Six Word Saturday (12/14/13)

Post Office Adventure and Christmas Program

All last week I had wanted my daughter to go with me to the post office to mail my son's Christmas package overseas, and she had some excuse why she couldn't go.  So Monday I boxed up the gifts myself and wrote out directions to the post office off of Google Maps.  I probably could have gotten there okay without them but I do have anxiety about getting lost if I'm not in my comfort zone/neck of the woods.  I wrote out a different route for the way back so it wouldn't have so many left turns.  Even before I left the house, I had an overwhelming feeling like "if you get in your car, you're going to die!"  It was really scary and I started crying, but then somehow I remembered Andy Stanley's message from church online the day before - he was talking about Gideon and Samson, how they actually were ordinary people who, with God behind them, did extraordinary things.  Andy is kind of a motivational speaker so he instructed that you should ask yourself, "Would God want me to do this?" and if the answer is yes, then go for it because He will help you!  So after I envisioned God with me (and Jesus sitting in the front passenger seat) I was able to drive to the post office without any problems.  

HOWEVER, driving home was a different story.  I never saw the street I was supposed to turn on.  And I happened to look up in an intersection and saw that the street I had been traveling on was named something else at that point.  (Where I live, this happens a lot:  You can drive a straight line on one single street and the name will change three times.)  So I panicked and began crying and screaming for God to help me because when I'm lost I always feel like I'm going to end up driving so much that I run out of gas, end up starving to death on the side of some road, and nobody will even notice that I'm gone.  At first I was praying to see something big that was familiar (a hospital, the mall, a school I knew, etc.).  But after only a minute my chest hurt so bad and I felt like I couldn't swallow, and I prayed, "Can't you point me the way to Alameda [the street I needed to be on]?"  It felt like a last-ditch prayer like people in plane crashes pray ("Save me!")  Because then when it doesn't work out and I die (or the crash victims die), I/they can tell God, "Why am I here in Heaven?  I prayed!"  Anyway, the very next intersection had a red stoplight, so I looked up at the street sign and (I kid you not) it had an arrow pointing left with the street name El Paseo and an arrow POINTING right saying Alameda!  I love how God is so, so, so obvious when he deals with me.

Last night even though this year I hadn't planned on going at all, my daughter went with me to a Christmas program at the Baptist church I used to regularly go to.  They served cheesecake and coffee during the show.  We sat in the far right corner, right in front of the choir stand, and even though our table wasn't at a central point, I loved how the band didn't drown out the choir voices from our viewpoint.  I really liked the show although that jerk Mackenzie was in the choir (who got me "kicked out" of the latest Bible study I went to last year).  And, of course, she was on the end so I had to look at her through the whole show.  And she sang a solo because everyone thinks she's so wonderful.  At any rate, afterward the show we turned the car radio to 88.3 because the outside lights on the church were synched to Christmas music, which was pretty cool.

As for movies, I only got around to watching one movie this week on Netflix, a made for TV movie called "The Christmas Angel."  It had Kevin Sorbo (Andromeda) in it - I love his voice!  It was about a little girl who was the only one whose wishes came true.  She wished things for other people (not like a boy tells her "wish this for me"; it was more like she saw that the boy needed something so she wished he could have it.)  Della Reese played the angel (naturally).  The little girl's friend Lucas was as adorable as can be too!  I liked the movie although it was extremely predictable and blatantly Christian.  I want to concentrate on watching Christmas movies because Netflix will only show them during the season.

Six Word Saturday (12/7/13)

Trans Siberian Orchestra Concert and Movies

My husband took the kids to see a football game between two rival high schools here in town so I've had a couple hours to myself.

Monday night the four of us went to the Trans Siberian Orchestra concert.  We all wore earplugs because it was insanely loud.  I thought the kids wouldn't care for it because of the noise, lasers, pyrotechnics, etc., but they really enjoyed it.

