the movie.  Who doesn’t like a good ninja?  Well, unfortunately, the ones in this movie are all bad.

 

The Wolverine battles with lots of bad guys in this movie, as well as himself, as he decides what is worth living for in his immortal life or what is worth dying for.  Logan must decide whether or not to accept the gift of mortality from his old friend, Kenuichio Harada who is now a billionaire and head of a technology company that can help the Wolverine get the thing he wants most: death. 

 

Hugh Jackman and director James Mangold worked together before in Kate & Leopold.  The writers provide Logan with lots of flashbacks and moments to reflect, sometimes making you want to yell at the screen “Just snap out of it already and be awesome!”

 

Rila Fukushima plays Yukio, a young Manga-inspired body-guard, complete with red hair, rockin black boots, and admirable loyalty.  Tao Okamoto plays Mariko, the grand-daughter of Harada and heir to his fortune. While Wolverine struggles with guilt from his lost love, Jean, he carefully falls for Mariko and is sworn to protect her.

 

Russian actress Svetlana Khodchenkova plays Viper, a mutant doctor who wears ridiculously sexy outfits to hold the audience’s attention, yet doesn’t have much depth to her character.  Maybe in a sequel we’ll learn more about her?  While she gets lots of cute fashion ensembles, Wolverine is either topless or sports a wife-beater t-shirt a la Bruce Willis in the Die Hard movies.  I like the way his hair tweaks out on the sides to make him look like the comic book figure.

 

The bath tub scene is pretty cute where some female Japanese servants help transform the scruffy Logan from a cave man who hangs out in the wilderness into a clean superhero.     Another funny scene is when the Minister of Justice gets thrown out of a window wearing red underwear.

 

The impressive fight scene atop a bullet train in Japan makes the recent Lone Ranger train scenes pale in comparison.  Unfortunately, the ending was a bit cheesy, as well as a few lame lines like when Wolverine says “Don’t hit my friends” or when he answers the question “What kind of monster are you?” with “The Wolverine.”  Since I’m a mom of 4 boys, I hate it when the hero has to drop F-bombs to make an impact, like when he says “Go F___ yourself, Pretty Boy.”  Yeah, the audience laughed, but surely the writers could have come up with something more witty and appropriate for young boys everywhere to mimic for weeks after watching the film.

 

The end of the movie presents a Pacific Rim Samurai version of a robot that is kind of cool.   A line often repeated by Rila Fukushima in the movie describes it well….”interesting.”  Hamada calls Logan a “ronin”, a Samurai without a master.  Interestingly, before the movie began a trailer played for an upcoming movie entitled “47 Ronin” which should offer some impressive fight scenes that even the Wolverine would want to join in on.

 

 

PG-13, 120 minutes.

Richard Gere's "Double" review

Which way now? That’s the question you’ll ask at the end of the movie Double, starring the aging-well Richard Gere. This fun spy thriller has some clever twists and turns, which I love. Even though I love a solid ending, I also love the conversation-starting rush that leaves you wondering what happens next. You think you know, but you might be wrong. Sure, it opens the movie up for a possible sequel or it could just be a fun way to leave you hanging.

My husband and I just discovered Double on Netflix last night. Directed by Michael Brandt and released late in 2011, the movie received mixed reviews. Richard Gere fans will be impressed that he runs and keeps up with the young FBI agent played by Topher Grace. Martin Sheen fans will get a kick out of his authoritative performance as the head of the CIA. (I miss The West Wing.)

Gere plays a retired CIA agent who is called back to help find a Soviet assassin claimed to have killed a U.S. senator. The Cold War is alive and well. One of my sons decided to start learning Russian lately, so it was fun to recognize some of the words he taught me. Thankfully, there are subtitles during the few moments the Slavic language is spoken in the movie. The plot solves a mystery early in the movie, to some movie-goers’ chagrin, but there are more crimes to solve as the movie rolls along the streets of Washington D.C. The director likes to zoom in on waving American flags, but the plot will make you wonder if our country’s intelligence has Sputnik-sized holes in it.

You’ll watch a bad guy swallow two batteries and see lots of bullets fly, but otherwise, there are no F-bombs, sex, or nudity, earning a solid PG-13 rating. No, it didn’t win any awards, but it passes for 1 ½ hours of interesting entertainment.

World War Z movie will quicken your pulse

Brad Pitt.  Need I say more?  Well ok, if you're a guy, you're going to want more out of this June thrill ride than just staring at the aging, yet still handsome half of Brangelina.

World War Z is a fun summer blockbuster about a zombie apocalypse, loosely based on the popular book that my sons devoured back in 2006 entitled "World War Z: An Oral History of the Zombie War" by Max Brooks. I wonder if Brad Pitt's kids also read the book when it came out and clamored for pop to film it. His production company, Plan B Entertainment, quickly secured the screen rights for it in 2007. 

