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The Victoria

GAZETTE

         Over the recent decade, there has not been a multitude of movies that I was enticed to go see at a theater.  I think it's been like one or two a year, sometimes three.  Maybe that's a lot to you.  On the other hand, maybe you never go to a movie theater at all.  Or maybe you go to the movies every weekend!

         Well, I love good movies, especially old black and whites made before I was born, like Gone With the Wind, The Wizard of Oz, Wuthering Heights, and Goodbye Mr. Chips. As I work on the Gazette for many hours every day, I've often got a good old movie trailing in the background.  It's not a noise factor; it's company.

         At this very moment, I'm lonesome for John Wayne in The Quiet Man, Spencer Tracy in The Old Man and the Sea, Charlton Heston in Ben Hur, Moses in The Ten Commandments, Michelangelo in The Agony and The Ecstasy, Gregory Peck in To Kill a Mockingbird.

         Sometime I get lonesome for girlfriends too -- like Deborah Kerr in An Affair to Remember, Joan Fontaine as Jane Eyre, Greta Garbo as Anna Karenina, and Greer Garson and Barbary Stanwyck as almost anybody.  I hope all of the above are resting in peace in the next life, having given humanity so much enrichment in this life, unlike many of their counterparts in today's Hollywood culture.

         In general, in my opinion, there were generally good movies throughout the 1960's -- too many to name here, but they included My Fair Lady, The Sound of Music, and A Man for All Seasons.

         But the 1970's consisted mainly of milk mush at the theaters.  Similarly, the 1980's produced on average less than average movies.  In the mid 1990's, producers woke up for a time to give us Braveheart and Dead Man Walking but nodded off for much of the following ten years, which comprised the first decade of the new millennium, in case you're counting.

         In my opinion, if it weren't for the Lord of the Rings series, movies as a whole from 2001-2010 were rather shallow, certainly not enticing to me except for maybe one or two features a year, as I've said, like A Beautiful Mind in 2001, The Passion of the Christ in 2004, The Chronicles of Narnia in 2005, Gran Torino in 2008, and Avatar in 2009.  Rather sporadic to say the least.

         And so when I can write here in this space about four movies that I've been enticed to see in one winter season alone -- our current bleak midwinter -- and can give them all rave reviews, well, things are looking up in the popcorn business.

         We saw Skyfall in November, Lincoln in December, The Hobbit and Les Miserables in January.  Each were riveting.  Each were nearly three-hour movies that seemed much shorter.  I highly recommend each of them.

         Skyfall was a typical James Bond movie which means you sit on the edge of your seat for much of it and scream a couple times and scare everybody else in the theater.  I can hardly tell you what it was about today, but it was thrilling.  James Bond travels the globe and takes us with him.  Stunts are unbelievable, of course, and that's part of the fun.  I remember that Skyfall is the name of the Bond family estate in Scotland and that the ending is revealing of his family ties to the place and therefore hits the heart of home.

         Lincoln was excellent because President Lincoln did what was right despite opposition in his face and behind his back.  Lincoln dared to define victory in the Civil War as granting freedom to slaves, not just saving the union.  According to the movie, Lincoln practically stood alone in that regard.  When Allan and I visited Lincoln's home in Springfield, Illinois, a few years ago, where he and his wife Mary lived for nearly 20 years, we learned that of four children born to them, only one lived to adulthood and had three children and none of these had children.  The last of Lincoln's bloodline died in 1985.

         Then we were enticed to see The Hobbit.  Actually, since I'm a huge fan of Lord of the Rings and watch all three features in that series every winter, here in my Gazette office, not downstairs on the couch, it was practically a given that we'd go see The Hobbit, despite some poor reviews.  It felt like home to see familiar characters from Lord of the Rings, including Gandolf, Elrond, Galadriel, and Smeagol.  I love and live the words in The Hobbit theme song, "The greatest adventure is what lies ahead."

         Finally, we saw Les Miserables, which was outstanding.  I've seen, and own, a couple old movie versions of Les Miserables but this 2012 feature is incomparable in many ways.  For one thing, it' a musical.  Jean Valjean  and Fantine and Cosette and Marius sing their hearts out.  Javert, the police detective who has no heart, even sings with heart.  You may know that it's a story about people fighting through a string of miserable circumstances and situations.

         When we drive back home to Victoria after a movie outing, we appreciate the relative calm in our personal stories.  And there's a stirring within me, knowing that the greatest adventure is what lies ahead.

In-Town Auto Repair  952-443-2868

942-443-2078

February 2013