Six Word Saturday (11/2/13)

Corn Maze, New Phone and Netflix

Last week was uninteresting and I didn't write a 6WS page for it.  Saturday the 26th we went to the Mesilla Valley Corn Maze.  This was the first time I went although my husband takes the kids every year.  There were about two dozen vendors competing in their BBQ ribs contest so we sampled a few and voted.  My husband pushed me around in a wheelchair because I thought it was going to be too much walking, and I'm really impressed because he even hauled me through the maze.  It was mowed into the shape of a Campbell's vegetable soup can.

We got rid of our land line and my husband bought me a new cell phone (which uses the land line number) and has a slide out keyboard, internet, and a camera on it.  My old flip phone was a pain to text on (number pad).  I joked with my husband if the new phone came with friends to text to.  So far I guess I like it.

We also got rid of cable TV and subscribed to Netflix instead.  I have watched eight movies on it so far:

• Eternal Sunshine of the Spotless Mind.  This stars Jim Carrey and it's not a comedy.  His character hires someone to erase his memory of his ex because he found out she erased her memory of him.  It was kind of disturbing and messed with my head a little.
  
• The River Why.  The tagline for this movie was that a man gives up his life in the city and moves to the wilderness to fly-fish and think about life.  It was filmed in Oregon and the scenery is breathtaking!  I also liked the musical score.  The story was "slow" if you're used to watching a lot of action but I found it very relaxing.  The message I got was that everyone dies, whether they're a good person or a bad person, and you should take in your world through all your senses to truly live.
  
• Meant to Be.  This is a pro-life Christian movie about a young man taking a trip to find his birth mother.  His birth mother is a social worker wrapped up in helping a pregnant teen.  The guy discovers something shocking about his life.  I can't say anything else or it would give away half the movie, but I will say I want to watch it again with Claudia in mind and maybe that would be healing for me.
  
• Biloxi Blues.  Matthew Broderick stars in this 1988 movie based on a Neil Simon play.  I saw it when it was originally released, and I have always remembered Broderick's character at basic training in Alabama marching in line and commenting to himself, "It's really hot.  This is like 'Africa' hot."  Lots of other funny lines I'd forgotten too!  And Christopher Walken played his creepy platoon leader.
  
• Born on the Fourth of July.  Tom Cruise stars in this movie of Ron Kovic's Vietnam experience, injury, and later anti-war activism.  The language was pretty awful and the violence was very graphic.  I had seen this too when it was originally released in 1989.  Granted, the director Oliver Stone is as left-leaning as they come so I'm sure he exaggerated a lot, but the conditions of the hospital when Kovic was first being treated were deplorable (nonworking equipment, filthy, rats).
  
• Noel.  I watched this movie to prepare for being bombarded by Christmas stuff after Halloween and also because Susan Sarandon is in it (yes, she's an outspoken leftwinger too, but she is beautiful and has a cool sounding voice and reminds me of my late friend Nancy).  There are several small story lines intertwined in this movie (adult daughter visiting her mother with late term Alzheimer's, a couple who break up before their wedding because of the boyfriend's abusiveness, a homeless man who mistakes the aforementioned boyfriend for his dead wife reincarnated, etc.) and I loved the ending.  Robin Williams has an uncredited serious role too.  I wish I could watch this movie again but it was only available till the 1st.
  
• The Boy in the Striped Pajamas.  I watched this only because it was taking place in WWII (a time period I like).  A Jewish boy in a concentration camp is befriended by the young son of a high-ranking Nazi guard.  The little boy was lonely even though his family was wealthy, and I really empathized with him.  He ends up digging a hole under the concentration camp fence so he could play with his Jewish friend and also help find the Jewish boy's father lost in the camp.  I wasn't expecting the ending at all and it was very dramatic and I'm a little haunted by it still.
  
• Radio.  This stars Cuba Gooding Jr. as "Radio" (given that nickname because he carries around a transistor radio) a young retarded man who the high school football coach gives a small job with the team, even though at first everyone in town hates him because they're afraid of him (and the quarterback's father spends most of the movie trying to keep him from being in contact with the "normal" people).  Slowly during the course of the movie, people start warming up to him and realize he's very nice and supportive of everyone, so by the end everyone loves him.  This is based on a true story.