Posted tagged ‘Call of the Wild’

Call of the Wild

March 5, 2020

We went to the movies on Tuesday afternoon. Weekday matinees are dirt cheap. We paid more for popcorn and drinks than we did for tix. $5 per person.

So we saw “Call of the Wild” starring Harrison Ford and the dog. So the dog is an animatronic creation of CGI and a good one at that. It is the story of the dog’s travels from sunny California as a pet dog to the wild Alaskan frontier.

I read the book a few weeks ago after I saw the advert at the theater. The book is in the voice of the dog (named Buck). How are you going to do that in the film. They just did voice-over. Click here to order the book. Or borrow for free from your local library. (Libraries are now lending ebooks that you can view on the Kindle app.)

So the film was pretty faithful to the book. You of a certain age probably read the book in high school, right? It’s worth going back for a re-read. Read the book before you see the film.

The movie had some really great visuals of the Alaskan country side. We liked it. Buck was pretty cool.

Little Women

January 31, 2020

Little WomenLast night Paula and I went to see “Little Women” at the movies. We went to the 5 pm show so that restaurants might be open after the show. Besides, 10 pm is way past my bedtime.

It would have been helpful if sometime in my life I had managed to read the novel Little Women. It would help me understand all the characters what they were about.

So in case you haven’t ever read Little Women, let me explain some of the basics. The story is about four young ladies in the March family living with their mother in Concord, MA. Their father is off acting as a pastor in the civil war. (I didn’t quite understand this until he appears late in the film.)

The story is told by Jo March (played by Saoirse Ronan). She tells the story as she writes her novel about she and her sisters and how the are determined to live their life on their own terms.

So the four sisters (Jo, Meg, Amy and Beth) are living with their mother (played by Laura Dern. They live in a small brown house in Concord, MA. The house still exists and is available for tours. I had some trouble keeping the four girls straight. Reading the book beforehand would have helped immensely. One last thing, if you haven’t read the book and aren’t intending to, go read the synopsis in Wikipedia.

So our goal is to try to see all of the Oscar Best Picture nominees before the Oscars are awarded. So we’ve seen 1917, The Irishman (actually Paula only saw half, I saw the whole thing on Netflix), The Two Popes (once again Paula didn’t care about seeing this one, I’ve seen it on Netflix spread over a couple of days), Ford v Ferrari. Probably won’t see the Joker or Jo Jo Rabbit. We will probably see “Once upon a Time in Hollywood” next week on Amazon Prime.

In other upcoming movies there is “The Call of the Wild” starring Harrison Ford due for release on Feb 21. Paula and I are interested in seeing this. I’ve even started reading the book. This is based on the book of the same name by Jack London. The promo banner at the theater kind of had us hooked.

Call of the Wild