I normally don't do movie or book recommendations. I feel that my tastes in books & movie differ from other (normal) people. My picks can be somewhat twisted (or warped as the wife tells me) and what I find funny/interesting doesn't always follow the norm. I'll leave the movie reviews to Abby. She is way better at finding good movies and is pretty much spot on when it comes to her reviews. That said, I did want to share one of my recent screenings. I have a number of different movies queued up in my Netflix account. They are all over the road from new releases to comedies to classics. One that I bumped to the top of the list recently was the movie Wild with Reese Witherspoon. Based upon Cheryl Strayed's tale of hiking the Pacific Crest Trail alone.
Basically a story of a woman of finding redemption by hiking over 1000 miles on the PCT one summer. The PCT is over 2600 miles long and runs from the Mexico border all the way up to Canada crossing a wide variety of terrains/mountains. Not your typical Sunday stroll in the park. Definitely not for the novice or faint of heart. Cheryl hiked it solo back in 1995 after some personal tragedy as a means of finding her self. An interesting saga of how an ill prepared person with grit & determination can overcome some daunting challenges. Cheryl was definitely not prepared at the outset of her hike but she managed to conquer the trail despite all of the obstacles she encountered along the path. And, while I am not an overly huge Reese fan (was a pretty good June Carter), I really liked her portrayal. Very compelling. Something that I is on my bucket list that I will probably never cross off. And I found the story so interesting that I went out and bought the book. I've only done that 2-3 times when I found a movie interesting enough to dig into the back story. Again, I normally don't recommend books but this one was a great read.
I've hiked small portions of the Appalachian Trail (AT), but nothing more that a couple of weekend treks. Backpacking has always been a passion for me. Hiking & camping along the mountain trails was something that I would prefer to do in lieu of a vacation at a spa resort. That's why I was really into our treks at Philmont in New Mexico with the scouts a few years back. Unfortunately, we don't have too many mountains down here on the on the coast. I guess it started out when my family spent a few summers camping out in Colorado when I was a young pup. Long road trip from New Jersey in the old Pontiac station wagon. Later, when both brothers were off at college, my parents & I spend a few weeks in Red River, New Mexico. My dad & I hiked up to Middle Fork Lake and spent a few nights camping out. That sort of sparked my passion for backpacking/camping and led to my walkabout in 1977. The summer prior to my junior year I was taking some summer classes and working a minimum wage job down at the Chrysler dealership. Things were at a lull at the time and I was taking one of those motivational speaking courses for. One of the exercises was to express your passion and what you would do given the time and availability and I expressed my desire to go backpacking in the mountains. The instructor encouraged me to follow through on that desire and I jumped on the idea. Mom wasn't exactly thrilled with the idea but supported me nonetheless. I loaded up the Plymouth and headed west to West Texas and New Mexico. I spent 2.5 weeks roaming through west Texas and hiking the mountains of New Mexico. From the Guadalupe Mountains to Cloudcroft to White Sands to the Gila National Forest to Red River to Palo Duro Canyon. Nothing like the trek that Cheryl made, but it was a cathartic road trip for me. Something to recharge the batteries. Deep down, I'd love to make a long hike like she did but, at this stage, I have too many obligations and conflicts.
It is rare that I go to the movies anymore. With 4000 channels on cable, Netflix and streaming movies, why go pay $7-10 to watch a big screen? Normally, I wait the 4-6 months afterwards for it to hit Netflix. The last one I saw in the big house was the last Harry Potter movie. I've followed that series (both in book and on screen) since my son got hooked on it years ago and kind of had to watch the last movie to wrap up the saga. I was going to go see the Girl With The Dragon Tattoo in the theaters, but I just waited until it was available from Netflix. I read the books and even watched the original movies that were made in Sweden (with subtitles). The Swedish movies were a good rendition of the books and I wanted to see how Hollywood did. Not sure I would have cast Daniel Craig in the Mikael Blomkvist role, but he kinda makes it believable. As you might surmise, I like to read the stories before I watch a movie. I prefer to understand the story before it gets boiled down into a 2.5 hour visual saga. Sometimes it helps explain the gaps, or gives more details than the story provides, but some times it turns out disappointing. To me, it is a crap shoot going to see a movie when you've read the book - not how I would have imagined the story to unfold or they leave out key subplots or they cast some big name actor who in no way looks or sounds like the main characters or, even worse, they change the ending.
