movie review

Disney’s A Wrinkle in Time Movie Review

March 30, 2019 By Kat

Oprah Winfrey says, “The message of this film is that you are enough. It is the number 1 lesson that Maya Angelou gave to me: you are enough.” (From a YouTube interview of the cast of A Wrinkle in Time.)

After hearing her say that, I was intrigued and had to check out the movie for myself! One of the highlights is the all-star cast including Oprah Winfrey, Reese Witherspoon, Mindy Kaling and the director Ava DuVernay. All of these women are extremely inspiring and carry themselves with such grace and kindness.

I remember reading this book as required reading in school growing up. Even though I read it, I frankly didn’t really understand it. It’s originally a sci-fi book by Madeline L’Engle. But now that I’ve seen the story unfold on the big screen with beautiful cinematography, I see how it reveals deep lessons about life and people. Maybe I had a hard time visualizing it back then or didn’t have the perspective of why those lessons were important.

Anyhow, it’s the story of a young girl who goes on a time-space travel search for her father with the help of her younger brother, a classmate, and 3 supernatural women: Mrs. Which, Mrs. Whatsit, and Mrs. Who. They teleport into other dimensions and meet a variety of quirky characters. Along the way to find her father, the young girl’s character is tested and she is forced to look within herself for the strength to continue.

I won’t give away the story, but I really enjoyed the movie. The costumes, makeup, and special effects are also breathtaking. This was my favorite song from the movie: Magic. Sia’s voice is amazing and just transports you to another world.

Also, here’s a beautiful quote from the movie, spoken by Mrs. Who (played by Mindy Kaling) whose character only speaks in quotations by famous people.

The wound is the place where the light enters you.”
Rumi

Wow, gives me chills.

Alright, well that’s enough tidbits. Check out the movie if it sounds interesting to you!

A Wrinkle in Time

Disclaimer: This post contains affiliate links. As an Amazon Associate I earn from qualifying purchases.

My Word of the Year for 2019

January 27, 2019 By Kat

I wanted to pick out a word-of-the-year. One thing to focus on for the year. But I couldn’t decide which word to pick!

Top contenders:

Massive action – phrase borrowed from Tony Robbins on how to take charge of your life and achieve your goals.
Focus – self-explanatory, we could all use more focus and less distractions.

However, I realized that “massive action” was not working for me because I kept trying to pile more things onto my plate and keep moving in many directions, making little progress on any one thing.

I also realized that “focus” was too narrow of a word for me. It didn’t excite or motivate me that much. The word made me think of limited options and a smaller focus area. It wasn’t very invigorating to wake up and feel like you must focus for the day. Felt more obligatory for me personally.

But then I was listening to this amazing motivational YouTube video Live Your Dreams over and over again. Then I decided on my word for 2019.

Courage

I believe that the word “courage” will steer me in the right direction at each step of the way during this year. Courage means doing the hard thing. Doing a single hard thing can give you more progress than doing 100 easy things in the wrong directions.

Oftentimes the “hard thing” is the right thing to do, and probably the thing that we fear and dread the most. But that’s when we stand to have the biggest gain both in potential external results but also in who we become as a person.

If I have to measure each day, then I’ll need to ask myself, if I did things that required courage each day. It freaks me out thinking that I’ll need to face a fear each day, but if I don’t, what is at stake? If I don’t face a fear today, if I just stay in my comfort zone, then I’ll likely stay the same. I won’t have grown that day.

Sure, one day without growth is no big deal. But if you multiple that by 7 days in a week, spent hiding and procrastinating from your fears, that’s one week of your life gone by that you didn’t grow. And then a month passes by, and you didn’t grow. You make more excuses about why it’s “safe” to stay where it’s comfortable. And then years pass by, and you’ve settled for even more things and you’ve come up with a laundry list of why it’s too hard to change now. And then life send you a wake-up call that you are ill prepared for because this whole time, you didn’t grow into a stronger, better person. You’re essentially the same person as you were 5 years ago.