Here are the movies I watched on Netflix this week:

Heart and Souls:  I don't really know how to describe this wonderful movie so I am copying a short synopsis a reviewer left on IMDB.  Robert Downey Jr. is wonderful as the man who became the medium for 4 people who died in a bus accident at the same moment the hero was born. As a child these "friends" were known only to him, eventually leading to psychiatric evaluations because parents, teachers et al insisted something had to be wrong with this child. While still a small child, the "spirits" decide it's time for him to be "without his special fiends"...until at about age 30 they suddenly make contact again. They need a favor; 4 favors. Each one of the foursome died before they could take care of some important unfinished business. In order to go to Heaven and rest in peace, their "little friend" would need to allow each of them to enter his body (since they are only souls) to accomplish their missions.

Brother White:  An L.A. megachurch pastor gets transferred with his family to an Atlanta innercity black church.  The actor who played Pastor White was perfect.  His wife is played by his real-life wife.  (Incidentally, she played the part of the coworker who had the abortion in Sarah's Choice.)  It was a predictable movie and, of course, the family saves the Atlanta church at the end (and **spoiler** they decide not to go back to L.A.**),

Listen to Your Heart:  About a music-writing waiter who falls in love with a deaf girl who ate at his restaurant with her over-protective mother.  The movie was predictable till about an hour into it, then all hell breaks loose (literally).  Everything that could possibly go wrong with this couple, happens.  The last 45 minutes of the movie I couldn't stop crying.  Cybil Sheppard plays the deaf girl's mother and I just hated her for not letting her daughter do very much on her own.

Dutch:  Ed O'Neil (Al Bundy from Married With Children) plays the boyfriend of a rich kid's mother who offers to drive the kid home from boarding school for the holidays.  For most of the movie the kid is cold and unfriendly, but after all their adventures and mishaps he warms up to Dutch.

Six Word Saturday (12/1/13)

Yes, I Know It Is Sunday

I just don't know why I didn't write yesterday.  So I will give a rundown of everything today as if it were yesterday.

We dog-sat for our neighbors' Yorkie from Friday the 22nd through all last week.  Everything was fine till Tuesday.  I took my daughter to school, came home, four dogs (our three plus the Yorkie).  Took youngest son to school, came home, three dogs.  Thinking that my husband actually cared about me, I called him to say I couldn't find the Yorkie.  My husband yelled at me, do I want him to come home right that second and look for him or what?  I said never mind and hung up on him.  I screamed for God to help me find him and I went outside and yelled his name.  I see this little expensive ball of fur running down the middle of our street, and he came right to me!  God is so good.  I found out he got out through a hole in the fence (that our dogs are too fat to get through), so I had to keep my eye on little Houdini till my husband got home later to fix the fence.

Wednesday I went to Target with my daughter to get my son and his wife some Christmas presents because I want to mail them early so they get them in time.  My daughter picked out some clothes that she thought my daughter-in-law would like and then a few things for my son (plus my daughter needed two things).  Grand total was just over $200.  Funny how you think it's going to be $50 maximum before you even set foot in the store.  I noticed as my daughter put stuff on the conveyor that she had hidden other things in the cart underneath the things I did know about.  And since this trip, she has worn two of the shirts I thought I got for my daughter-in-law.  So tomorrow I'm going to wrap up whatever is left and then maybe Wednesday after my session go to the post office by myself and mail them.  Every time I need to get a couple things and I take my daughter with me for safety (because I am terrified of getting lost), I end up spending way more than I want to.  And I feel really, really used.

Thursday was Thanksgiving and we went to Cracker Barrel as usual.  It was pretty good this time and not all dried out but I think it's because we went there early and got seated right before noon.  It was very noisy and I started to feel frantic by the time we got pie, so we took that home.  My husband and daughter put up the Christmas tree, and my daughter told me she felt bad because my husband kept yelling at her.  I personally feel paralyzed getting ordered to do things just because I know I'll get in trouble or yelled at if it's not done right or quick enough (or whatever else reason my husband has that I failed).  Anyway, that night my husband took me to Dick's Sporting Goods at 8 p.m. for their early Black Friday sale and had me get a box of some 22 long bullets.  It was one per customer so basically my husband got two boxes because he used me.

