Little Women (2018)

I have loved Little Women since I was a child.  I used to watch a cartoon version that I realized when I became an adult was a Japanese Anime version.  I also watched every movie version that existed and read the book numerous times.  I love Little Women and Louisa May Alcott.

I was excited to be able to preview the new movie, Little Women, that will be in theatres this Friday.  It stars Lea Thompson from Back to the Future as Marmee and sets the iconic story in modern times.

I’ll admit that I have not only read a modern take on Little Women in the past but have also watched another modern movie take on Little Women. Both ventures failed as they missed the essences for what makes Little Women a great story.  I’m happy to report that I really enjoyed this new version of Little Women.  It did a fantastic job of modernizing the story.  The March Patriarch is away in the military to explain his absence and Marmee is still a wonderful mother who cares for the downtrodden.  The girls have their personalities intact and updated slightly for modern times.

What I loved the most was that the set-up of this movie solved one of the essential woes I’ve always had with Little Women – you love Laurie and want him together with Jo only to have Professor Bauer appear out of left field at the end of the novel or movie.  In this 2018 production, Professor Bauer is introduced before Laurie and it works wonderfully.  Jo is an aspiring author of fantasy fiction and Professor Bauer is trying to help her out with her writing while their relationship develops.  Flashbacks tell the story of the March family as Jo was growing up and Laurie is introduced at this time. He had more of a dorky brother vibe while Professor “Freddy” Bauer was obviously more the love interest.  I LOVED this set up.

This is a Christian movie and I was glad to see that the March sisters weren’t made into “slut sisters” as I’ve seen in other modern takes.  I watched this with my ten-year-old son and seven-year-old daughter.  There is alcohol consumed at a party and some bad behavior, but my kids realized it was bad behavior.  It was in keeping with the original novel as Meg was from a temperance family and does drink at a party.

Overall, this 2018 version of Little Women does an excellent job updating the story to modern times, while keeping true to the original characters.  I highly recommend it!

More information about Little Women:

In theaters this fall, LITTLE WOMEN—starring Lea Thompson (BACK TO THE FUTURE) —brings the same sisters to a new generation to celebrate dreams, family and unconditional love.

LITTLE WOMEN also stars Sarah Davenport as "Jo," Melanie Stone as "Meg," Taylor Murphy as "Amy," Allie Jennings as "Beth," Ian Bohen (Teen Wolf) as "Freddy," Lucas Grabeel (High School Musical, "Family Guy") as "Laurie," and Bart Johnson (High School Musical) as "Papa March."

Official website: www.littlewomenthemovie.com.
All-new trailer: https://www.facebook.com/littlewomenfilm/
Facebook/Instagram: @LittleWomenFilm
Twitter: @LittleWomenFilm
 

To Joey, With Love Review and GIVEAWAY!

Keep your tissue handy when you watch To Joey, With Love.  I finished my Christmas cards last night while watching it with tears streaming down my face.  To Joey, With Love is a beautiful movie filmed by Joey’s husband Rory.

Joey and Rory live on a farm in Tennessee and take a year off to work the farm and spend time with their newborn baby.  The film starts right before the birth of their baby and continues into the birth and aftermath of having a new child.  Everything seems fine at first during the natural birth at home with a midwife, but Joey is soon rushed to the hospital from complications.   After emergency surgery, she is okay, but they found out their new baby daughter has Down’s syndrome.  They name her Indiana and she is Joey’s pride and joy.  Shortly thereafter, they find out that Joey has cancer.  This movie takes a look into Joey’s battle with cancer, her role as a new Mother, and her ability to live each day to its fullest.  

