More Midwives and The Giver

I spent the day watching more of Call the Midwife. I continued with S2 and watched episodes 3 - 8. There were alot of good episodes but one really stood out to me, Episode 4. It had two main stories that tugged at my heart. First a baby boy was born with spina bifida and we see these young parent go through some hard times. Jenny finds an "asylum" that is will take unwanted disabled children. You just feel so bad for this kids/ young adults as they were unwanted and just tossed aside before they have health issues or a disability.

The other part of this story, which kind of ties into the asylum as well is the story of Jane, she's the new assistant helping at the Nonnatus House. She's extremely quiet and shy but a visiting Anglican priest takes a shining to her and they have what I hope will be a very sweet relationship. But we find out that she was abandon at this asylum because she was so introverted her parent figured she was mentally disabled. There are scenes were she is so scared and frighten to do something, that she just lies on her bed crying and ashamed of herself for not having the strength. My heart broke as I could identify with her (maybe not to that extreme). I bawled through most of this episode.. between the baby and Jane my poor empathic heart couldn't take it. I am happy to say that both stories end in happy endings.

And in the final episode of season two we finally get a conclusion to a storyline that kind of started in S1 with a nun, not losing faith but second guessing the path God had given her. She leaves the order and joins the man that she's secretly (or not so secretly) has been pining for... Doctor Turner. I was so happy about this turn of events. These two people deserve so much happiness.

We also see the return of Chummy in this episode, who was gone for a big chunk of the middle episodes. She gives birth and almost dies and at one point I thought they were going to kill her which would have angered me so much I think I would have thrown my TV out the window.. luckily it was all a red herring and she survived as did her baby. What a way to end season two.

I stopped after season two as season three is not on Netflix yet. There is also a Christmas special between S2 and S3. So I'm going to have to find them elsewhere. Season 4 doesn't started until 2015 but again they are doing a Christmas special at the end of this year as well. So I'm sure I'll post more about his amazing series when I continue to watch S3.

During the evening I went to a screening of The Giver with my buddy Robert. Here's a quick synopsis. This film, based on Lois Lowry's 1993 book, tells the story of a perfect world. Everyone here is happy. When Jonas is 16 years old, he's chosen to be the community's Receiver of Memories. He enters into training with an old man called The Giver. From the Giver, Jonas learns about love, happiness, compassion but also pain, sadness, war, and all the unhappy truths of the "real" world. He quickly realizes that his community is fake. Confronted with this reality, Jonas faces difficult choices about his own life and his future.

I enjoyed this movie, it's was an interesting look at a society when you remove free will from it. I enjoyed the way it was filmed in B&W and Color. The fact that this society didn't know color so they saw everything as black and white, until Jonas is told about color and shown it then he can see the world in color. I enjoyed the story, it was simple but entertaining. I did feel that the big conflict wasn't big enough. It almost felt like it was a half of movie. I wanted to know more, I wanted to see what happens when everybody gets their memories back about what life use to be. There was something missing in this movie for me but it didn't take away my enjoyment of it... just left me wanting more, which I guess is a good thing.

I enjoyed the acting, it was nice seeing Katie Holmes again, I've been a fan since her Dawson's Creek days. Bridges and Streep were good and the guy playing the main role of Jonas was fine. The big surprise was seeing the credits and seeing that the country singer Taylor Swift was in this movie. Once I saw who she played I realized it was her but when you see her with the dark hair she looked nothing like herself.

I don't think I'll be buying it when it comes out on blu-ray but that doesn't mean I wouldn't want to see it again. I give The Giver a B-