Friday I went with my daughter to the Dollar Tree to get one thing (she wanted a big initial letter of her name to put on the wall).  They didn't have any but she did manage to find 20 other little things she wanted (and I got a bottle of Dr. Pepper and some wrapping paper).  I just can't win.  I really want to get her on an allowance and tell her I'm not buying anything for her anymore so she'll learn how to manage money and also learn how to save up for big things.  Friday afternoon she helped my husband put the Christmas lights on the house.  I'm not sure why anyone does this.  It's too cold most of the time to go outside and admire your own lights at night so why bother.

Yesterday afternoon my daughter had a sleepover at her friend's house (with a bunch of other girls) so my husband got Sonic for dinner which was fun.

Here are the movies I've watched since my last post:

Diary of Anne Frank (BBC):  Everyone knows this story, right?  I thought this adaptation was particularly well done.  The actress who played Anne was perfect for the part.  The movie ends where the Nazi guards make them leave the attic to go to the concentration camps.

The Pianist:  I really liked this movie, a true story about a Jewish Polish musician and his quest/luck escaping the Nazi concentration camp and being in hiding.  The actor who played Szpilman was just wonderful, although the movie itself was a little harsh (violent).  I wonder how people like him who lived during those times were able to go on with their lives without being really angry that their entire family was killed or being bitter that they were mistreated or almost starved, etc.  I almost feel stupid moping about some of the crap I've had to go through.

Freedom Writers:  This was actually a good movie even though I didn't care for the genre of music used (R&B, hiphop, rap).  A new English teacher finds a way to connect with her students and encourages them to write in journals and they end up getting published into a book.  This is based on a true story.

Intouchables:  I loved this movie!  It was in French with English subtitles and it was funny and very touching overall.  A very rich man who is a quadriplegic hires a young black man to be his caretaker (the black guy only wanted the job INTERVIEW so it would look like he was trying to find work, the rule for getting his welfare).  Basically, you discover that the rich paralyzed guy is "untouchable" because he can't feel anything even if you were touching him, and the black guy is "untouchable" as in nobody wants anything to do with lazy good-for-nothing black guys.  I didn't want the movie to end and I couldn't imagine how it could, and the ending was just marvelous.

Regarding Henry:  I remember when this movie came out but I never saw it.  Harrison Ford looks so young in this now!  He plays a vicious attorney who gets shot in the head during a robbery, and as he recuperates his personality changes.

Sarah's Choice:  I probably shouldn't have watched this movie during this time of year (six weeks from my abortion anniversary).  It wasn't too triggery though.  It was kind of like "A Christmas Carol" because the pregnant girl Sarah ends up having three visions of what her life would be like if she had her baby.  There was a good quote in the movie and I know I'm not saying it exactly, but it was something like "Don't let circumstances make your decision; your heart knows what you should do."  The girl Sarah is played by Christian singer Rebecca St. James and she looks a lot like Princess Catherine.  Sometimes Christian movies don't have very good scripts or good actors, but this movie had both.

The War:  This was about a Vietnam vet (Kevin Costner) with PTSD whose young son (Elijah Wood) was being bullied, and he was advising him what to do about it by relating stories from the war.  One of the things the veteran couldn't get over was that he left his buddy in combat to die while he got rescued by a helicopter.  Later in the movie, he gets a job in a mine, and I personally think his guilt about the war resolved because *spoiler* ** he did get to save his coworker's life in a mine accident.  He got critically wounded himself though and ends up dying.  The son later also basically saves the life of the brother of one of the bullies toward the end of the movie and the bullying stopped. **

Six Word Saturday (11/23/13)

Wasting Time in The Digital Age

I'll make that the headline because it's true.  I finished reading "Prayer in the Digital Age" by Matt Swaim this week and it was extremely good.  It was convicting and interesting.  How much of what we're doing online is glorifying God anyway?  I've only been blogging about things in my life so I'd have some record of them to remember by.  But I could just as well note them in an old-fashioned book style journal.