Rumor has it that the budget for this flick chewed up over $400 million with some post-production re-writes that caused its later release. In fact, the last 40 minutes of the movie were completely remade. Some critics claim the post-production troubles make the movie a bit choppy, but as long as you have popcorn in your mouth, you're going to be entertained. The zombie craze still seems to be alive and well, so ticket sales look promising.

Brad Pitt is confident it's going to do well and told US Today, "Listen, I'm pretty proud of this film.  It's just big and fun and this is the most intense thing you're going to see all year." He said it was the most intense thing he's done, and he certainly has skin in the game on this one...so to speak.

Brad Pitt plays Gerry Lane, a retired UN employee who gets called in to help find the origins of the undeadly strain that is turning humans into rabid zombies.  Gerry Lane is properly motivated to search the globe for a cure in return for his family's safety and protection on one of the few floating ships turned safe zones in the ocean.

Combine Gerry Lane's effective survival skills with Brad Pitt's golden locks and you get some action scenes that even hard-core preppers will admire. It's challenging enough to survive the slow-moving zombies in "The Walking Dead", but these creepy corpses "turn" in only 12 seconds, race after you at very quick speeds, jump onto the high walls surrounding Jerusalem, and even pull down a helicopter. Your heart will pound in suspense and you'll try to quiet your breath when you learn that loud sounds attract the rabid humans.

Gerry Lane counsels a family locked up in a New Jersey apartment after the chaotic outbreak that "movement is life." His former experience getting in and out of hot zones helps him come up with resourceful survival ideas, saving himself and others along the way, including a female soldier in the Israeli army.

If you loved the popular TV show "Lost", you'll get a kick out of seeing Matthew Fox as one of the parajumpers that fights to protect those seeking a cure.  Audiences will be introduced to Mireille Enos, who plays Brad Pitt's frightened and dutiful wife. 

The special effects are amazing and pretty believable.  As my kids say, "It could happen."

The movie is being released in 2D, RealID 3D, and IMAX 3D. While I love a good 3D experience, this particular film doesn't work well in 3D because of the camera's shakiness, so see it in 2D and you won't get dizzy.

What did YOU think of Les Miserables?

Nominated for BEST PICTURE today at the Academy Awards nomination ceremony!

Yep, I was one of the excited fans who lined up to see Les Miserables on Christmas Day.  Usually, Christmas day is spent at home with family, but I just couldn't wait to see this film and introduce my kids to this beloved story and music.  I loved it and cried like a blubbering idiot at the end....BUT....parents beware.

This film definitely should have been rated R.  I remember seeing trailers for Les Mis several months ago and thought it interesting that the preview always carried the text "this film has not yet been rated."  I was hoping for a PG-13 so that I could take my family to see it.  Granted, the subject matter of the story includes several dark themes, but you don't have to show all of the filth in the gutter to know it's there, right?

For example, the prostitute scene went far beyond what it needed to get the point across.  I was completely shocked and extremely disappointed.  My four sons sat next to me watching something they should never have to see.  Call me an over-protective mother, but really?  Did we have to see that played out?  The thing about rated R movies and disturbing images is that, once seen, they're  difficult to erase from your mind. Isn't the point of an R rating to protect younger, more innocent eyes and minds?  Did it seriously NOT cross the minds of those who determine ratings that a scene like that would be offensive to tender eyes?

Likewise, the innkeepers are usually the comic relief in the stage production of Les Miserables, but in this movie they were vulgar and disgusting. They weren't playfully imperfect, but simply crude and revolting.  There were only a few quiet laughs in the movie audience, not the usual adoring applause that a more innocent stage play evokes for the Thenardiers.

Less can definitely be more. When Russell Crowe's character Javert jumps off the bridge you hear the loud thump and crunch of his body hitting below, eliciting a united groan from the audience.  We don't have to see and hear everything to understand what is happening.  While I applaud the director for making certain bold choices, I am disappointed that he didn't rate this movie correctly and he went too far with other things.

I would have loved to see Fantine dressed in a clean, white dress with her long hair again in the end when she was escorting Jean Valjean to his heavenly reward...she was in heaven, after all.  (wink)  Anne Hathaway did a magnificent job, as did Hugh Jackman. While this movie version doesn't provide the "pretty" rendition of the songs, it packs a powerful emotional punch that makes you feel the music in an entirely new way. Hugh Jackman's meaty performance was truly inspiring.
What a special treat to see Colm Wilkinson, who was the first Valjean on Broadway, included in the cast in the role of the forgiving Bishop of Dignewas.  Russell Crowe's performance was believable as a tormented, driven man, but his vocals weren't as strong as most people had hoped to hear from Javert.

Speaking as a parent who wants to share good movies with my children, the "Titanic" movie was great....except for that one nude scene.....this movie had a similar effect on me...it would have gotten two thumbs way up from me...except for the prostitution scene and the innkeepers' crudeness.  Parents: beware.

My favorite line: To love another person is to see the face of God.  We are all truly "lost in the valley of the night" as we long to be a people "who are climbing to the light."