Monster Trucks is a kids movie that came out in 2017. Apparently, nobody saw it in the theater, including me, but I wanted to see it eventually. I finally got my chance and I have to say: the monsters are tooooooo cute!

Seriously, this movie spent money on the CGI and it shows. The monsters make expressions that make you laugh and melt your heart.

The high schoolers are typical, but they quickly become likable because of how they treat the monsters. The bad guys are horrible from the beginning and I cheered when they got their comeuppance.

Monster Trucks has a plot that has been done a million times before, but its charm rests in the fact that the monsters are so cute, and you wish you were riding in the trucks that they control.

The acting is solid, and as I said, the CGI is totally believable. Most important for me, I didn’t bawl at the end of the movie, I just teared up a little.

If you are looking for a fun movie to watch with your kids, or if you just like cute monsters, I recommend Monster Trucks. You can rent it on Amazon, find it on YouTube, or watch it on Sony Crackle for free.  I imagine other channels have it as well. It will grab you just like the monsters grabbed an axle.

If you don’t know Scott, he is an ultra-marathoner who broke the northbound, supported AT record in 2015. He didn’t keep the record for long. Instead, Scott helped Karl Meltzer, a friend who had supported him in 2015, set a southbound, supported AT record in 2016.

I’d like to thru-hike the Appalachian Trail someday. I’m not sure whether I want to do it northbound or southbound, as both directions have positives and negatives. I thought I would do when I turned 50 in 2023, but I’m going to run the Great Wall of China Marathon instead.

Scott finished the trail in 46 days. The current, supported, northbound, AT record is 41 days. That’s amazing. The trail is about 2,200 miles long, goes through 14 states, and gains and loses more than 89 miles in elevation. It takes an average of 165 days to complete the thru-hike (that is a half-marathon a day.)  The amount of planning needed would be huge, but it would be a fantastic project.

North* is a great book, although I admit I liked the end better than the beginning. As with many running books, it is a quasi-memoir and deals with personal problems. If you want to read a more light-hearted, yet just as heart-stopping a book about the Appalachain Trail, check out A Walk In the Woods* by Bill Bryson. (Or watch the movie, but the book is much better.)

What do you think about taking six months to thru-hike the Appalachian Trail? Would you do it?

*Amazon affiliate links

There are a few exceptions, but if I can’t root for the main character, then I probably won’t like the book or movie. An easy way to gain my sympathy is a story technique called “Save the Cat.” Have the main character, no matter how evil they are supposed to be, do something kind for an unimportant reason. In some movies, such as the 2004 Hellboy*, the main character literally saves a box of kittens. In other cases, it can be more subtle. In Star Wars VII, The Force Awakens, Rey rescues BB-8. She didn’t have to and had no reason to, but it was her “Save the Cat” moment, and we automatically want her to win.

I watched Ocean’s 8 for the first time last night. I really liked Ocean’s 11 (the George Clooney version. We won’t discuss the horrible Frank Sinatra version.) and didn’t mind Ocean’s 12. I didn’t think I would like Ocean’s 8 as much, but I was surprised at how much I didn’t like it.

Technically, these women are thieves, so there is no reason to like them, but if Sandra Bullock had had a “Save the Cat” moment, I would have gotten behind her plan. But she didn’t. Even worse, she took advantage of customer service people who were doing their job and doing it well. Since I have worked in customer service for many years, I hated Sanda Bullock’s character.

I liked a couple of the secondary characters and ended up really liking one character that I thought was just a pawn. Overall the movie wasn’t bad, but I won’t be seeing it again because I had no connection to the characters.

“Save the Cat” isn’t always necessary, and anti-heroes are important characters, but for me, showing the good in a bad character can make me relate to them. Otherwise, they are just black or white, and there is always the Marvel movies instead.

(I guess in a roundabout way, this is a review of Ocean’s 8. It was just okay, and I’m glad I got it from the library for free.)

*All links are Amazon affiliate links