Roger Ebert I am not!!!

So here is my attempt at movie reviewing! It is something I have always wanted to do but just never took the time to do. Now I realize this is by no means a great review, it's just something I did for fun. Hope you enjoy.

JAWS

Steven Spielberg’s Jaws (1975) is my favorite movie of all time, I have seen it dozens of times and it never grows tired or old. It succeeds on so many levels but is most effective in 2 major areas; the setup and payoff of the shark, and the establishing of the three major characters.
Alfred Hitchcock once said – “the bomb is under the table and it explodes, this is a surprise, the bomb is under the table and it doesn’t explode, this is suspense”. I can imagine this phrase constantly running through Spielberg’s mind while developing the film. Watching the movie again recently I was reminded how little the shark is seen at all. And what an effective strategy this proves to be. Compared to today’s monster movies where the point seems to be to show the monster as often and frequently as possible imagine a movie where the monster isn’t seen at all until the final act. And once the shark does make it’s appearance it has been built up so well that it makes for a genuine moment of fear (modern filmmakers take note!).

The second major victory of the film is the establishing of the three major characters. Quint, Brody, and Hooper seem like real people who venture out to kill the shark and not just three plot devices that allow the filmmaker a good kill or gross out moment. The movie takes it’s time with each character, giving all three of them reason or motivation for wanting the shark dead. It also wisely gives them all 3 different personalities that allow them to voice dramatic information about the shark that establishes it better in our minds. Consider some of the lines spoken by Hooper the oceanographer – “what you’re dealing with here is a perfect eating machine”, and the brilliant scene in which Brody, the outsider to the Island looks through pictures of shark attack victims to educate himself more about sharks, in one simple scene we learn more about the character and we see the results of the shark attacks which again, builds the shark up in our minds. There are many scenes like this throughout the film so well done that by the time the three characters are doing battle with the shark at the end we understand and care about each person and understand their motivations.

Well I love this movie, and I have so much respect for Spielberg as filmmaker. He proves here as he would throughout his entire filmmaking career that all the action and special effects in the world mean nothing without the storytelling and characters. I love the way Jaws takes it’s time getting to the shark and along the way builds real and genuine suspense, and I love the time and attention given to the characters so that they become so much more than just a chance to show the shark eating someone. As a known movie fan I’ve been asked several times over the years what is my favorite movie of all time, that answer always has been, and I suspect always will be Jaws.

Ready for the fall...

Is anyone else ready for the fall??? We are! I just thought I'd bring you all up to date on what we've been doing. Molly and Ryan worked very hard on Papaw's garden this summer....and by working hard, I mean eating the strawberries off the vine. They had a great time and grew 2 very big pumpkins. We finally picked them last week and brought them up to our porch to get ready for the fall. We bought a few mums last week and then went to Curtis Orchard this past weekend and got gourds for the porch and apple cider slushies for our bellies! We had a great time. Molly and Ryan rode horses, fed goats and ducks and went down a HUGE slide. They really enjoyed it. We're all excited for Halloween with our costumes ordered. All I can say is that Ryan's costume has built in muscles and Molly's going to be a superhero! Yes, I'm shocked too that Molly's not going to be a princess or something that involves a tutu! In other news, we have spotted several "smoosh-ed" frogs and squirrels when we've been out on walks and Ryan's really enjoying inspecting them all very closely and poking them with sticks. The kids are growing like weeds and having lots of fun!

Exciting Weekend Ahead!

We're so excited for the weekend! We'll be coming to Benton on Friday for Wendall's 86th Birthday! How exciting! Uncle Wendall is such a great man and I have so many awesome memories of him in my childhood. My favorite Christmas memory has always been being at Aunt Irene and Uncle Wendall's house on Christmas Eve. I remember sitting in their basement and looking out the window praying to God that it would snow so we could have a white Christmas. I remember Wendall getting so excited when we would all start to sing. Irene's piano always had a special ring to me! I love seeing Wendall directing the singing at Christmas! He's so fun! Happy Birthday Uncle Wendall!!! You are a special man!

