Movie Monday 4/4

Happy Monday!  Hope you all had a good weekend.  We spent most of it watching soccer games and working on our tax returns.  Thank goodness we finally finished - whew, what a big job!  Sorting out the medical expenses - including what was paid by insurance, what was reimbursed from our flexible sending account, and what was truly out-of-pocket - was a huge task in itself!  Now, I have to get back to my neglected to-do list.  I just spent hours going through all the e-mails that piled up this weekend.  I'm rarely online during the weekends, so Monday is always a catch-up day.

Well, the other thing we did this weekend was to watch two movies:

• We watched Date Night with the kids, and I was pleasantly surprised!  I expected this comedy starring Tiny Fey and Steve Carell to be just 90 minutes of silliness and slapstick (you know, plenty of jokes about people getting hit in the crotch), but it was actually a pretty good movie.  It was very funny (and not a single crotch hit!) but also had an element of mystery/suspense to it.  Also, Ken and I could relate to the main characters - a suburban NJ couple, overwhelmed and tired, who attempt a special night out together in NYC.  Overall, very enjoyable.
• Ken and I watched Extraordinary Measures, another movie that struck a bit too close to home.  It's based on a true story, about a family who have two kids with a fatal, degenerative illness, Pompe disease (of course, we are grateful our kids have long lives in front of them, but we could relate to other aspects of the family's life).  The two kids are both getting close to the expected lifespan for Pompe kids, and the parents are increasingly desperate to find a way to save them.  The dad, who works for a pharmaceutical company, discovers some promising - but not prominent - research being done on a new treatment and searches out the researcher, a brilliant scientist but grumpy loner in Nebraska played by Harrison Ford.  The parents end up facing a decision - should they put all their hopes (and time and money) on a possible miracle or should they devote all of their energy to just enjoying their kids' last days?  Yes, it's a tear-jerker, but it's also very inspiring and uplifting.  When it ended, Ken and I looked at each other and said, "Should we be doing more?  Fund-raising? Something to help move the science along?"  It really was inspirational.

Have you seen any good movies lately?