The Ten Dollar Check Out

I saw Mission Impossible 4 tonight with my son. It was amazing. Great action, riveting plot and lots of technology and special effects. It's one of those movies that is best experienced on the big screen. (Most movies are, but action thrillers even more so.) Lots of explosions, perilous falling scenes and gunfire. Was most of it far-fetched? Of course. But that's why we go to the movies. Escape. Total, pure escapism.

I'm glad I took the time to see it, especially with my son, Ben. It seems I'd fallen into my winter routine funk and was reminded of it by my wife. One dark winter day seems to blend into the next. I know as well as my wife,  that all work and no play makes Jim a dull boy. When she mentioned doing something to shake it up, I thought about taking Ben somewhere. It's been a while since we did a boy's night, so I checked into a hockey game. The  Milwaukee Admirals game had no good tickets left, so I opted for a movie instead. MI4 it was.

When I saw the preview for this movie with Ben, I said "We gotta see that one, Ben." He said that would be cool, and so I wanted to follow through with it. We like seeing these together because they are more "guy movies."

We both came away saying the same thing. "That was cool." I know Tom Cruise is a bit of head case and I don't really follow him much on the "Hollywood circuit." At the same time, he makes a GOOD movie. Whether he was scaling the world's tallest building, swimming out of a submerged car or chasing a villain in a sandstorm, he was epic. It's kind of like sports stars. If you admire them on the field and then kind of tune out their wacky, sometimes dysfunctional personal lives, you appreciate them much more. Its when they get busted for having a trunk full of dope or beating their spouse that you lose respect. I prefer to put the blinders on in the case of Tom Cruise.

Tonight I got to jump out a window from the 130th floor of the world's tallest building in Dubai, I blew up the Kremlin, I was in a car chase in India, I had contact lenses that can scan documents to a printer, I fell down an elevator shaft only to be caught and suspended by magnets, I jumped from a speeding car and watched it head-on crash into another, I fought hand-to-hand on several occasions, and to top it all off, I managed to disarm a nuclear warhead headed for Seattle.

And I did it all for $10.

That is why I go to the movies.

Blogging off...

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