Need for Speed

We went to this amazing show at the Danbury Railway Museum on a summer Saturday. They had vintage cars, good food, lively music, an axe throwing booth and of course, the museum itself. If you have kids who love trains, the museum is a must. It has train rides, morse code puzzles, model trains, artifacts, books, pictures and blueprints – a veritable heaven for train enthusiasts.

Speaking of speed, I must mention my experience of setting foot in a crowded theater after almost three years. I took my ten-year-old to watch Top Gun: Maverick, Tom Cruise’s cinematic masterpiece. I don’t care how old I sound when I say this but they really don’t make movies like this anymore. Every scene is a work of art which is to say the editing is flawless. Excuse me while I wax poetic about a Hollywood blockbuster. After two years of a raging pandemic, natural disasters dotting the globe, a never-ending war and I don’t know what else you are battling in your personal life, but if you want to take your mind off all that, and come out of the theater feeling happy, go watch it. You don’t even have to be acquainted with the original Top Gun to enjoy it.

On our way back, my son told me he loved the movie but all the main characters survived as if they had this invisible plot armor. A dangerous mission like the one showed in the movie would result in a few casualties. And therein lies the appeal of Maverick, it is not real life. It is pure cinema, the kind they don’t make any more.