A Hobby of Mine

Well as I have been busy posting to my other blog and traveling about, I've neglected this blog. I certainly have been writing and recording my thoughts and views a lot onto various journals, letters and my other blog, so it's now time to do a little updating here.

If you know me, you know I love movies. I love music and how it touches people, but movies do it more so, I believe. I find it amusing that most of my friends will play online games, blog or learn to hack, like my brother, during the slow times of the work day. Mine are spent watching movie previews. If I had a dream job, other than acting, it would be to put together the previews that the masses get to see before their feature film. I remember going to the movies as a kid and hating the previews because I just wanted to get to the movie I paid money to watch. I find now that the previews are sometime the best part of the whole movie experience, depending on the film of course. So my time, when I'm not planning a trip, reading, or watching the latest episode of The Office, is spent watching the latest previews on Apple.com. I've come across a couple of movies that I think I would like to see in the theatre, even though it is £6 for a showing here.

The first is Music Within. It doesn't have anything to do with music, but it does have a great deal to do with the "within" aspect of life. It's a true story, based on the life of the man who came up with the Americans with Disabilities Act of 1990, Richard Pimentel. He was in Vietnam when a shell went off near his head rendering him deaf. He goes back home to Oregon and becomes friends with a fellow who has cerebral palsy. Through their friendship and time together, and with a new disability for Pimentel, the 1990 ADA act was put into law. I like the look of the relationship between Pimentel and the palsy patient, mainly because one of my good friends has cerebral palsy. J has had it all his life, and I never really took notice as a kid, so I never really notice now. Seeing his struggles and crushing defeats and timely victories, I'm always inspired. Sometimes it takes a lot for me to finally get together with J, but when I do, we always have a great time. So this movie is one I'm wanting to see now.

Another one doesn't have the word "music" in the title, but it's most certainly about music. It's about how music brings people together, even if it does exaggerate the bond that it brings, but nevertheless, a good story with quality acting. The main character in August Rush is Freddie Highmore of such fame as Charlie and the Chocolate Factory (the Johnny Depp one), A Good Year , and one of my all-time favorites, Finding Neverland. This kid really is an amazing actor, and his best scene, and one of the best I've seen from anyone in any movie, is where he is reading a play he wrote for his mom and Johnny Depp in Finding Neverland. His mom goes into a coughing fit and he is abruptly jerked back into reality. He then remembers his anger and takes it out on Johnny Depp by ripping up the play - the significance being that Depp had inspired and pushed him to write it, and with the tearing of the pages of the script, he was showing Depp how much he cared about the inspiration and encouragement. But about the movie at hand... A wandering Irish guitar player and a sheltered cello player have a "night of fun" after falling in love and get pregnant. Her father won't let her see the Irishman and wants her to have an abortion. She doesn't, yet gives the kid up to an institution. He leaves at 11 years old and meets Robin Williams' character, who shows him what music is really about. This kid is incredibly talented, with Mozart qualities at several instruments. Basically he's trying to find his parents and he believes that they will hear his music, and find him. So probably a cheesy plot, but nonetheless a great kid acting in a touching and certainly daring role.

So now you have knowledge of my movie picks for this fall, and I will be sure to let you know of what I think of them after I've seen them.