To Joey, With Love is a love letter to Joey.  Rory had started filming footage to celebrate the birth of their child and it turned into so much more.  He has edited it into a beautiful movie celebrating what a wonderful woman Joey was.  I didn’t realize who the two of them were at the start of the movie, but about 30 minutes into the movie, Rory gave the background that the two of them were a Country music duo with multiple CDs out and a Grammy award.  It was a risk taking a year off at this point in their career, but they were excited about the birth of their child.  The movie had their music playing throughout and it was beautiful.  I love how Joey would sing all of the time to Indiana

The movie was both joyous and sad.  The raw footage that was taken showed the pure love that Joey had for her daughter and that Joey and Rory had for each other.  It also showed the pure faith that Joey had including when she was “ready to go home” at the end.  I admired how she got everything read for the future that Rory would have as a single father raising Indiana by himself.  

This movie hits some hard subjects, but it was appropriate to watch with your entire family.  My kids were doing other things while I was watching it, but kept being drawn to it, especially at the end.  My middle son Daniel seemed especially accepting of the fact that she was “going home” to heaven.  They also liked the music.  Penelope my six year old, loved baby Indiana as she grew up.

Overall To Joey With Love is a beautiful homage from a husband to his late wife, but it is also real life.  The movie was beautifully crafted from home video footage to show the trials of life when facing cancer and a wonderful child born with Down’s syndrome.  I have been thinking about this movie all day and have already purchased an album to listen to of their music from Amazon.  I was touched by their story.

Movie Source:  I received a link to review this movie from Icon Media Group.  This movie will be released on December 20^th.

Trailer: https://youtu.be/YmkEfRRJ02E

Film's website: http://tojoeywithlove.com
Rory's blog: http://www.thislifeilive.com

Giveaway

One lucky winner will receive a DVD copy of To Joey, with Love courtesy of Icon Media Group. If you would like to win any of these three great novels, please leave a comment on what interests you about this movie.

As part of your comment, you must include an email address. If I can't find a way to contact you I will draw another winner.

For an additional entry, blog about this giveaway or post it on your sidebar. Provide a link to this post in your comment.

I will be using random.org (or a Monte Carlo simulation in excel) to pick the winners from the comments.

This contest is only open to addresses in the United States and Canada.

The deadline for entry is midnight on Friday December 30th!

Please make sure to check the week of January 1st to see if you are a winner. I send emails to the winner, but lately I've been put in their "junk mail" folder instead of their inbox.

Good luck!

Muppet Treasure Island (1996)

I was a great fan of the Muppets as a child, but this movie came out just when I was graduating from high school so I wasn’t at the right age to go and see it.  My sons love pirates and my husband and I wanted to introduce them to the Muppets so we watched this movie last month.

Muppet Treasure Island tells the class tall of Treasure Island by Robert Louis Stevenson if Treasure Island was a musical and the supporting roles were taken by Muppets.  Kermit is Captain Smollett and Miss Piggy is “Benjamina” Gunn.  Humans play the characters of Jim Hawkins and Long John Silver.  The plot line follows similar to the book, but with key differences (such as young Jim being an orphan and the ending). 

My sons LOVED this movie and really want to watch it again.  They particularly liked the music and thought the Muppets were pretty funny.  I enjoyed the music too except for the occasional “off” piece such as young Jim’s solo at the beginning and the rendition of “cabin fever” in the middle.  I thought Tim Curry’s performance as Long John Silver was a bit over the top in a mustache twirling type way. In the book I thought he was more of a mystery on his motives.

Overall though, Muppet Treasure Island is a good family movie to watch together with the basic plot of Treasure Island.

Movie Source:  The Kewaunee Public Library

The Blind Side (2009)

My family and I finally watched The Blind Side. Now that I have two kids with a third on the way, my husband and I are finding it more difficult to sit down and watch adult movies. I think we would have more luck if all movies were on our DVR. Luckily although this movie was rated PG-13, we watched it with my 4 and 2 year old sons. They were mostly interested in the football scenes and then went back to playing when non-action scenes were on the screen. There was a brief scene of violence and some foul language in the movie that was inappropriate for the boys, but they were not football related and unwatched.



