Wednesday, May 13, 2015

Recent Movie




 
I don’t do a lot of these ‘cause I don’t go to the movies very often, only about once or twice a year.  It’s not so much the price of the movie that keeps me from seeing more –it’s the cost of the pop and popcorn.  One simply can not go to a movie without getting them and when the charge more for the popcorn than they do for the movie – POPCORN for pete’s sake – well, I boycott the movies unless it’s a special occasion or a movie I can’t wait to come out on DVD (notice I don’t say Neflix – I’ve no idea how that works really)
Such was the case yesterday, my day off from working the weekend,  when I went to see The Longest Ride – it was both.  A neighbor took me as a long delayed birthday present and – hello – Scott Eastwood.
 
So about this
 I may be old but I’m surely not dead.  Scott Eastwood – hello – (sorry – I just can’t type his name without the hello added to it)plays the role of Luke Collins a cowboy and bull rider.  He suffered a deadly injury and shouldn’t be bull riding anymore but he’s a stubborn one and is mounting a comeback on the bull riding circuit.  He meets Sophia Danko an art student at the local college when she and a bunch of her sorority sisters head to the local rodeo even though initially she doesn’t really want to go.  Their eyes meet when he’s bucked off a bull and his hat is knocked off and she hands it to him and he tells her to keep it.  They meet up again at the local watering hole and can we say – SPARKS FLY.  Heck, even I thought her gorgeous and sweet and wished we could hang together.  The only thing keeping me from developing a deeper girl crush was hello- Scott Eastwood.  Sophia is reluctant to get involved though as she has her life planned out and that means she is leaving the college in a couple of months to take an internship in New York City and any potential relationship would be so hard to maintain.  But she does agree to go out with him and can I just say that EVERY GIRL should have that kind of first date.  Talk about romantic.  And when this really hot cowboy – hello – Scott Eastwood –
is walking across this university campus – well, my heart went pitty pat.
There is such a real connection but again – timing sucks.  They are on their home from the date and it’s pouring rain when Luke spies something on the side of the road and discovers there was an accident.  Ira Levinson, played brilliantly by Alan Alda is rescued by Luke and Sophia but he also wants a box saved.  When he gets to the hospital, Sophia wants to stay to make sure he’s OK (see – girl crush).  When he wakes she shows him the box of letters she’s saved but he’s too old and his sight too bad to read them so she begins reading them and thus begins a series of flashbacks of a young Ira and his love Ruth and their story set in the 1940’s.  The actors who played a young Ira and a young Ruth were perfectly cast, especially I think Oona Chaplin who played Ruth.   It was sweet and tender and sad and it really added a lot to the movie.  I didn’t realize it going it, but this is actually a two story movie, half of it between Luke and Sophia and who they can overcome their difficulties and half between Ira and Ruth and overcoming their difficulties.  It’s sad in places, real sad in a couple, but it does have a very good happy ending.  A coworker had seen it and recommended it to me.  I asked her if it had a happy ending – not how it ended or that I wouldn’t see it if it didn’t –just that if it wasn’t a happy ending I needed to brace myself.  And myself didn’t need bracing so that’s a good thing for the romance lover in me.  The love scenes in this movie *sigh* well – I have a mood calendar at my desk that I change every day depending on how I’m feeling when I come into work.  Today I chose Addled and showed my coworker who recommended the movie.  Even though she’s just newly married, she got it – heh, heh, heh.
This is another Nicolas Sparks movie.  I’ve never read his books – and don’t intend to start, but I’ve seen some of his movies and they can be quite wonderful.  I liked the Notebook, have Safe Harbor downloaded in my Ipad though I haven’t watched it yet and LOOVVEDD The Lucky One – very romantic and who doesn’t find Zac Ephron easy on the eyes – though not as easy as- hello- Scott Eastwood.
I think part of my fascination with Scott is he‘s the son of Clint Eastwood and my oh my did I have a crush on him when I was just a young thing and he played Rowdy Yates, the strong silent type cowboy on Rawhide.  Combined with the awesomeness of the theme song, it was a great show for its time and helped lead me to my lifelong love of Westerns.  And after a brief sojourn into other genres, I’m back with the westerns.  Back in the days of Rawhide, believe it or not you young’uns, TV was black and white so we didn’t get to see the piercing blue eyes of the Eastwood men, but oh my stars were they on full display in The Longest Ride (and let’s not even get started on the PERFECT chest with PERFECT manly chest hair.)
For me, this was the PERFECT romance movie and I’ll be getting a copy as soon as I can when it comes out.  I think it’s almost finished it’s run with all the summer movies coming out, but if not, I urge the romantic in everyone to check this movie out.  It gets a very, very well deserved and hearty thumbs up from me.
 


And one more for the road – hello- Scott Eastwood.
 

 
 


 
 
 
'til later

8 comments:

azteclady said...

Kristie, I love you always--I hope you know this.

But I always love you most when you rave about things--books or movies--because every word drips with honest enthusiasm.

Having watched a couple of Nicholas Sparks' movies, I know this is a crying movie. Because of personal crap, it will be a good long while before I can watch it, but you can bet I will watch it eventually.

Thank you!

Kristie (J) said...

AL, sorry you're going through tough times. I can relate to not seeing a certain kind of movie depending on RL. This isn't really a cring movie, not like say Message in a Bottle and I'm still waiting for Kevin Costner to come back. Think towards the end of The Notebook.
But it's a happy ending, left me feeling good and it does star, hello - Scott Eastwood. When you do see it, you'll be thinking, wow, Kristie was right!! Hello - Scott Eastwood.

Lover Of Romance said...

Wonderful movie review. I have been debating watching this one, because you never know what to expect from Nicholas Sparks...but if it has a happy ending..I just might give it a try.

Kristie (J) said...

Lover of Romance: You don't know what to expect do you? I have no qualms whatsoever recomending this movie. It's simply wonderful. And then of course there's my mantra. Hello - its .......................

Hilcia said...

OMG KristieJ, I'm supposed to go to the movies on Friday this week and your post won me over. She and I can drool together over - Hello! -- Scott Eastwood. I will be thinking of you. :)

Kristie (J) said...

Hilcia, you will be drooling, I guarantee it. And probably melting into little mush pile over their first date scene. And all love scenes/ hello - Scott Eastwood naked chest scenes.
You simply MUST report back in when you've seen it and let me know what you thought. Those crinkly eyes...... Melting.

Wendy said...

I honestly don't watch a ton of romantic movies (sometimes I wonder if I'm really a girl?) and like you - Nicholas Sparks' name attached to something is more than likely going to have me running in the opposite direction. But.....

HELLLOOOOOOOOO, Scott Eastwood!

Needless to say I was hardly annoyed when the movie first came out and commercials, ads etc. were all over the place, bombarding my eyeballs. Bombard away! LOL

Sigh, and I love Alan Alda. Now I'm going to have to watch this when it hits cable.....

Kristie (J) said...

Wendy, and - its kind of sort of like a modern western. He's a rancher/bull rider. That has to worth something*chuckle*. And his daddy in RL was a major western star back in the day.
And Imm an Alan Alda fan too. I LOVED him in M.A.S.H