On Saturday, we have Awana training in Decatur and then my dad and Karen are coming up to see us! We're excited to spend time with you guys!

On Sunday, we have our Elder and Deacon service which should be a very special day for our church. After church, we'll have a house full of company! We're excited!

I think this weekend's going to be busy, but wonderful! I can't wait!

Misty

Camp Maranatha, we hold you in our hearts.......

So I have really been out of the blog scene for awhile now. After a few half hearted attempts and promises to get back into it this is my official return to the blog world! Last week I attended Church Camp for the 1st time in my life and I have to say I had a blast!!! First of all and most importantly kids got saved!!! This is all you could ask for from Church Camp and everything else was just icing on the cake. My job was recreation which was a blast. It was lots of fun to play games with the kids and going down the giant slide was great as well. We had to bring our kids along with us and they were very good during the day (sleeping at night was a different story!!!). I am already looking forward to next year! My first camp exprerience was definately a good one.

Anyways I am really going to do a better job at blogging. I am even considering trying my hand at movie reviews!!! I am going to try to post a review of my favorite movie of all time this week......if you want to see what that is just stay tuned to the blog (because I know everybody is dying to know what my favorite movie is - lol!!!)

Off to Camp We Go

Just wanted to let you all know we're headed off to church camp for a few days. It started out as Children's Camp, 2nd-5th Grade and now we also have the youth camp going with us. They'll be doing different things at different times, but we'll all be there together. Molly and Ryan will be going with us! It's funny because a few weeks ago, Molly asked if we would take her camping and we both laughed! Andy and I are not campers!!! She even wanted to sleep in a tent. A few days later I remembered that we would be going to church camp and that would be Molly and Ryan's camping experience. We will be staying in a cabin on a campground, but we have a bathroom in our cabin, as well as air conditioning and a refrigerator, etc. It's not going to be "roughing it", but it will be an "outdoorsy experience" for the kids! They are sooo excited! I'm going to be leading the worship for the kids and Andy is handling all the recreation activities. There is a 2 story slide and a water trampoline, a lake and a swimming pool. No, I am not going fishing. We'll let you know how it goes and we'll try to post pictures....however, I haven't been able to upload pictures in months! Onto the church bus and off to camp we go!

We have not abonded the BLOG!

Happy Middle of the Summer to everyone! As you can see from the last post, which was June 4, we have been busy...too busy to write and keep you all up to date. Since June 4, we started and finished our tumbling classes (which were fun) and also have enjoyed the library's summer reading program. Today was Molly's last class because we'll be gone to church camp next week and then the summer reading program will be over. We also had an awesome VBS this summer. The theme was Boomerang Express! We went "Down Under" to the Great Outback and it was fun! I participated in the Douglas County Relay for Life. Our team, the Newmaniacs (formerly known as the Newmanites) were third in fundraising and we were definitely the most spirited team. We ended up with 14 members and participated in all the fun laps and games. Molly and Ryan went to their first movie, "Up", which they loved. Since Andy loves movies soooo much, we took them for his birthday and they did great! We're going to try to go see the new Ice Age movie soon. We've had pink eye in our house too...there's nothing like a couple of crusty eyed, sweaty kids running around the house. Thankfully, the pink eye is all gone now! We also had so much fun at my family reunion in Benton. It was so awesome listening to my family sing and play piano and guitar! Family harmony...there's nothing like it! It was absolutely beautiful and made me realize how thankful I am for such an awesome Christian family who helped me understand and LOVE music, especially Christian music - AND love the Lord! Andy and I also painted the whole house a few weeks ago. When we get back from church camp, we are going to paint the whole funeral home...that's going to take a few days! Oh yeah, another really cool thing is that Ryan is about half way through his potty training and we haven't really done anything yet. Molly told him he needed to start going on the potty and she goes in there with him and if he goes potty then he gets a treat and she gets one too for helping him, so of course, they both want treats, so they try to go a lot :) They are tooooooo funny! We hope you're all doing great and we'll try to do a better job of keeping you up to date on what's going on! Have a great rest of the summer!