Where Bloggers Live: And the Oscar Goes to….
Welcome to the monthly edition of Where Bloggers Live. It’s kind of like HGTV’s “Celebrities at Home,” but…Bloggers! Who doesn’t like to peek behind the scenes and see inside people’s homes? Every month a group of six bloggers share their work-spaces, homes, towns, and more!
This month we’re sharing our favorite movies!
This topic turned out to be really hard for me!
I won’t go into the whole “Asian entertainment has raised the bar for me” thing (this was originally three paragraphs but I took pity and edited it down), but. It did. And I’m sort of looking at what came before differently now. So, I will just do a little backwards time jump to BEFORE K-All the Things and pretend the past two years hasn’t happened and I’m still just watching western entertainment. GO.
We all know I am an emotion junkie. If a movie doesn’t make me sob til I can’t catch my breath or laugh so much the tears stream down my face…then I feel it didn’t do its job. Some people want to be entertained by…uhm…entertainment. I want to be MOVED.
So in the category of Moving Movies, there are the usual suspects:
Shawshank Redemption. Finding hope where there is none. A really well-told story with excellent acting. It’s almost a cliche as a favorite movie, but there’s a reason it’s a favorite to so many.
Dances with Wolves. Dramatic and emotional and lovely and difficult.
The Notebook. I think everyone knows about this tear-jerker. And Ryan Gosling <3
Awakenings. It’s a true story, but if you’ve read Flowers for Algernon (and you should), it’s a similar story.
And there are a few off the beaten path…
The Zookeeper’s Wife: the true story of how Jan and Antonina Żabiński rescued hundreds of Polish Jews from the Germans by hiding them in their Warsaw zoo during World War II.
The Boy in the Striped Pyjamas: a historical drama set in World War II, that relates the horror of a Nazi extermination camp through the eyes of two eight-year-old boys: the son of the camp’s Nazi commander, and a young Jewish prisoner. It was hard.
And I do enjoy some lighter things as well….
The Big Sick. Delightful and sweet and just funny enough.
Sweet Land: In the aftermath of World War I, Inge, an orphan from Snåsa, Norway, arrives in America for an arranged marriage to Olaf. The Minnesota farming village of Audubon, in which her intended husband lives, is horrified to learn that she is a German immigrant with no papers. To make matters worse, she has accidentally obtained membership papers for the American Socialist Party. Scandalized, both the town’s Lutheran minister and the county clerk refuse to marry them. When events lead them to openly cohabit with each other, they find themselves ostracized by the entire town. They are then forced to harvest their crop completely by hand and alone. This particular harvest season brings not only work, but love as well. Such a sweet movie.
Enchanted April: Married British women Rose and Lottie decide to take a break from their respective spouses, they stay at a castle in Italy for a quiet holiday. Joining the ladies is a young socialite, and an older aristocrat. Liberated from their daily routines, the four women ease into life in rural Italy, and each finds herself transformed by the experience. So lovely and gentle.
I’m not really a “comedy” person, per se…mostly cuz I just don’t most “comedies” particularly funny. There are plenty of movies that make me laugh, but they weren’t necessarily comedies. I’m also not an action, adventure, mystery, horror, thriller, science fiction, crime, disaster, animated, fantasy or period drama fan. History can go either way for me – like books, there are certain areas and eras that appeal to me (World War II Europe, specifically the Holocaust and later when the Japanese were involved; 1880-1920ish China; 1940’s Japanese internment in the US; and now any Korean history), and if it’s not them, I’m probably not interested. That small list has grown, though, from ZERO (History? Me? No.) to that good handful…so it may increase in time when different events in history pique my interest.
Interesting when I put them all together like this, I never realized so many of them are international.
Are any of your favorites on my list??
Make sure to check out my friends blogs today, too:
Daenel at Living Outside the Stacks
Iris at Iris’ Original Ramblings
Jodie at Jodie’s Touch of Style
Leslie at Once Upon a Time Happily Ever After
Sally at Within a World of My Own
Sally in St Paul
It’s funny, historical movies (and books) are probably among my least favorite as a category, but I like a lot of different genres. But I am generally more in the “want to be entertained” camp than the “want to be emotionally moved” camp…enough so that I was reading this like, Oh yeah, I guess wanting emotion from a move could be A Thing…huh, that would explain a lot, actually.
bettyewp
In the past, they were to me (history, least favorite), too. I guess at some point I accidentally (haha) read one and it was good and I liked it…and that was that. I think it’s about finding a period of history that intrigues, interests, or moves you. I’ve definitely become more interested in history in the past…I don’t know, 5-10 years? But never American history, haha. And I am finding it difficult to just like “jump in” at this point – like getting up-to-date on world events or politics…everything has built on the years and years (and sometimes hundreds or thousands) that came before…and until you understand THAT, it can be hard to understand anything further along. Sometimes I look for kids history books cuz they trach things in much simpler ways so I can at least get the gist of what went on…and once I understand THAT, then I can move on.
It’s a process, to be sure.
Jodie Filogomo
I liked how you described Shawshank. Are you surprised it’s on my list too?? I am surprised it’s on yours, because my husband was shocked that I included it.
I think we saw that Boy in the striped pajamas. Those movies (and books) about that time are so heart wrenching to me. I may like them, but I just can’t call them favorites.
But it is interesting about all of the international movies. You were definitely made to live abroad!!
XOOX
Jodie
http://www.jtouchofstyle.com
bettyewp
Sorry, just finding some comments in Trash, ugh. I’m not surprised Shawshank is on your list, cuz I find it a very optimistic story. And it’s just a Really Well Done film.
Speaking of really well-d0ne films, I encouraged a friend to Watch Crash Landing on You (k-drama), I said if this show was in English it would rank up there with like Gone With the Wind, The Sound of Music, Shawshank Redemption…because of the grand scale and beauty, a really well-told story, big budget production, it has romance, suspense, humor, action. It’s just Way Up There. Sadly, most people won’t give it a chance cuz it’s Korean with subtitles. Which is REALLY a shame. Anyway, she watched it (we watched “together” via text) and was Blown Away and agreed it was one of the best things she’s ever seen.
I only bring this up cuz of the Shawshank reference. Because I consider CLOY at that same level.
Anyway…glad I found this comment!
Leslie Susan Clingan
You mentioned two of my favorites…Shawshank and Striped PJs. I didn’t think of Shawshank or would have mentioned it. And The Boy in the Striped Pajamas is one I used to show to my fifth graders in the library after a biography project about Anne Frank and Suzuki Sadako. The kids just could not believe the Holocaust was a true event, chapter in history.
Do you like Brave Heart? That is one I love but can no longer watch because I get so sad. And The Green Mile. Not sure I have ever seen that whole movie because it breaks my heart.
Daenel T.
Shawshank Redemption is such a good movie.
I wanted to see The Boy in the Striped Pajamas, but I didn’t think I could handle it — you know, it being kids and all.