ring of fire...

The last good movie I saw in the theatres was Walk the Line, with Joaquin Phoenix and Reese Witherspoon. It wasn't just good. It was stupendous. Phenominal. Inspiring. I just loved it. A perfect perfect marriage of incredible acting, wonderful script and just a plain interesting story about a man who reinvented his life. If you haven't seen this movie, please please run to your nearest box office and go see it. It will be a much more positive experience than most anything Hollywood has to office in the past few years. Heck, I even drove my office nuts by playing the music on the www.johnnycash.com website all day long for two days. Now everyone thinks I am a country music fan. I don't care. I just like good music.

Ok, now to talk about the last movie I saw: King Kong. I was SO looking forward to this, the next Peter Jackson baby, created by the man who made the Lord of the Rings movie trilogy. I love those movies, despite the fact that I don't like Sci-Fi/fantasy/StarTrek/Star Wars snore-a-thons. When I heard that this genious of a man was making another movie, I was SURE it was going to be a brilliant as the Lord movies. On Christmas day, what else do we Jews have to do except go to the movies? Amongst the plethora of films to see, the only one my husband & I agreed on was King Kong. What other time would we have a chance to see this 3+ hours movie?

I am sad to say that I was disappointed at this film. The acting was of course good with Naomi Watts & Adriene Brody, and for the first 1.5 hours it was a wonderful adventure story on a very spooky seemingly deserted island. But the film was heavy with the computer generated images (CGI), especially the creepy-crawly creatures and seemed to spend a lot of time concentrating on them. It's as if production had taken their thinking caps off and kept pressing the "easy" button. I'm sad to say I didn't love the movie. Thank G-d we caught the movie early in the day and paid the reduced rates for tickets.

Happy Chanukah!

my notebook

Well, it took me over 30 years, but I finally cried at a movie.  Not that this is necessarily a rite of passage for my being a female, but for me, my repressed me, it’s epic.  Maybe it’s my hormones, maybe it’s my ‘mature’ age, but this film moved me to tears – again and again.  It’s called The Notebook.  It wasn’t what I expected.  As I mentioned before, I joined an online DVD subscription service, and now that I’m hooked, I’m taking the opportunity to see as many movies as I can.  It’s my perhaps vain attempt to be cultured and live vicariously through the characters’ lives.  It’s my escape from thinking about our stressful life.  Most of the movies I’ve rented are horrible – so horrible that I don’t even bother nagging my husband to watch them with me (yes, aren’t I just the martyr?).  Instead, I borrow my husband’s 7” travel DVD player and prop up my pillows in bed and watch the movies on my lap.  It’s a welcome distraction.    

(**SPOILER ALERT***please note, if you haven’t seen the movie yet and don’t wish to see any spoilers, don’t read any further!)

Tonight, as I watched The Notebook, I really enjoyed the honesty and playfulness of the characters.  I found myself wishing I were as young and uninhibited as the lovers in the movie.  I cried…I cried as I realized that the old couple in the film were the young lovers so many years ago…and I cried because the old man, played by James Garner, still called his elderly & dementia-ridden wife “sweetheart”, just like a young man in love would.  I want that so much.  I want to grow old with my husband, who I know loves me more than anything.  I want so much to deserve that.  Not so many years ago, when I was single and quite depressed, I imagined that I would never marry.  I saw myself as an old maid.  I never thought I would find my true Beshert.  But now, I am living that.  I am married to a wonderful, loving, brilliant, strong, dedicated, protective, proud man (don’t forget he’s a great chef).  I have it made.  Even without children in our lives, I feel that our lives DO have meaning.  The fact that we love each other so much is so priceless to me.  Yes, it’s true that I am very emotional, perhaps more emotional than usual because of the hormonal fertility drugs (which I recently stopped taking…more about that later).  I feel (and fear) that there are so many things in life that is uncertain and can be so easily broken and lost. I don’t want to ever lose my husband.  I never want to feel the pain of not having him in my life.  When we die, will he still be with me?  Is this everlasting?  Of course, I don’t expect either of us to die anytime soon (G-d forbid!) but this movie really got me shaken up….I just hope that Hashem is listening to me…and I hope that maybe if children aren’t in our future, that he at least enables us to find meaning in other ways and find true happiness.

By the way, I did stop taking the fertility drugs.  This past IVF cycle failed.  I had two pregnancy tests:  one after the embryo transfer, which came up positive (!).  Two days later, the hormone levels dropped dramatically, and we were told to shut everything down.  Hence, our deep sadness.  We are living with coping with this outcome and the shock has worn off somewhat.  I’ve been sleeping terribly and I wake up in the middle of the night crying because of what I don’t have….a warm baby with a fuzzy bald head to kiss.  Will I ever have that??  I don’t know.  I don’t know what the future holds.  But really, as long as I have my sweet husband, I’ll be fine.