I confess, I saw the trailers and thought this would be a pretty standard survival flick. Instead, what I discovered was a very tense thriller of woman versus nature.
Blake Lively is Nancy…a young woman grieving the loss of her mother. She has discovered a remote beach and is there to surf. Late in the day, she follows some dolphins and discovers a dead whale. After a large great white shark attack, Nancy finds herself trapped on a rock. The shark seems determined to make Nancy a meal, and she struggles to find a way to survive.
Director Jaume Collet-Serra has brought us an intense story that does not often give you time to breathe as Nancy tries to find a way to outsmart the shark. When you consider a large chunk of the film is Lively sitting on a rock, it is pretty impressive that they are able to keep the audience on their toes.
This film was a very good surprise.
On Saturday, May 31st in 2014, two young girls stabbed their friend 19 times in Waukesha, Wisconsin. She survived after crawling from the forest and being found by a cyclist. The two girls were found walking along a road. They explained to the police that they were trying to prove their worth to “the Slender Man”. When they were found, they were on their way to the Slender Man’s mansion, hidden deep in the forest.
Hidden Figures tells a story I suspect few Americans were aware of. The women of NASA in the sixties. Or to be more precise, the black women of NASA. Hidden Figures explores the real story of three NASA “Computers”. In the sixties, people were doing all the calculating that would eventually be taken over by computers. And this film brings to light Katherine Johnson, Dorothy Vaughan and Mary Jackson. All three were firsts in their field.