Tonight’s hotel buffet dinner was meatballs and mashed potatoes… only the meatballs were swimming in gravy and not marinara sauce. Ryan and I took one look and turned right around and headed back to our hotel room to make a meal from the random food we have on hand.
Fortunately I had some more homemade veggie lasagna that I nabbed from my parents’ freezer stashed away in our freezer, so I fixed myself a big slice and dug in!
Much better than gravy meatballs.
After dinner Ryan and I went on a walk to explore the area and got a kick out of the swirly sidewalks.
They look like they should be covered in brick, painted yellow and placed in The Wizard of Oz movie.
Once we got back from our walk, it was time for us to hightail it to the movie theater!
The Help: The Movie
Ever since I read The Help and found out it was going to be made into a movie, I’ve been waiting for it to debut in theaters. (You may read my book review of The Help here.)
The Help is one of my all-time favorite books. Let’s just say I had high expectations for the movie.
I thought the movie (all two-and-a-half hours!) was very well done. The characters were well cast and the movie was heart warming, funny and emotional. And it gave me the same sense of hatred I had for Hilly Holbrook that I had when I read the book.
There’s so much to the movie – history, friendship, family, love and complete ignorance.
The movie did what the book did to me while I watched it: It made me think about how things were during that time in America. It’s so hard to believe the kind of awful prejudice detailed in the movie existed so openly not that long ago. Segregated bathrooms? It’s incomprehensible to me, but I am grateful for movies and books that take us back to this time to hopefully reiterate how far we’ve come and how crazy we once were.
I will say that the movie left out a lot of the back story and “behind the scenes” parts of The Help that really engaged me as a reader and helped develop the characters further. I found myself wishing more was included, but I think that happens anytime a book is made into a movie.
As a big-time lover of the book, I think I’m naturally overly critical of the movie. I really did enjoy it a lot and would absolutely recommend it to others, but the book still has my heart 100 percent.
And, for what it’s worth, Ryan said he liked the movie a lot. He was surprised that it wasn’t nearly as much of a “chick flick” as he anticipated and said it was really funny.
Now it’s bed time!
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I was never a meatballs and gravy person. I like my meatballs with marinara sauce and spaghetti! I feel like the books are always better than the movies. Sometimes I get disappointed when I see a really good book getting made into a movie because I know they won’t be able to capture all the details and nuances that are written. I still want to see The Help though!
Can’t wait to see the movie, I loved the book alot even though I thought i wouldn’t because I get so angry thinking of that time in our history!
You didn’t have swirly sidewalks in Orlando? That’s funny…we have them all over here in Austin. Especially in my neighborhood. Makes you kinda wonder why they aren’t just straight but I like it! 🙂
Along the same lines I just finished re-reading To Kill A Mockingbird (best book of all time) and it makes me think the same way. What always gets me though in that book is that it is written from a child’s perspective. I have The Help on my to read list.
I’m seeing this this afternoon- can’t wait!!
Do you always get popcorn when you go to the movies?! My mom alllllllllllllllllways has to get it when she goes, even if she just ate lunch, dinner, etc. and I think it’s so funny! I can kinda go without though, just cause it’s not really my favorite. so much more of a sweets person! pass the M&Ms!
that seems like a lot of excess cement just to make swirly sidewalks! And, the thought of meatballs in gravy makes me cringe..gross!
I haven’t read the book yet but I really do want to see the movie. Thanks for posting a review of the movie! 🙂 I can’t wait to see it!
It doesn’t come out until tomorrow here where I live in Missouri! 🙂 I am so excited to go see it. I loved the book.
I need to see the movie this weekend! I absolutely loved the book, and I know I’ll be critical too, but I still can’t wait to see it.
Julie – Thank you for your review of the movie! It always happens where the movies cannot do the book justice! However, I’m glad that this movie was still great (and that Ryan liked it, too)! Interesting little tidbit about The Help: the author, Kathryn Stockett, asked her childhood friend, Tate Taylor, to write the screenplay. Prior to The Help, he didn’t have a single box office smash hit. Too, 60 agents (60!) rejected The Help before it was actually published! 60! I bet those agents are cursing themselves now! Here’s a link to a Wall Street Journal blog article about it: http://blogs.wsj.com/speakeasy/2011/08/10/author-kathryn-stockett-on-the-real-story-behind-the-help/?mod=google_news_blog.
After you raved about it, I started reading The Help. I can’t put it down! I seriously wanted to take a “mental health day” from work and finish it ha! Great suggestion! While I’m looking forward to the movie, I find the book is almost always better. Usually because I have a picture in my head while I’m reading – what the characters will look and sound like – and if movie doesn’t match, it throws me off!
Hi Julie,
I’ve noticed that the hotel you are staying at doesn’t necessarily serve the healthiest of foods. But you seem to embrace it in such a healthy manner and you don’t seem consumed by sometimes having to eat less healthy things than you yourself would make. I was wondering if you might do a post or address how you’re handling not having a kitchen and not being able to make the types of foods you typically enjoy. I really admire your balanced attitude to this transitional time in your life.
Lasagna has to be one of the best leftovers! It always tastes great even when it’s been frozen. Yum!
I’m dying to see The Help. I haven’t even read the book, but I plan to download it on my Kindle and try to get through it this weekend and then see the movie next week. I can’t wait!
ah I still need to read the book!!!
I will always think a book will ALWAYS be better than the movie, hands down. But I’m glad that the Help turned out to be a good movie!! I can’t wait to go see it. I think it’s hard for directors to fully capture books and the feelings that readers get because it’s just a movie. I think books are always better because we can connect with it and play out our own movie in our heads.
I’m really looking forward to seeing it! I’m glad you liked it because I enjoyed the book and was worried about what the movie would be like.
I’m glad you liked the movie, I can’t wait to go see it! And I agree, if I love the book I’m often over-critical of the movie… haha especially Harry Potter movies
I’m reading the help right now, and another book too…got one free in the mail so I’m in both of them! I would love to see the movie too though! Now I have some ammo to use to get my hubby to go with me :D.
So glad you liked the movie! I am going to see it tonight. I cannot wait, since it is also one of my favorite books.
I’m going to see “The Help” later this afternoon with some girlfriends! I started reading the book a few weeks ago but unfortunately only made a small dent- I hoped to finish it before seeing the movie but I can’t hold back my anticipation much longer 😛
Hey Julie,
My mom loved this book and said that she felt it was very serious. She was concerned when she saw the trailer because she thought that it kind of seemed comical at some points, which the book definitely wasn’t. I was wondering what you thought about that since you’ve seen the movie.
Thanks!
-Allison
Hey Julie,
I was reading your post about “the help” and how the concept of segregation is foreign to you. It made me wonder, do you have any non-work related black friends of your own?
From the previews it looks like the movie was a lot more light hearted than the book and I thought perhaps they left out the important parts of the book. Was that true?
I finished the book the day before I saw the movie, so ALL the details were still fresh in my head. I have to say that I give it one thumb up and one thumb down, it was good, but having just finished the book, I felt some parts were really lacking (the ending, the break-up, their take on Minny leaving her husband-that really grated me). I found that book to be shocking, reminding me of how people treated my father when he came to Kansas for a soccer scholarship from Nigeria thirty years ago, but the movie seemed to have more modern touches of racism (stuff I have encountered!). Plus, I felt there were some “white person to the rescue” moments, like the Minny scene with Mr. and Mrs. La Foote. Then again, I am a book lover, and definitely overly critical of movies based on books. I’ll own that 😉