Jarhead…

I know this is an older movie (2005), but I had never seen it.  I tend to go on kicks where I will watch everything an actor has done I can get my hands on.  Recently I’ve been watching a lot of Chris O’Dowd (from the IT Crowd) and Jake Gyllenhall (after seeing Prince of Persia).

To start, I have a hard time watching war movies, specifically ones about the Gulf war.  My dad was a Marine at the time and trying very hard to get shipped out to Iraq.  The only thing I really remember about that time is the feeling that nothing was really certain until the war was over.  Luckily that was quick, but then I got to see the aftermath of the war too.  My dad never went – he trained boys to go.  He was a Staff Sergeant (maybe only a Sergeant at the time) and was told he was of more use here training troops than he would be over there sitting around.  ”Sergeant Dad” as the kids he trained called him, lost some military sons in the Gulf, and I lost some brothers.  Anytime I have tried to watch a movie like this it has always made me feel like that uncertain little girl who was too young to understand everything that was going on around her, but knew it was serious and people weren’t always going to come back.

I say all of this to explain why I had never seen this film.  I didn’t want to.  I’ve been a good little military kid and repressed a lot of my fears from that time.  Movies set in war zones tend to bring up emotions I’ve trained myself not to deal with, and I don’t like it.  This movie was so compelling on a basic human level though, that it blew me away.  They way the capture the Marine Corps, the life in the barracks, and the war itself is so utterly indescribable to me.

In the beginning of the film, it felt as though I was back on my dad’s base, visiting with my mom, seeing people on screen I once knew.  The life of a Marine fit every story I’ve ever heard my dad tell.  The war scenes made their political statements without seeming too heavy handed.  By focusing on the soldiers as characters and how they were living, so many messages came across without the need of the normal neon sign style of direction.  The points were made that we supplied weapons to Hussein, we might just be going in for oil, and all the other bad things that could probably be said about the first Gulf war.  It was done so eloquently though that it fit the plot and didn’t seem out of place.  It also didn’t seem like a rant from a soap box.  It almost seemed as though the message was, “Yeah, this might be why we were there/here, but it’s too late to change that, let’s try to move forward.”  I loved that about this film.

All in all, this was a great movie, one I have added to my must see list.  I would recommend it, and that means something… because I really hate war movies.  :)

When In Rome…

I went and saw When in Rome this last week with about 3 other girls, and for my part, I enjoyed it, but I didn’t love it.  This is hard for me to say as a die hard Kristen Bell fan, I’ve loved her since Veronica Mars and wanted to be her character for a while, that I was kinda disappointed.

Over all is a good story; highly neurotic girl meets boy, falls in love, denies she’s in love, denies he’s in love, misunderstandings ensue, everyone lives happily ever after.  The problem I had with it was how truly formulaic it was.  The acting was fine (though I may be biased) and the locations and scenery were great.  The tragic twist on Josh Duhamel’s leading man is almost endearing, I say almost  because he is highly underdeveloped.  All of the characters seem to be.  I kept waiting for these adorable characters with great senses of humor to explain their erratic behavior, that explanation never came though.

The movie has a good premise, and it is great for a girl’s night out, I wouldn’t suggest subjecting your man to it, but at the end of the movie I left with a feeling of wanting more.  I am glad I went to see it, I think it was worth the ticket price, and I will probably buy it when it comes out.  I will wait until it’s less than $20 though.  Maybe more like $5-10.

I will admit, now June of 2010: I bought it the day it came out and have changed my mind on this after another viewing.  I don’t know if it because of who I saw it with and memories associated or what, but I now adore this film.  It is still formulaic and the characters could be developed (a lot) more, but I love it none the less.  Also: amazing soundtrack.

Ramblings of a grad student…

I’ve been wondering a lot lately about where I’m headed and why I am doing what I’m doing.  I’ve been feeling a little distant from everyone I know and just wondering why I made the decisions I’ve made that have brought me to where I am.  I know I felt very strong convictions about them at the time, but did that really mean anything?  Am I really where I’m supposed to be, doing what I’m supposed to be doing?  Were they real convictions, or just me making up ideas of what I thought was right in my head?  Could it have all just been happy coincidence?

I have learned over the years that when I get to this point, especially in the places that concern my faith, something always comes along to reassure me of the answers to all those questions above.  You may believe it is a coincidence or something else, but I believe it is God encouraging me to stay on my path.  It may be hard, it may be confusing, but He has a plan and I need to keep following it.  It’s not always easy to follow your convictions though, especially when you can’t really see the end result of them.  Lately I haven’t seen an ending, and that is what has been causing my discouragement.

To preface this whole story, I am on Twitter.  I love Twitter.  I may be addicted to Twitter.  I follow a lot of people on there, and one is a woman who I highly respect for who she is and have looked up to since I was a little girl watching ABC in the middle of nowhere, Alyssa Milano.  She tweets about a lot of different causes and such, but about two days ago she tweeted about cryingwife.com  It sounded interesting, a web site where a guy films his wife crying after movies they watch, she just gets that involved in the story that it touches her deeply when they watch films.  I finally checked it out today, went through all of the different videos and when I was done, checked out the rest of the site.  To make what is already a long story shorter, I found links to other web sites that the husband (Parker Stech) has created.  As it turns out, him and his wife are Christians who live out in California.  He is heavily interested in web content and entertainment with a Christian perspective, has worked in youth and media ministry at his church, and has an amazing blog (http://hardlywisdom.blogspot.com/).  I spent some time going through part of his blog today, and a lot of what he was saying was just really nice to read.  I knew that going into this business wouldn’t be easy, it’s a tough field, but I never thought I’d feel so alone and discouraged about my decision.  Today I got the boost I needed from seeing Stech’s content and the ways he uses media in his ministry.  I know it isn’t exactly the same as what I’ll be doing, but it was just nice to see.

I guess, for me, it was that reassurance I needed that; God’s plan for why I’m here, going into the field I’m going into, so far from family and soon moving away from friends yet again; it’s all just part of it.  It may not make sense to me now, but I have a purpose and even if I can’t see it, I’m going toward it.  That’s a nice feeling to have.  It was the boost I needed to see that there really is a light at my quickly ending tunnel, and that the end of it is going to be better than all the time I’ve been in it.  Crazy thing is, the time I’ve been in the tunnel has been pretty amazing, so I can’t even imagine how amazing that light will be.