The Movie: Revolutionary Road

Another way to think about this sobering thought is illustrated in the movie: Revolutionary Road. (This movie reunited Kate Winslet and Leonardo DioCaprio on the big screen since Titanic. Omg I just had to watch it! It’s available on Amazon Prime if you’re interested.)

It’s about April and Frank Wheeler (played by Kate and Leo respectively), who are a married couple in the 1950s living with 2 young kids in Connecticut. They live in a picture-perfect neighborhood in a picture-perfect house. He goes to an office job, while she stays at home to take care of the house and kids. The problem is that their life is on autopilot. They had ambitions when they were younger (her to be an actress, him to go back to Paris – a city he loved) but then they settled into married suburban life and those dreams got put on the backburner. They get so numb with their life and by staying static, and as the movie unfolds, they actually find that there are consequences. I won’t go into details in case you want to go watch it.

Honestly, it was a depressing movie, but I can’t help but find how truthful it is. Staying still in life is so tempting because it seems safe (it’s what you already know and are familiar with), but it is actually the riskiest option. But we can’t see the consequences until the long term, and by then, it may be too late to change our choices.

Many people are dead now. Many people are allowing their dreams to die. Many people have allowed their ideas to lie dormant and collect dust. Many people have all this talent and ability that they allow to be buried inside of them, that they will take to their graves. Because they didn’t have the courage to be who they are.”
Les Brown

Thoughts on Courage

Courage is hard. There’s so many uncertainties and things to fear and worry about in the world.

Does it mean that valiant people are not afraid? No, it means they experience that fear and they move forward.”
Les Brown

What I’ve been trying to do is feel the fear. To feel the trembling fear when I’m about to do something I’m scared to do. And then to acknowledge it and DECIDE that I will do it anyways. And the quicker I do it, the less painful it will be because I won’t have to agonize over all the worst case scenarios.

Cowards die many times before their deaths, The valiant never taste of death but once.”
Shakespeare (Julius Caesar)

I’m far from perfect, and still very much working on being brave. It’s daunting because just as every day is a new day, every day you’re faced with a choice of whether you will be brave or not. And I hope that for me and you, we both decide to be brave.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=mNgIvxZ4m8U

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Disney’s Coco: Choosing Between Your Family or Your Passion

July 10, 2018 By Kat

Coco is about the story of a boy named Miguel who loves music and idolizes a music legend Ernesto de la Cruz. Because of past family drama, the family banned all forms of music. Hence, Miguel has to sneak away to learn how to play guitar. He gets caught and his guitar is destroyed. He runs away and embarks on an adventure where he must choose between following what his family wants or following his passion for music.

If you’ve ever tried to chase your passion / your dream, it likely has made a loved one in your life a bit concerned. They may say certain things because they are scared about the uncertainty of your future. They don’t want you to suffer the pain of rejection or failure. But living life in a safe way can mean missing out on discovering your biggest strength or your greatest sense of fulfillment. Therein lies some major tension.

We do a lot of self-sabotaging on our own, but I wonder if potential entrepreneurs get scared to go for what they want because there are people in their life who prefer different life choices and can be very vocal about it. When these people are close to you, and supposedly know you pretty well, it grows the seed of self-doubt inside yourself and that can cause you to turn around and give up. That is quite sad actually. It’s also hard because anything worth creating / developing takes years and years of dedication and focus, without any visible results. It is a very hard internal battle to fight to keep going.

If you choose to keep striving, here are some inspiring quotes I found on never giving up. My favorite is from Confucius who says, “It does not matter how slowly you go as long as you do not stop.”

I certainly don’t have all the answers, and each person will have to find a balance for themselves. If you watch the movie, you can see how Miguel navigates his tricky situation.

I enjoyed this movie very much because the storyline was so touching. The visuals were spectacular, and the music was amazing too. If you haven’t seen it, I highly recommend it. Queue it up in your Netflix watch list! Of you can also rent Coco on Amazon.

If you can relate to any part of this struggle, I’d be honored to hear your experience in the comments below.

Disclaimer: This post contains affiliate links. As an Amazon Associate I earn from qualifying purchases. And of course, I would recommend this movie regardless.