Sunday, September 29, 2013

Movie Review: Prisoners - Sun., Sept. 29

This was quite a Sunday. At 11:00 a.m. my girlfriend (from my days of working at AAA) and I went to see the movie "Prisoners" starring Hugh Jackman and Jake Gyllenhall. I was reluctant to see the movie because of the ratings saying there were scenes of torture. But after I read more reviews about how this movie played out like a Hitchcock story, that it is a thriller, and you need to watch closely for the clues, I decided to go see it.  

While there are some violent scenes, everything worked together to make a top-notch movie. The story was well written and the actors played their roles very well. My favorite character was Jake Gyllenhall as long-suffering Detective Loki who is doing his best to follow the evidence to find the kidnapper of two little girls. 

Hugh Jackman was over-the-top as the father of one of the girls who decides to take the law into his own hands. He feels the police aren't doing enough to find his little girl. He is sure he knows who took the girls and wants answers from that person. The lengths he goes to to try to elicit information are extreme.

Overall, I really liked the movie. The suspense was intense throughout as we rode along with Detective Loki while he tried to track down the kidnapper. The ending was as suspenseful as the rest of the movie. Very scary.

After the movie, Cathy and I went to Gustav's German Restaurant for lunch and caught up on our lives. She and her husband, Bob, just finished a 4,000 mile vacation through California, Nevada, Arizona and Utah so we got to discuss travel as well.

From lunch, I headed out to Troutdale, Oregon, to meet our good friends Claude and Penny for dinner. Claude and Penny own Marco Polo Designs which sells jewelry of their design made from hand-blown glass beads which they have custom made in Italy. They live in their 5th wheel close to where their storefront is located. We headed over to the 5th wheel to talk and I got my kitty fix too. They have two gorgeous black Persians. Their boy kitty decided my lap was a good place to land. Very sweet. 

They then took me to dinner at a good Italian restaurant in Troutdale close to their shop. We had a yummy meal.  I had a big chicken/avocado/mango salad, Penny had Jambalaya and Claude had spaghetti bolognese. For dessert we had decadent light (almost a sponge cake) chocolate cake with fruit (pineapple, peaches, grapes) in it. We liked it a lot. I headed back to Mom's at 7:00 p.m.

Stormy, dark, windy describes the conditions I drove home in. It was really nasty weather. The car was hydroplaning and the spray from cars and trucks made it hard to see. I was really happy to get off the freeway tonight. It was a 45 minute drive home.

At 8:00 p.m. Amazing Race was on TV so I got to see the season opener. What a fun show.

Tomorrow will be busy as well. For lunch, I plan to meet Linda, one of my blog followers, for lunch in downtown Portland. In the afternoon, Mom and I are going to see "Rush" at Cinetopia, an upscale, living-room-type movie theater with comfy recliners. Groupon had a deal for both of us to get in for $10 which includes a bottle of wine. Should be a good movie-going experience.

I'm cooking dinner for Mom, and my sister will come over after she gets off work to visit once more before I fly home on Tuesday morning.

Stay tuned. Travel Bug out.