My therapist told me that your body starts giving off negative energy when you feel upset, even before you get upset.  He said that's what scares people about me.  So basically I'm screwed because I'm pretty aware that I'm upset most of the time even if I don't say a word to anyone.

I'm terrified about applying for jobs.  I don't think anyone would want to hire me, and it would be extremely stressful having to work outside the home because my kids and husband don't help around here.  But it would be nice to give money to a charity or pay down some debt or save money so I could take a trip.  Right now every cent I make goes to my therapist.  God, please help me know what to do.

Rundown of movies I watched this week:

The Christmas Lodge:  Predictable holiday movie about a lady who ends up falling for a widower who owns an old mountain lodge that the lady spent her childhood holidays at.  It did have a Christian theme and dialogue even though the movie itself was a little dull.

Happy Accidents:  Marisa Tomei starred in this movie (from 1998 I think) who falls for a man who insists he's from 300 years in the future.  This would have been a GREAT movie except the group of women friends got together and bashed their ex-boyfriends and men in general.  Also, since Marisa's character dated someone she found out later was religious (oh the horror), she dragged this time travel guy in front of a church to test him and kept asking "Are you sure you don't want to go in?"  That made me mad.  Then at another point in the movie, the time travel guy tells Marisa's character that they don't have religion in the future ever since 2033 when scientists eliminated the gene that produces fear.  (Rolling my eyes!)

Dear Santa:  I loved this one!  A young girl wrote a letter to Santa asking for a new wife for her dad since her mother died.  A spoiled lady with rich parents (who are threatening to cut her off) finds the letter and in desperation she finds out where the girl and her father live and tries to make the girl's wish come true.

Crazy for Christmas:  Movie about a grumpy single mother who drives a limo and one of her Christmas clients is a very wealthy man who was giving his money away and buying things for people all day while she drove him around.  There was an unexpected (to me) twist toward the end.  The best part of this movie was that Howard Hesseman (who played Dr. Johnny Fever on WKRP in Cincinnati) played the wealthy man.

Executioner's Song:  1982 movie about the true story of murderer Gary Gilmore.  I used to watch this movie incessantly on HBO/Cinemax when I was in college.  It used to haunt me really bad at the end of the movie (his execution) because I'd worry if he was scared or if it hurt or if he's in heaven, etc.  I watched it on Netflix this time mainly just to see if the movie still used "Una Paloma Blanca" as the song on the radio that he heard when he was being transported to the execution site.  (It was a Waylon Jennings song this time, but in college it was Una Paloma Blanca.)  I sometimes get paranoid about the songs I listened to because I obsess about knowing which one is the last song I hear before I died myself.

Six Word Saturday (11/16/13)

Broken Washer and Watching Turning Point

Sunday my husband loaded his clothes in the washer, started it, and then headed out to do errands with my daughter.  I went to heat up my coffee in the microwave, and on my way back to my office room, I noticed the carpet in the hall was wet.  I opened the door to the laundry room and there was water everywhere.  I stepped inside and water completely covered my shoes.  This is the second time this has happened.  I didn't want my husband to have to come home from his errands so I tried to handle it myself.  I spent over an hour sweeping water into the garage and soaking up the excess with clothes and towels.  I started to really worry that my husband was going to be mad when he got home that everything was wet and the washer broken, so my youngest son suggested I call and warn him.  Boy, was that the wrong thing to do!  He yelled there was nothing he could do about it where he was, and I said I was just warning him, that's all.  But since he's so much more important than me, he has to win all the time.  

