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Fields of Grass and the Pop Culture Legos

Life and weather got in the way of going to a restaurant this week.

Monday: The Sea of Grass (1947)
      This western stars Katherine Hepburn and Spencer Tracy. You know it is going to be a good movie when it stars those two. I don't typically like westerns but I had to watch it if they were both in it. This movie is about a city girl who marries a cattle rancher. She moves out to his ranch. It is a huge piece of property with lots of grass for the cattle to eat. As time goes on she discovers that he is not a good man. She falls in love with a lawyer. When it is discovered that her toddler doesn't belong to her husband she is exiled back to the city. They both struggle in their separate lives. This is a good movie. I wish it was in color because I'm sure that massive field of grass would look even more beautiful.

Tuesday: The Two Mrs. Carrolls (1947)
       In this film a struggling artist (Humphrey Bogart) falls in love with a young woman (Barbara Stanwyck). She becomes his muse and his art flourishes. The only problem is he has a wife in the city. To solve this problem he slowly poisons his wife. He marries the young woman and his life seems better. But soon the cycle starts again with another young woman. The new Mrs. Carroll starts to suspect that something is not right when she becomes sick for no reason. Tension builds as we see whether she will suffer the same fate as the first Mrs. Carroll. This is classic film noir. Shadows across faces to show darkness and mystery. The loud church bells in the town they live in help to build the tension. When the wife starts to put the pieces together she circles around the room in panic. The camera follows her and you feel the panic too. I liked this movie.

Wednesday: A Private War (2018)
      This is the real story of war correspondent Marie Colvin. She reported on all the major wars in the 2000s. She was in the Middle East and Africa. Marie sees more war than most soldiers. She even goes blind in one eye after an explosion. She suffers from PTSD. Yet she continues to go back to report on these wars. She is addicted to it. Marie was able to shine light on issues that we wouldn't have known about otherwise. Rosamund Pike plays Marie. She does a really good job and I see why she got some award attention. I thought the movie was ok.

Friday: The Lego Movie 2: The Second Part (2019)
      The lego characters are back for another adventure. In this movie Emmet and his friends are living in a apocalyptic land. They are attacked by an alien space ship and his friends are kidnapped. Emmet must rescue them. These movies are always fun. I love the animation. Like when someone's feet get wet it's just little blue circles that are thrown on their feet. I also love all the pop culture references. This movie is enjoyable for both children and adults. Maybe adult even more so because they get more of the references.

Saturday: The Girl in the Spider's Web (2018)
       This is a Lisbeth Salander story. It is based on the 4th book in The Girl with the Dragon Tattoo series. This isn't a sequel to the movie that came out in 2011. So there is a whole new cast. In this story Lisbeth is hired to hack into NSA and steal back a nuclear weapon program. She gets it easy enough but then it gets stolen and she learns there is way more to this than just stealing a program. She discovers there is a criminal group after the program with connections to her past. She teams up with Mikael Blomkvist again to retrieve the program and discover what is really going on. Lisbeth is a cool character. She is really smart and can handle herself in almost every situation. I get an almost Swedish James Bond feeling from the movie. It is a good movie.

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