blog mondays: "it's no notebook"

In an effort to blog more regularly, me and two of my darling friends, Emily and Katie, have decided to make a little tradition of "Blog Mondays." Every Monday, one of us will pick a simple question for each of us to respond to in our blogs. If you're reading this, you are witness to the first run at "Blog Mondays."

Today we will each share with you the last three movies we saw.

1. Robin Hood: My husband Justin and I had his parents join us for the weekend to spend some time together. Our Saturday night activity was dinner and a movie. Robin Hood was excellent! A good mix of action and romance. It was really enjoyable to watch and I thought it was well done (only negative thing to report are the violent war scenes...beware if that's not your thing). There were actually a few things that struck me during this movie: 1) It would've been so different to live during the times of kings and queens and battles with bows and arrows. I liked watching and imagining myself living in a village on a European hillside dealing with things like a responsibility to be loyaly to your king. It seems like although there would be some serious hardships of living during that time, that there is also a certain simplicity about it that I find appealing. Although there would have been a lack of options for things such as what career to pursue, I often wonder if this lack of options would be refreshing and maybe even leave people with a sense of purpose fulfilled by working hard in their small village community. 2) There was a point during the movie that made me think of how broken and corrupted our world is. For a second I felt pretty hopeless feeling like nothing could truly solve this issue. Then a refreshing thought popped into my head of how God is bigger than it all and that some day, in Heaven, there will be a pure sense of a restored world with no more brokenness. That made me smile :)

2. Babies: A few of my friends and I have a tradition of going to see a new movie every few weeks. I find that it's something to look forward to during the middle of my week and a good excuse to see my friends. Also, you can't beat the price of $5 movie tickets during weekdays/nights....especially compared to the usual $10 price on weekends!
This past week we decided to see the new movie Babies. The first time I saw the preview, I thought the documentary-like film about several different babies growing up in various places around the world seemed really interesting. I also have to admit that my recent desire to have kids of my own may have influenced my decision to want to see this new flick. I thought it was a movie worth seeing -- it was fascinating to see the differing ways babies are raised around the world and also comforting to see that no matter where you are in the world, some mothering tendencies remain the same. The movie had no narrative and was actually pretty funny during some scenes. I'd say it was nothing amazing, but definitely worth seeing at some point.

3. The Last Song: Okay now before reviewing this movie, you must know that I am an avid Nicholas Sparks reader. I have read every single one of his books (which says a lot considering I barely ever do any reading) and have scene every one of the movies inspired by his novels. I mean I'll just say it, Nicholas Sparks books are the classic, predictable love stories -- just the way I like them. My friend, Emily, and I both have a love for these books and movies so we spent the last several months quickly reading the most recent of Nicholas Sparks books (including The Last Song and The Lucky One and Dear John) so that we could see the movies as soon as they were released. Although I love any good chick-flick, especially one based off my favorite author's books, The Last Song wasn't spectacular. I will say it stuck fairly (and fairly has to be used kind of loosely here) close to the plot of the book, and I was definitely entertained the entire time and enjoyed the film. There is just one problem....it's not The Notebook.