When he got home, I put away all the groceries so he could work on the washer.  No matter what I did, it was the wrong thing.  I was so sick of being yelled at.  I still thank God it was my husband's clothes that were in the washer so at least he couldn't blame me for that.  And then his little threat at the end of the day, "One of these days you're going to find yourself sitting on the curb alone with nothing and wonder what the hell happened."  Isn't he so loving.  Things are better between us now, but it's events like this which either turn me off completely or make me extremely desperate to get a full time job so I can leave.

Thursday night my friend from my first Rachel's Vineyard retreat and I went to San Albino (Catholic church) to watch the last movie of this Year of Faith monthly series.  It was called "Turning Back: The Father Donald Calloway Story."  It was basically just him sharing his testimony.  First of all, why are some Catholic priests so cute??  Oh, he sure was.  Anyway, he was born when his mother was 17 and she married three times.  They weren't religious and he never had any rules so he got in trouble a lot and hung around with the wrong crowd (sex, drugs, stealing, etc.).  His stepfather got transferred to Japan and at first he resisted going and then he decided he would be even MORE rebellious there.  He was in the beginning stages of joining the Japanese Mafia and the authorities finally caught him.  They made him and his mother leave the country.  (His passport has a stamp in in that says "Don't ever come back.")  

They lived in Pennsylvania but he ran away and got in more trouble so he had to come back home.  He got put in rehab a couple times and his mother became a Catholic while he was gone.  When he came back home, he saw a book in his room (about the mother of Jesus) that he decided to read since he was bored and didn't want to do drugs right then.  Something in his heart changed.  He didn't understand very much what he was reading but he "fell in love" with her.  He slept like a baby because he finally felt loved.  The next morning he threw away all his drug stuff, rock music, and freaky clothes because he just didn't want them anymore.  He went to see a chaplain on the military base and talked his ear off, telling him everything he had done wrong.  Eventually, he was baptized Catholic.  Anyway, to make a long story short, by the grace of God he was able to go through college and seminary(?) to become a Catholic priest.  Me and my friend talked on the way home that if there was hope for someone as bad as him, there should be hope for us.

Movies I watched this week

Sympathy For Delicious:  I watched this the afternoon of the washer incident and it felt like a punishment because my husband was barely speaking to me (when he wasn't yelling at me, that is).  There was a LOT of swearing which I didn't like, and the story was kind of slow but a good plot.  The movie stars a real-life paraplegic who is a club DJ and lives in his car.  He attends a "healing" service by a phony televangelist.  There was another guy in a wheelchair who went to every healing service and still wasn't healed but he always acted happy (so the DJ doesn't like him).  The DJ doesn't get healed but he finds out he himself can truly heal people (but he can't heal himself even though he tried, and he yelled the F-word out of frustration).  A priest who helps the homeless notices the DJ's new "gift" after a man with Alzheimers starts walking around talking coherently.  The priest finds out that this wealthy gentleman will give his Catholic charity $250,000 if the DJ would heal his daughter.  The DJ gets really mad because he feels used by the priest, so he joins a band and their gimmick is him healing people.  There are a couple of twists to the plot that I didn't see coming but I don't want to spoil it.

Fatal Attraction:  I hadn't seen this movie for a good 25 years but I remembered watching it in the movie theater when it came out.  I think everyone's seen it or at least heard about it by now.  Back then I thought Michael Douglas looked pretty old and I thought Glenn Close was pretty, but not this time.  Also just watching them flirting and being adulterous made me feel really uncomfortable, let alone the suspenseful parts when he finds out she's a fruitcake.  I didn't watch it with my full attention because I couldn't stand it, and I wonder what kind of person I was back then that this movie appealed to me.

Windtalkers:  This was supposed to be a movie about the Navajo Indians who helped the military in WWII develop an unbreakable secret code, so I watched it.  Starred Nicolas Cage.  I thought it was going to be the strategy/non-combat side of the war - NOPE!  Oh my gosh, the battle scenes were gory and disgusting, and I ended up not finishing the movie.

