Movie Monday 7/29

So, our sons were gone all last week, sailing with their grandparents off the coast of Rhode Island, along with their cousins. I really needed the time to myself, though the week at home didn't turn out quite the way my husband and I had envisioned it. He is in surgery right now, for his eye, so he could only see out of one eye last week and had a bad cold as well (more on all that tomorrow, once we know more). So, we spent a lot of time relaxing with movies and TV:

On my last night alone, I watched Smashed, a movie about hard partying woman who gradually realizes that it's not all fun and games and she has a serious problem. Puking in front of your kindergarten students tends to have that effect. It was an interesting movie and well done, though somewhat depressing. She does seek help and eventually begin to pull her life back together but not without some significant bumps in the road. It does end on a hopeful note, but it's a serious and sometimes disturbing story.

After Ken got home from his trip, he and I watched The Impossible, a movie about the 2004 tsunami in Thailand. The story focuses on a British family - the parents are played by Ewan McGregor and Naomi Watts - who are vacationing at a beautiful, secluded resort when the tsunami hits without warning. This is a heart-pounding, edge-of-your-seat movie from beginning to end! The visual effects are just stunning, and seeing what this family went through is heart-rending and terrifying. We were both captivated by the movie from the first moments to the last.

With the kids away, Ken and I also caught up on some TV shows that we like. We watched the first few episodes of the new season of Perception, an excellent show about a man with schizophrenia who helps the FBI, played fabulously by Eric McCormack. We also watched a few recent episodes of Graceland, a new show about a group of law enforcement officers from different agencies, all living together in a California beach house and working undercover to put a dent in the drug trade. It took us a while to get into this very fast-paced show, but we are hooked now. And we watched all of the episodes so far released of Under the Dome, a new mini-series based on Stephen King's massive novel. Ken read it, and I didn't, but we are both enjoying the show, about a town that is mysteriously cut off from the rest of the world by an invisible but impenetrable dome.

Have you seen any good movies or TV shows lately?

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