It's never easy to find a movie that the whole family wants to see, but yesterday we settled on "Captain Phillips." Well, truth be told, Andy and I were planning to watch it with Pete, then we managed to persuade the girls to join us. (The lure of freshly made popcorn might have been implicated.)
As everyone must know by now, it retells the true story of a cargo ship with 20 crew members that is hijacked by Somali pirates. It is an intense nail-biter, even if you know how it's going to turn out (which Julie and I did not, but the others did, or at least somewhat). There's a looming, menacing threat of violence throughout, but in truth not that much violence is actually shown. The tension and suspense really had us all on the edges of our seats. We all liked it a lot, even Julie—and this was her first "action adventure" or "thriller."
If anyone has suggestions for movies that might appeal to the whole family, I'm all ears.
Oh, and while I have you: Andy and I have watched the first 6 episodes of "House of Cards." So far: meh. Andy in particular is having trouble with the fact that he doesn't like anyone at all, not even a little. I'm just not feeling drawn in—I don't really care what happens. (Maybe that's because they're all so despicable.) I think Kevin Spacey and Robin Wright are great in their roles; however, I don't care at all for Kate Mara. So we may not bother continuing to watch.
I was feeling the same way after watching just the first two episodes. There is a little glimmer of curiosity (because those characters are soooo despicable and train wrecks can be horribly intriguing), but I read about the despicable nature of politicians every day as it is—in real life. I really don't want more of it in my life, fictional or not. The acting is amazing, though. Claire reminds me a lot of a former boss and I swear it induced flashbacks.
Posted by: Tonya | February 24, 2014 at 10:15 PM
Stay with "HoC". Barring that, watch the British version first on Netflix (much shorter at three epis for the first series), then consider the first six of the US version again.
Posted by: Joel | February 24, 2014 at 10:16 PM
What Joel said. Also, "Borgen."
Posted by: Wendy | February 24, 2014 at 11:56 PM