THE WATER DIVINER (2014) – My rating: 8.5/10

The Water Diviner, directed by Russell Crowe,  is an excellent movie.  I didn’t think I would like it, boy was I wrong.  The movie opens in 1919 right after WWI, with a farmer named Joshua Connor (Russell Crowe), using a diviner to find water on his property.  When he does, he digs and builds a rather sophisticated well.    Joshua has three sons, Arthur (Ryan Corr), Edward (James Fraser), and Henry (Ben O’Toole) who all served with the Australian and New Zealand Army Corps (ANZAC) at the Battle of Gallipoli five years prior to the opening scene of the movie and are now presumed dead. Joshua’s wife, Eliza (Jacqueline McKenzie), is unable to come to grips with their loss and blames Joshua for not going out and finding the boys.  Soon after, Eliza committed suicide by drowning. Joshua would have to lie to her priest so that she could be buried on consecrated ground.   At her burial, he decided he would bring his boys back and bury them beside her.

Joshua then commits himself to finding exactly what happened to the boys, to whom he had incredibly close relationships.  So he packed up and set out on a journey to Turkey where he meets Ayshe (Olga Kurylenko) and her son Orhan (Dylan Georgiades).  Ayshe is a widow who has not accepted her husband’s death but warms up to Joshua and tries to help him get to Gallipoli where his sons were killed.  There are some profound surprises on Joshua’s journey that make this movie worth every minute of your time watching it.  The Water Diviner will pull more emotions out of you than you ever expected.  Observing the audience around me, there was much laughter, tears and outburst.  Aside from Russell Crowe, a Turkish officer by the name of Major Hasan (Yılmaz Erdoğan) will steal away your heart.

ONCE UPON A TIME – My rating: 8.5/10

You can do anything with a little imagination.  Already well established fairy tales and other children’s stories are embellished to make this, not so childish series, appealing to old and young alike.  Since the beginning of Once Upon a Time, Snow White, Cinderella, Peter Pan, Rumpelstiltskin, Pinocchio, Jimmy the Cricket, Jack and the Bean Stalk, Little Red Riding Hood, Robin Hood and his Merry Band of Men, The wizard of Oz, Hansel and Gretel and many more were all explored before taking on a life of its own.  Recurring characters like Snow White/Mary Margaret (Ginnifer Goodwin) , Red Riding Hood/Ruby (Meghan Ory ), Rumpelstiltskin/Mr. Gold (Robert Carlyle), Captain Hook/Hook (Colin O’Donoghue ), Prince Charming/David Nolan (Josh Dallas), Emma Swan/the savior (Jennifer Morrison), Henry (Jared Gilmore), The Evil Queen/Regina (Lana Parillia) and others are interwoven into a complex story of good vs evil in an unknown and unseen town called Storybrook.  This series is in it’s 3rd season and still going strong.  There are 3 worlds in this story: the present (New York), The past (the enchanted forest) and Storybrook, a place where there was no magic.  All that has changed as well as the story and the characters.

Once Upon A Time is quite interesting and has continued to wow it’s audience.  Emma and Neil had a son he didn’t know about when she was very young.  Having no sound means to raise a child, she gave him up for adoption.  Enters Regina who adopts and raises the child, known as Henry.  Henry discovers a book of fairy tales given to him by his teacher, Mary Margaret who is really Snow White as well as Henry’s grandmother.  Henry suspects they are all characters from his book, with no memory of their true past, so he sets out to find “the savior” who is also his biological mom, Emma who lives in New York.

Confused? Catch this exciting series in full on Netflix.  Once Upon A Time airs on ABC.

RESURRECTION – My rating: 7/10

OK, the suspense level is high, the mystery level is high but my expectations are  apprehensive at best.  Because of Flash Forward, I am skeptical about this new series, starring Omar Epps as immigration agent, J. Martin Bellamy.  The story focuses on Arcadia, a small town in Missouri.  First, an eight year old boy who drowned 32 years ago, trying to save his aunt who fell in the lake, resurfaces, alive and well and unaged.  His parents, Henry and Lucille Langston are played by Frances Fisher and Kurtwood Smith, respectively are 32 years older and now suddenly have their son back, except that he’s still 8 years old.  Their son, Jacob is played by Landon Gimenez.  His DNA matches his father’s and his memory is impeccable.  Next, Caleb Richards, who died of a heart attack and has been dead for 8 years, resurfaces with no knowledge that he died of a heart attack.  No one knows what’s going on.  At last episode, Tom, the local preacher, discovered his former fiance, who committed suicide 12 years ago, has also been resurrected and was seated in his church alive and well.  All of this makes for an exciting series but so did Flash Forward, which was about almost everyone in the world falling unconscious for 2 minutes.  For those 2 minutes, you were able to see your future or not.  Those who didn’t see their future knew they didn’t have one.  The network left us hanging in midstream, without closure.  ABC is known for pulling the plug without explanation.  I’m sticking with this one in hopes that they will let Resurrection run its course.  I heard it’s still in the probationary stage.  I find it entertaining — check it out!