A day off and a movie and some other stuff

For the past many, many Fridays I have been driving to Carmichael to see/deal with my Mom. Today I did not drive there.  Today I had a day off. Slept in until 7:45, walked the dog for 45 minutes, made a wicked cup of coffee and read a book for a little while.  Ran some errands, saw a friend, went to a movie and just finished a nice dinner with my BFF, little Cooper.  (To be clear, I finished the dinner, Cooper watched longingly, but did not partake.  He had kibble.)

The movie I saw today was the new Spielberg/Tom Hanks collaboration, "Bridge of Spies."  Now, we can all agree that it's stupid title for a movie of such depth. So we will all agree to leave that argument alone and move on.

Very good movie, I would recommend seeing it. Spielberg wastes no money on the visuals (and why should he, it's his signature after all) and thus it is flawlessly set.  The late 1950's are pictured perfectly, the somber tone of the Cold War is rendered so well.  The classroom scenes of "Duck and Cover" and the kids saying the "Pledge of Allegiance" are very clear and yet done with the right blend of irony and loyalty that can only be realized years later.  

The movie is  based on true events from 1957 to 1961, during the frightening days of the Cold War, when spies and counter-spies were a serious and real thing. You can read a synopsis of the movie online, so I won't go into that detail. The best historical scenes of the movie take place in Berlin, just at the moment the Communists are building the Berlin Wall.  We see it as it happens and I am fairly certain what we see in the movie is what they saw in Berlin.  Having seen the remnants of the Wall myself, and being versed in it's history, I would say that this movie is worth seeing just for those scenes. We all know about it, but to see it as it unfolds is bone chilling and terrifying. 

I have a few negative things to say about this movie but they are quibbles so I will leave those behind.  It is a pleasure to watch Tom Hanks, once again, show us, once again, a character from history made real.  Hanks, from his first 30 seconds on screen, becomes the lawyer Donovan, he embraces the character so clearly that by the end of the movie you believe he is Donovan.  Hanks never leaves that persona. He is the guy.

It's worth seeing this movie for several reasons, and each can be merit alone.  Tom Hanks.  The sets of Brooklyn in 1957.  Berlin in 1961. The history of the Gary Powers issue, what that meant for America and for the Soviet Union. 

But the bottom line is that this is a story of one man's conviction of what was right and what was flawed.  The Standing Man's belief was that every person counts.  As Donovan says "it doesn't matter what people think about you. It matters that you know what you did."

See it.

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