We all enjoyed The Blind Side. It is so nice to watch a positive movie about how one family can make a big difference in another person’s life. It was an inspiring movie that I confess brought a few tears to my eye thinking about the sad life that Michael Oher had growing up and knowing there are many other kids out there like him. It is wonderful that Michael got the chance to have a loving family that would help him to make his dreams come true. The Touhy family was also a great family to take the time to care about someone and to ask the questions about the strange new kid in school. It is great that they are able to use their wealth to make the world a better place. So often these days it seems that people don’t take the time to care about their fellow human beings, especially if they are different in terms of color or economics.


I loved Sandra Bullock as Leigh Anne Touhy and can definitely see why she won the academy award. I think the secret scene stealer for me was M.J. (hopefully I have his name right!), the Touhy’s young son. He was a great kid who went out there and tried to befriend Michael from the start.


My favorite line in the movie was from Leigh Anne Touhy to some thugs from Michael’s old life, “"I'm in a Bible study with the D.A., and I'm a card-carrying member of the NRA and I’m always packing.” Or something along those lines. It really took courage for her to face up to them like that!


Overall, this was a great movie about family and caring for others. It was one of the best movies I’ve seen in a long time. At the end, 4-year old Kile wanted to watch it again and my husband also really liked it.


Movie Source: The Kewaunee Public Library

UP (2009)

My husband, two boys, and I watched Up together last night. We all enjoyed the movie, and it made me rather emotional. I had to fight back tears at several points, especially as my husband was watching to see if I was going to cry. Truthfully, I felt much more emotion in the first twenty minutes of this movie then I did during the entire film Avatar. The two go head to head for the best picture Oscar and at this point, I think Up should be the winner . . . but I also have eight more films to watch!

Up started off with young Carl Fredrickson watching a newsreel in the 1930’s about his hero Charles Muntz. Muntz was an explorer that flew around in a dirigible with his dogs. He discovered a place in South America called Paradise Falls, but was accused of fabricating the skeleton of a large bird that he found. In order to clear his name, Fredrickson set off again, and never returned.

Carl meets a young tomboy named Ellie and together they have a dream of one day going to Paradise Falls. There was a beautiful montage at the beginning of the movie showing them growing up, getting married, and their life together. One bad point was when it showed them excited about having a baby and I was like, “Kile – they are going to have a baby!” Then they showed them sad after obviously losing the baby. Kile – “Why are they sad? Where is the baby?” Me and Ben . . . not quite sure how to answer (especially as I wanted to cry instead of answer!) Another awkward moment came when Carl and Ellie grew old and Ellie passes away. Kile, “What happened?” Ben tried to avoid the question and I told him that Ellie died and went to live at Jesus’ house. Kile was concerned. Bottom line, the beginning montage was a beautiful story of the trials of life and not always getting to fulfill your dreams, but having a wonderful life anyway. It just may be hard for small children (Kile is four) to understand.

The rest of the movie is Carl’s new adventure. After an incident with a construction worker where Carl is ordered to move to an old folk’s home, he uses LOTS of balloons to make his house into his own dirigible of sorts. What he doesn’t know is that neighborhood kid, Russell is on the front porch along for the ride. As he floated into the sky, Kile thought he was on his way to heaven to find Ellie . . . which is a different way to think of it! Carl and Russell make their way to South America, but fall short of Paradise Falls. Carl attaches ropes to himself and Russell and decides to walk the rest of the way there. They encounter many adventures along the way, including a dog named Dug. I’ll stop my summary at this point!!

Overall, Ben, Daniel (almost 2), and I really enjoyed this movie. I liked the adventure, but I really loved the lesson that life isn’t over even when it’s near the end, you should life it to the fullest and care for other people. I also love that although life didn’t turn out for Ellie and Carl as they had planned, Ellie enjoyed it all. Kile (4) liked the movie, but was a bit confused at the adult themes at the beginning and was scared during various action sequences.

