Movie Monday 1/23

I'm actually glad it's Monday today, despite the dark, wet, gloomy weather.  We spent most of the weekend working hard (and making no progress!) on financial aid forms, scholarship applications, and tax preparation.  Ugh.  The bright spot in our weekend was a gathering Saturday evening with our local group of teens who have CFS and their families.  Even though I was tired and feeling a bit down, it was a nice respite to just hang out with our friends.  As Ken said, we just feel so comfortable with that group - there is no explaining to do!  And it was great to see all the teens laughing, teasing, joking...basically being regular teens.

Our only other bright spot in the week was movies!

• Jamie had more sick days last week, so one day, I cheered him up by borrowing Knight and Day from the library.  It's an action movie with plenty of laughs and even a bit of romance.  Tom Cruise stars as a federal agent on the run, and Cameron Diaz is his unwilling partner/sort of hostage.  It keeps you guessing as to whether Cruise is a good guy who's been framed or the bad guy that the rest of the Feds say he is.  Jamie and I both enjoyed it.
• Friday night, Craig slept over at a friend's house, so Ken, Jamie, and I watched Unstoppable.  I'd gotten it from the library weeks ago, but the boys kept saying it looked boring...just the opposite!  It's based on a true story about a runaway train in Pennsylvania.  Denzel Washington is great as an engineer with decades of experience who's being forced into retirement, and Chris Pine (who played the young Captain Kirk in Star Trek) co-stars as a rookie conductor having a really bad first day on the job.  The movie was great but high tension from beginning to end!  If you have trouble handling adrenaline rushes, it's best to pass on this one - I definitely should have taken an extra beta blocker before I watched it!
• Last night, Craig went to a comedy show with a friend (can you see who has the busy social life in our house?), so Ken, Jamie, and I watched Moneyball, starring Brad Pitt.  This was also an excellent movie, about how the General Manager of the Oakland A's pretty much transformed professional baseball by analyzing statistics, with the help of a super-smart Yale graduate, instead of managing by gut feel.  This is also based on a true story.  None of us are baseball fans, but we all enjoyed this movie very much.
• Jamie watched a lot of The Office, Num8ers, and The Simpsons during his sick days last week, and Ken and I have begun watching episodes from season 1 of In Plain Sight, a TV show about the witness protection program.  I think we have found another winner - it's great so far!

Have you seen any good movies lately?

(P.S. If you are also interested in what we are reading this week, check out the Monday post on my book blog.)