I watched a movie called 'Heaven Can Wait' starring Warren Beatty. It was a really sweet movie about an athlete who is taken out of his body just before an accident to spare him the pain. As he's being conducted to heaven, they find out that he wasn't supposed to die. But when they go back to check on his body, they find it has already been cremated. So he ends up taking the body of another man who just died. It's a very funny story with a really sweet ending. I think my favorite thing about the movie was the goodness of the main character. It was a nice, refreshing story. Good movie. Well worth watching.
The second movie was my favorite. It was called 'Shuffle' starring T.J. Thyne and it was fantastic! There are a couple small parts of the movie that I wouldn't recommend for children, but I didn't think they were nasty. The premise of the movie is a man who is living his life out of order. One day he's 30, then he's 8, then he's 42, then he's ... you get the idea. There are a couple of twists that really surprised me, but were really satisfying at the same time. It was intense, emotional, artistic, and ended making me feel really good. I highly recommend that one. We first saw TJ Thyne in a short film a few years ago called 'Validation'. That's also well worth watching. I'll put it here in case you haven't seen it. Check it out.
Then I watched a movie called 'Happy'. It's a documentary about what makes people happy and it was REALLY cool to see. Some take-aways for me: 1) Variety; 2) Physical activity; 3) Nature; 4) Relationships, especially family; 5) Get in the zone with something you like to do; 6) Laughter; 7) Compassion/kindness (perform random acts of kindness); 8) Meditation; 9) Gratitude (count your blessings regularly; write them down); 10) Personal growth.
That jives pretty well with what I've seen in my life so far. It's interesting to note how much emphasis we place on things like money, status, and image and imagine those things will make us happier. But they really don't. Once you have enough to eat, clothes to wear, and shelter from weather, the amount of money you have doesn't correlate at all with your level of happiness. And most of the people I know have the basic necessities of life.
So, three movies in one night: 1) Heaven Can Wait; 2) Shuffle; 3) Happy. And I loved them all. I normally would have gone crazy sitting that long in one evening, but I felt so good when I was done. And each movie has given me a lot to think about. I recommend them all, but the best one was 'Shuffle'. If you've seen any of these or if you decide to see them, let me know what you think. For those Netflix subscribers out there, as of today, all three are available for streaming, so that makes it easy.
