Weekly Links - gospel, wine, matchmakers, movies, and more!

photo credit: Betsy Barber

I'm still counting this post as getting my links up on the weekend, because my kids are home from school today in honor of Lincoln's birthday. That said, here is your weekly (!) good reading from around the web:


On Faith:
"Why I Don't Share the Gospel" - it's all about joy.

"Our Prayer Instincts Are Backwards" - why we start in the wrong direction when we talk to God.

"Today Is Susanna Wesley's Birthday" - Susanna Wesley is one of my favorite saints. I love reading about her!

"What My Grandmother Taught Me About Church" - a moving memorial from Russell Moore - also good reading for parents and grandparents out there who want their children to grow up loving the house of the Lord.

"When God Writes Your Story" - this testimonial about books and faith is one of the most beautiful things I've read.

"Lord, You Said There Would Be Wine" - one last good piece of reading for Ordinary Time.



General Interest:
"Interview with a Former Professional Matchmaker"

"Fiber: the least sexy weight-loss tool" - my thanks to my friend Becca for this link!

"Old Movie Review: UNBREAKABLE" - this makes me want to watch this one, and ...

"Hail, Caesar!" - and this review really makes me want to watch this one!



I hope you have a good week, and especially a good beginning to Lent on Wednesday.

-Jessica Snell

Movie Notes: "Live Die Repeat: Edge of Tomorrow"

"Edge of Tomorrow" is a sci-fi film good enough I recommended it to my father. (My father, you understand, is the person who introduced me to the genre in the first place, and fostered my love for it. I only recommend the good stuff to him.)

This movie is sort of like the invasion at Normandy in WWII, crossed with the movie "Groundhog Day", and featuring aliens and robotic armor.

Our hero, played by Tom Cruise, starts out as anything but heroic: he's a cowardly advertising exec who, when aliens invaded Earth, signed up with the Army before he could be drafted in order to secure a comfy post as a recruiter. Day in and day out, he convinces poor sots to join up and be shot at by the enemy he himself is terrified to face.

But one day, he angers the wrong general, and finds himself broken back to private, and dumped in the barracks of the soldiers who are about to be dumped on a European beach and ordered to make it past the enemy ranks.

He flails, he panics, he flails . . . and he dies.

And then wakes up back at the beginning of the same day, broken back to private and dumped in the same barracks.

It happens again, and again.

I don't want to go much further into detail, in fear of spoiling the fun, but rest assured that there's a real character arc for our hero: as he lives the same day again and again, he becomes a better man and then, more than that, he becomes a hero. And he's helped on that way by a woman who is already more of a hero than perhaps he can ever be: Emily Blunt's character, who is tough in a way that is - given her backstory - utterly believable.


I really enjoyed this one. It's an action movie, yes, but it also has so many funny moments, and lots of great character interactions. Not for kids, due to violence and some language, but I imagine I'd be comfortable watching it with older teenagers. Recommended.



Peace of Christ to you,
Jessica Snell


This post contains an Amazon affiliate link; if you purchase something from this link, I will receive a small percentage of the purchase price.  (See full disclosure on sidebar of my blog.)

Movie Notes: "Jupiter Ascending"

So, anyone who's seen my Pinterest page knows I have a thing for space princesses.

It's one of my favorite tropes. But Hollywood hardly ever makes space princess movies. They make superhero movies instead. And I love the idea of superheroes . . .

But not as much as I love the idea of space princesses.

So when I heard that "Jupiter Ascending" was basically the origin story for a space princess, I identified myself as the target audience and lined right up.

Well, I say "lined right up".  I am still your basic frugal housewife. So "lined right up" does NOT refer to queuing up at the theater. Rather, it refers to queuing up in my library's request system.

Anyway.

I brought home the DVD and my husband and I gave ourselves a movie night.

And I loved it!

Shocking, I know. But it was just . . . fun.  Did the plot make a lot of sense? No, not particularly. Was it a great story made for the ages? Really, really not.

But was it fun?

Sure!  There were pretty dresses, and a Cinderella-like origin story, and the hero had rollerblades that let him fly.  (It made for absolutely bonkers fight scenes.)


One reviewer I read said that this was basically a movie so bad that Sean Bean didn't die in it.

I say, It's a movie so good they let us have things like Sean Bean bowing gallantly to the heroine while indicating that the bees dancing in clouds around her are proof of her royal blood.


Yes: the loyalty of bees demonstrates the fated destiny of the main character. This is just one example of the sort of thing that makes this movie both 1) fun, and 2) totally over-the-top ridiculous.


I'll add that, in this case, it's just fine to go into the movie knowing the plot. (Plot SPOILER: Humans didn't evolve on Earth, they were seeded there millennia ago as a cash crop, they are about to be harvested, our heroine is heir to a tremendous galactic fortune, bad guys want to take away her inheritance so they can reap the harvest that is Earth and its inhabitants, she needs to save humanity from this terrible fate. There you go.)

Knowing the plot let me forget about trying to track the whys and wherefores too closely, and just enjoy the lovely visuals.

Caution for one scene with a bare bottom (lady walking out of a bath), but other than that, it's not objectionable - just delightfully weird and pretty.


Peace of Christ to you,
Jessica Snell


This post contains an Amazon affiliate link; if you purchase a book from this link, I receive a small percentage of the purchase price.  (See full disclosure on sidebar of my blog.)

Movie review: the Croods: better than you'd think!

I have to admit, I avoided "The Croods" when it first came out because it looked, well, crude.

But, I repent me.

We gave it a try once it showed up on one of our streaming services (Netflix? probably), and it wasn't half bad.

In fact, I enjoyed it.

Though, I give you this: it's a modern kids' movie. It's a bit frenetic, there are bits I don't care for, etc.

But I was impressed by how much of it I liked.

I especially liked how creative the world-building was. This is not your academic caveman. This is not a caveman who exists in any possible world. This is as fantastical as all get-out. The movie-makers took their liberty and ran with it, inventing the most far-fetched, funny, beautiful fauna and flora I've ever seen. I loved the creativity of all the plants and animals they imagine might have existed in the early days of the Earth.

I think the land-whales were my favorite.

And even though there's a typical young-girl-becoming-a-woman-knows-best sort of plot, the linchpin of the whole story is the self-sacrificial love of the main character's father. I loved that.

So, in conclusion, if you're looking for something fun for a family movie night, I think this one's a pretty decent choice.

And these days, that's saying something.

Peace of Christ to you,
Jessica Snell


This post contains Amazon affiliate links. (See full disclosure on sidebar of my blog.)