I started reading Prayer in the Digital Age by Matt Swaim yesterday and so far it's very convicting but I love it.

Six Word Saturday (11/9/13)

I Don't Know Why I Bother

My sister had let me watch "The General's Daughter" on her streaming account a couple months ago (I think I might have blogged about it) and a scene in it really upset me, where the daughter got raped and was in the hospital and her father leaned over her and whispered, "It never happened," because he didn't want the controversy to ruin his career.  Anyway, it triggered me so badly because my parents and sister act like nothing ever happened to me either, so I emailed my sister and went off on her about it, like how unfair it was that my sister (who hated me at the time) was asked her opinion on what I should do about the baby and how she said I should get rid of it because "she can't take care of herself let alone a baby."  (I am so sick of remembering that line!!)  She wrote me back but I printed it off without reading it because I wanted to read it with my therapist, and two months have gone by and we always think of other things to talk about so I hadn't read it all this time.  Finally, last week we read it.  She claims she never knew I was pregnant and that she only found out about it five years later.  And I think by way of an excuse, she went on to tell me that she and her friends drank a lot in high school.  Like maybe she did say those things to me back then when she was drunk but had forgotten completely about it till someone told her about it again.  Well, so much for getting any closure from her.  I just thought she has ignored my pain about it all these years like everyone in my family does, i.e., if you don't talk about it, it didn't happen.  So I wish I never wrote her.

I watched that movie "Meant To Be" again and it has really impacted me.  I've decided that if Claudia knew me and what I was like, she would like me.  She would think I am sweet and helpful and do a lot of wrong things trying to be loved.  I think she'd be happy that I think about her so much.  She would be touched that I name some of my Sims game characters after her so I could "see" what her life would be like through them.  Anyway, I wanted my therapist to watch it, and he threw a damper on everything by asking me why.  It's really making me mad why he does that.  I loan him a book; he asks what inspired me in the book.  I make him a CD; he asks what it means to me that I'm giving it to him.  I gave him my copy of the movie "Marilyn Hotchkiss' Ballroom Dancing & Charm School" to watch; he takes it and after a year still hasn't watched it.  So this morning I've been thinking about my motivation.  In a way, I suppose I need someone else to agree with me that the book/movie/music is good because I believe my opinion doesn't count!  I feel like a big zero, stupid, worthless, incapable, a loser.  If someone who isn't a loser says such-and-such movie truly is good, then everyone wants to watch the movie.  But I feel like my therapist acts like there's some ulterior improper motive when I want him to read/watch/listen to something.  So I wish I could just enjoy these things on my own and not need his (or other people's) agreement that it's good.

More movies I watched from Netflix this past week:

Life is Beautiful.  This movie is in Italian with subtitles and at first it was difficult to read AND watch at the same time but I got the hang of it.  I wanted to watch it because I remember when Roberto Benigni won the Oscar and how incredibly happy he was!  (Watch his acceptance speech on YouTube; you will cry!)  The movie takes place in WWII when the Nazis put Jewish people in concentration camps, and he plays this positively happy man who twists the truth to his little boy about what's going on so that he won't be scared.  Some party-poopers comment that the movie was unrealistic because the children in the camps were actually separated from their parents but this little boy got to be hidden the whole time in the bunker his father stayed in.  Anyway, I liked this movie even though the ending is sad.

Digging to China.  This movie stars Evan Rachel Wood when she was about 10.  She plays a curious, talkative, imaginative girl whose alcoholic mother eventually dies so she's cared for by her older sister.  She befriends a mentally retarded man played by Kevin Bacon.  I very vaguely remember watching this movie 15 years ago (because I love Kevin Bacon) but most of it still surprised me.  I liked the movie and wish I had a friend like that little girl, who just wants to talk to you and be with you even if you don't say the right things (or anything!) back.

And then like I said, I watched "Meant To Be" again, with my baby Claudia in mind, and watching it has helped me immensely.

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.