The Velveteen Rabbit (2009)

We watched The Velveteen Rabbit on Friday night as a family. My 3-year old son loved it, and I really enjoyed it as well. My husband was chasing our 18-month old so he reserves judgment until he can watch the entire movie.

The Velveteen Rabbit is the story of a young boy named Toby around the year 1900. His father takes him to spend Christmas with his grumpy old Grandmother as he has to work over the holidays. Toby’s mother died some years previous to the start of the movie. While at his Grandmother’s, Toby discovers an attic with a special Velveteen Rabbit in it in a box addressed to him by his late mother. Toby learns to have fun through imaginative play with the Rabbit as well as a couple other old toys in the attic. His imagination is a cartoon world. Toby learns how to try new things, and also opens up the world for his Grandmother and Father to love again.

Kile loved that the story started with the Toby on a steam engine train. He loves trains. He really liked the cartoon world with Horse, Swan, and Rabbit. The only thing he didn’t like was the Rabbit’s sacrifice for the boy (he hid during that part as he was a bit scared). When the poor stuffed rabbit went into the fire after Toby’s illness, Kile kept asking, “Why?” but was very pleased when he became a real rabbit.

The movie follows the basic storyline of the original story by Margery Williams, with several key differences. I was okay with the differences, but Kile was sad when we read the book afterwards and it wasn’t the same (he really wanted the horse and swan to be in it!).

Overall, The Velveteen Rabbit was a cute movie for your family to enjoy.

Movie Source: Borrowed from my Mom. She loves “Feature Films for Families” which produced this movie.

Disney Classic Short Films: Three Little Pigs

My 3-year old son loves story time at our local library each Friday. After story time, we pick out new books to read for the week and he also likes to pick out a movie to watch. This week he picked out a new addition to the library, Disney Classic Short Films: Three Little Pigs.

My husband and I had fond memories of The Three Little Pigs, and we all looked forward to watching it during family movie night this past weekend. This DVD included the following classic Disney Short Films: Three Little Pigs, The Big Bad Wolf, Three Little Wolves, Lambert the Sheepish Lion, Chicken Little, Three Blind Mouseketeers, and Elmer Elephant.

It is fun watching old movies remembered fondly from childhood as an adult. I had not remembered just how scary these movies are. Kile had to sit on our laps or hide during several moments. He was sure the big bad wolf was going to get the three little pigs or red riding hood. He really enjoyed the songs “Who’s Afraid of the Big Bad Wolf” and “Lambert the Sheepish Lion.” His 17-month old brother Danny enjoyed them too and had fun dancing to them whenever they played on the TV. I think the music was the best part overall for the boys. Overall we enjoyed all of the movies, but I think Lambert the Sheepish Lion and Elmer Elephant were our favorites.

Side note – I certainly did not remember how Chicken Little ended. Luckily I don’t think Kile understood what was going on, but I was horrified. My husband thought it was really funny. Has anyone else seen this old Chicken Little movie? I’d like to discuss!

Race to Witch Mountain (2009)

Finally, we found a children’s movie that my husband actually enjoyed. My husband and I both had fond memories of the 1970’s era Disney Witch Mountain movies and looked forward to this movie. My son Kile really likes space ships so he thought it looked cool too.

Race to Witch Mountain stars Dwanye Johnson (The Rock) as Bruno, taxicab driver that picks up two kids, Seth and Sara, with amazing powers. With Major Henry Burke, an alien being known as a Siphon, as well as random thugs in pursuit, Bruno and the kids race to retrieve their ship on Witch Mountain. The kids had to retrieve important information from earth and return to their home world with it to save their planet and ours.

Race to Witch Mountain was an enjoyable light flick with lots of action and pursuit. You might not want to ponder the plot too much, but it is a good movie for kids. My 3-year old son liked it, but it was a bit violent and scary for him (mostly the Siphon – he was in a scary outfit). He was okay watching it on Daddy’s lap. He liked the kids, the dog (Junkyard) and most especially the flying spaceship. It would probably be a good movie for kids older than Kile.