Talking Movies

In the last month, I've seen three movies, and two of them were documentaries, which is so unusual for me.

The first was Yarn: The Movie, as I wrote about at the time. My take: it was quite interesting to me, as someone who is quite interested in yarn and all the etcetera*. Probably less interesting to those who are not.
*Why, no, spell-check, I did not mean to type tetrameter, but thank you for asking.

Next, a friend and I went to see Finding Dory on the 4th of July, and enjoyed it very much. (Possible spoilers here, though if you've seen the trailer, probably not much of a surprise.) It's one of those supposedly children's movies that you would have to be careful which children you took to see it. Granted, I may have gone into it thinking about that, since I read something beforehand noting that caution should be used especially with adopted/foster kids, due to the "her parents lost Dory and they were always looking for her" and "it was her fault she got lost" possible take-aways. Since I don't have to worry about that myself, I was able to enjoy the movie; I love Finding Nemo, and it was fun to see some of the characters from that, as well as the new ones like Hank the octopus/septopus. Basically, my so-helpful note on this is that if you think you would like the movie, you probably would; if not, it probably wouldn't change your mind. How's that?

Also, the short cartoon before the movie, Piper, was wonderful! I really identify with the little sandpiper who sees no appeal to leaving the nest where his mother feeds him. Ahem. It's also amazing and beautiful animation.

Then yesterday, since it was very much not beach weather this weekend (65 and cloudy in mid-July, I ask you)(the heat is supposed to return tomorrow and especially Wednesday, and I can't wait), I went with friends to see The Music of Strangers, which is about the Silk Road Ensemble, put together by Yo-Yo Ma. It was really interesting, about music and other cultures and what it means and how it works together...I'm finding it hard to be coherent about, but it was really good (go watch the trailer). There are some hard parts; it focuses on a couple of the musicians, and while the experience of the woman from China who went through the Cultural Revolution as a child is sort of retrospectively difficult, the men who are from Iran and Syria have more immediate issues that are a little too much like the nightly world news for comfort. This doesn't mean you shouldn't see it (Mum, I think you would like it), but just so you know.

Three movies in less than a month, and I'm not sorry I saw any of them; how about that? Finding Dory was probably my favorite, unsurprisingly, but they were all good.