With those thoughts in mind, I fell in line for the latest movie trend - I went to Hunger Games. I've been reading all the hoopla building up to the release and the stories of the characters. Heck, with as much press as this one's been getting, you almost don't even have to go to the movies to see it, you almost get the whole story. Still, I wanted to invest 2.5 hours of my life to see how this plays out on the big screen. Before I went, I decided to get the book at plow through it. Since I don't have a Kindle or iPad, I typically buy a paperback version and start reading. Usually, I reserve these reads for when I am traveling and get stuck in the airport or on a long flight. This one was a fairly easy/simple read. Good narrative, good character development, nice plot lines. Hooks the reader early and keeps a fast pace. I have not been a Suzanne Collins fan, but I might have to look up some of her books for future reads. The movie was, IMHO, an excellent representation of the book. They pretty much stuck to the story line with some minor omissions left out for time. I found it interesting that they did add some subplots or stories that were not in the book that complimented the story. Some might say they did it to explain points to the audience who hadn't read the book, but I thought it was OK. Definitely will have to how the next two books/movies pan out.
Oh, and BTW, one of the reasons I DON'T typically go to the theaters before (aside of cost), is all the previews shown before the main movie. Movie time was listed at 1040 yesterday and I was running late and did not get to my seat until 1045. They showed 20 minutes of trailers/ads before the movie kicked off at 1100. One trailer caught my eye and had me laughing, or to apply the overused Internet phrase ROFLMAO. You thought you knew your Civil War history? Coming this summer to a movie theater near you:
Ok, Terri threw down the gauntlet and RC followed it up with his own spin. I guess I can add my two cents as well. I may not blaze the trail but I can follow a path.
Books. They can open doors to whole new adventures.
I would label myself as an average reader. As a kid, I was more into comics than novels. I really did not start into books until high school. Some of the required reading in middle and high school seemed long & tedious to me. Great Gatsby, Grapes of Wrath, A Tale of Two Cities, Catcher in the Rye. Some of these I connected with, some not. At that time of my life, I was more into escapism. I was an introverted teenager and spend a lot time reading sci-fi and fantasies. It was in high school that I discovered Tolkien. Started with The Hobbit and got hooked onto the Lord of the Rings trilogy. I have read those many times and still have the hard back volumes on my book shelf. When I get hooked on a particular author, I tend to read through all their publications.
In college I read a few books, but it really wasn’t until I went joined the Army did I start to read more. There is an old saying in the military – Hours of boredom punctuated by Moments of terror and chaos. We spent a lot of time in the field training for combat operations. The expression “Hurry Up and Wait” was our motto at times. I recall spending days on end in the field on guard duty or training maneuvers or waiting our turn for gunnery practice. This was in the days well before the Internet, cell phones, wireless communications, Nintendo, PSPs, iPods. To pass the time, a lot of guys would either play cards (could be detrimental to your bank account), shoot hoops, or read. We would spend 4-6 weeks at a time in the field and I learned to take a few books along to fill in the down time. I tried to find books long enough to last me a week or so, but eventually, we’d plow through those and be looking for something else. We set up a mini collection of books in the company so as you finished one book, you could trade for another. Most of the guys were not that complex, so the style of books available was a bit on the simpler side. I would up reading a lot of westerns (Zane Grey, Louis L’Amour, Max Brand). I’ll even confess that I’ve read the entire Robert E Howard (Conan The Barbarian) series. When you have that much time on your hands, it doesn’t take more than a day or two to plow through one of those books. At one point, I wound up reading a number of sci-fi series(Anne McCaffrey, Doug Adams).
As I got older, my tastes changed. I started reading more adventures or mysteries or Sci-Fi. I’ve read most of the books by Tom Grisham, Dan Brown, Michael Crichton, Tom Clancy, Robert Ludlum, Sue Grafton. Sometimes it takes me a while to get into a book, but, once I do, I will plow through several chapters at one sitting. Whenever I travel, I will try to find a book that will keep me entertained for the trip. On my recent road trip to Milwaukee, I read through the Girl with the Dragon Tattoo by Stieg Larsson and I am on the next one in the series. What made this one interesting to me is that I had also gotten the Girl with the Dragon Tattoo DVD from Netflix. I wound up watching the movie right after I had finished the book to see how it looked in film. Interesting but dark story.
I normally don't do movie or book recommendations. I feel that my tastes in books & movie differ from other (normal) people. My picks can be somewhat twisted (or warped as the wife tells me) and what I find funny/interesting doesn't always follow the norm. I'll leave the movie reviews to Abby. She is way better at finding good movies and is pretty much spot on when it comes to her reviews. That said, I did want to share one of my recent screenings. I have a number of different movies queued up in my Netflix account. They are all over the road from new releases to comedies to classics. One that I bumped to the top of the list recently was the movie Wild with Reese Witherspoon. Based upon Cheryl Strayed's tale of hiking the Pacific Crest Trail alone. 
