Now You See Me and The Big Year: Movie Reviews - Sat., June 26

Now You See Me (2013) is about magician bank robbers. A whole slew of stars came together to try to confuse us to pieces: Isla Fisher, Morgan Freeman, Mark Ruffalo, Jesse Eisenberg, Dave Franco, Woody Harrelson, and Michael Caine. If you can follow this movie, you should try your hand at being an illusionist. The plot has more twists and turns than the Manhattan rollercoaster at New York, New York casino in Las Vegas. We didn't fall asleep and were fully engaged by the movie, but now we feel we need to see it two or three more times to figure it all out. Very confusing movie, but well done. I give it 3-1/2 out of five stars.

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The Big Year (2011): This movie was recommended by the Vice President at the company Bob used to work for. He knew I liked bird watching, so told Bob we should watch this. Great recommendation!

The Big Year is a hilarious movie, again with a slew of stars: Steve Martin, Jack Black, Owen Wilson, Brian Dennehey, Anjelica Houston and Dianne Wiest. The Big Year is a year-long, informal competition among birders to see how many species of birds can be spotted or heard within a set geographical area. The movie is adapted from a 1998 book, The Big Year, by Mark Obmascik.

This delightful movie is a must see for bird lovers! The movie starts out following the competition winner from the prior year. He tells his wife he's not competing, just checking up on the competition to make sure they won't break his record from the previous year. Of course he gets sucked in to the new year's competition and keeps seeing two other men at all the locations where he is searching for birds. He KNOWS they're trying to break his record. Off he goes, trying to win the competition against these two interlopers. The movie follows the birders throughout the U.S. as they look (or listen) for different bird species. Great scenery, fun story and an overall entertaining movie. Highly recommended. Five out of five stars. Be sure to watch the closing credits to see many, many species of birds really fast!

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