First of all, Happy New Year everyone!  I hope you all had a wonderful New Year’s Eve and a great start to the year!

This past weekend, Michael and I celebrated our anniversary.  One of the things we did was see The Secret Life of Walter Mitty.

Taken from IMDB.com

The movie follows a man named Walter Mitty (played by Ben Stiller).  He lives a pretty normal, almost dull, life working for Life Magazine in the negative assets department.  It’s so dull that Walter frequently zones out from the real world to his imagination, one where he goes on adventures, gets the girl or creates great art; however, this is no time to live in a fantasy world.  The magazine is transitioning to an online magazine, and everyone’s job is in jeopardy.  As the last print issue is being pulled together, the powers that be want the final cover to be a picture taken by a photographer named Sean O’Connell who promises that this picture is the best he has ever taken, a true transcendence.  Alas, the picture is missing, and it’s up to Walter Mitty to recover the picture.

The movie is absolutely gorgeous.  They shot it on location in Iceland, the most beautiful sceneries I have seen in a while.  There is this one scene where Walter is longboarding on this winding road surrounded by mountains.  It was simply beautiful.  I could just get lost in some of those sweeping shots.

You do have to suspend belief most of the time.  It’s pretty hard to believe a guy who has been working behind a desk can easily navigate the Himalayan mountains.  I don’t think they were going for accuracy, though.  I think the moral of the story is to live and experience the present instead of hoping for a different reality, or you will miss out on some pretty amazing things.  Stiller’s acting was great.  Wiig was kind of flat, although I think the love story aspect was merely a support for the larger journey for Walter.  This isn’t a romance story.  It’s meant, I think, to be a personal growth journey.  I hesitate to use the word epic because I don’t think it quite reaches that height, but it’s similar.

The soundtrack is also pretty awesome, very chill songs, some remixes from the late 60s to early 80s.  Good driving music.

I’m torn between whether I would recommend this for the theater or Netflix.  As far as cinematography, it’s a definite theater must see.  However, the plot could easily be a Netflix night at home.  So, what movies have you seen lately?  Would you recommend them?