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A little disclaimer before you keep reading.  I try to recommend only squeaky clean movies on my site.  That being said, this movie has one or two parts that might make you blush if you’re watching it with your 10 year old child or 90 year old grandmother.  So proceed with caution if you decide to watch it!

I don’t know of any other Thanksgiving movies, but Pieces of April tops my list (of one!). 

Katie Holmes plays an estranged daughter of a mother dying of cancer.  The movie follows the car trip from the family’s house to the estranged daughter’s apartment in the ghetto on Thanksgiving day.  Along the way, they make several pit stops to indulge the mother’s erratic needs and wants, almost turning home several times because of the complicated relationship everyone has with the estranged daughter.  The whole family is trying to cope with the mother’s impending death while the daughter (who has made a mess of her life) attempts to get Thanksgiving dinner ready in her dingy apartment.  Typical of her nature, everything goes wrong, and while trying to get help from her neighbors, she meets some interesting characters.  It’s a wonderful story of the goodness of human nature and a great hope that complicated, disturbed relationships can be mended.

Let me know your thoughts if you’ve seen it or if you do watch it!  Do you have any other favorite Thanksgiving movies?

As if you couldn’t hate Hitler enough, here comes a lesser known story of more silent victims of the Nazis- famous art. 

The Rape of Europa documents the Nazi’s massive, calculated thievery of artworks, furniture, and historical objects throughout Europe.  Hitler and his forces traveled across Europe, stealing from art dealers, art collectors, and museums.  What he didn’t take, Hitler burned and destroyed because he considered it unworthy of the new “supreme” nation he was building.

The images in this film of Nazis casually walking off with beautiful masterworks in their ornate frames is surreal. 

Many museums prepared for his looting by evacuating all the artwork and shipping it off to the countryside.  The Nazis were then greeted with empty hallways. 

Hundreds of paintings are still missing.  The Utah Museum of Fine Arts actually had a stolen painting in it’s possesion without knowing it!  Thankfully (but sadly), they returned the painting to the original owners.  Experts believe some of these missing paintings will remain missing for generations until all of the Nazi generation is gone.

Watch the movie. It’s so worth it.

Here’s a helpful tip: If you’ve ever seen a movie “based on a true story” and loved it, don’t, whatever you do, read the book that tells the true story.

The Pursuit of Happyness was one of my favorite movies of all time. I loved Chris Gardner, played by Will Smith. He was a devoted dad, a hard worker, and surmounted insurmountable trial after insurmountable trial, ultimately becoming an incredibly successful man.

THEN, I read Chris Gardner’s autobiography, The Pursuit of Happyness, and watched as Chris Gardner quickly fell from the pedestal the movie had placed him upon.

To be fair, Gardner had a horrible childhood. One wouldn’t hold out much hope for a person like him ever succeeding in life, much less becoming a self made millionaire as an adult. And, he truly did have a hard time while living in San Francisco as a homeless single father trying to become a stock broker. But his hard time was mostly self inflicted based on bad (and sometimes downright sleazy) choices. Plus, his challenges were not NEARLY as difficult as the challenges the Chris Gardner in the movie faces.

The movie has you rooting for Gardner right from the start. You’re so hooked that every fall he takes becomes a crushing defeat for you, personally (as well as everyone you’re watching the movie with). The movie is exhausting, as you go from elation at a small advance to despair at how far back Gardner continues to be set. When he finally succeeds in the end, you breathe a HUGE sigh of relief and even feel like cheering!

So…watch the movie, but keep it in perspective. And don’t read the book. Unless you’re dying to know the true story, as I was.

You must watch this movie. 

It is a beautiful story of how music brings people together.  A child prodigy uses music to bring him to his parents, who don’t know he is alive.  The music in the movie is, of course, gorgeous. Watching this movie solely for the soundtrack would be well worth it. But even more, the depth of relationships and the beauty of hope in this story is on a deep level not always present in 90 minute movies. And even beyond that, you end feeling as if there is much more to music than what is on the surface.  Music lives in us and travels throughout the universe.  All we have to do is stop and listen.

This is a movie I want to own.  I want to see it again, but my husband hurriedly returned it to Netflix so that we can receive “The Hulk” next!  I’m sure “The Hulk” will be fantastic as well, but not quite as beautiful!

“The Martian Child” with John Cusack is a tender story based on a real single man who adopts a child out of Foster Care. The child believes he is a martian, which creates many challenges in helping the child adapt to family life, school life, and just life in general. Much time is spent trying to get the child to be normal, which leads to the important question: just what IS “normal?”

I loved the movie. It inspired me to see what one man’s love could do change the life of a child. Have you seen the movie? Or maybe others like it? Do share, please!

Ok, I know I know, I just can’t get over Vermeer this week.  This is it, I promise. I liked both of these movies based on the books, “Girl wih a Pearl Earring” by Tracy Chevalier and “Girl in Hyacinth Blue” by Susan Vreeland.

You’ve probably seen “Girl With a Pearl Earring,” or at least remember seeing previews and posters for it.  It is visually stunning but a little slow.  And again, I don’t like how Vermeer is portrayed. But still worth seeing, I think.

“Brush with Fate” is a Hallmark Hall of Fame movie starring Glenn Close.  I really liked the story in this movie. It follows the personal stories of the owners of an unknown Vermeer through the generations. You get several good stories in one.

Have you seen either of these movies?  What did you think about them?