Miracle Man Netflix

[Claribel Szwaja]

TheBisbee's Black & Blue Fishing Tournament, reeling from a hurricane, waves the entry fee for local fisherman, and a tournament official pairs Omar and his orphanage with a past champion, Wade. "Team Casa Hogar" instantly becomes an entrant into one of the most lucrative fishing tournaments in the world.

Netflix's new hit film Blue Miracle (TV-PG) tells the inspiring story of Omar, Wade and the Casa Hogar orphanage. It soared into Netflix's Top 10 chart on opening weekend and was No. 3 on its second day.

The film masterfully tells this incredible true story through the eyes of Omar, a man who has given his life to the orphanage but who is now facing possible eviction from the building that makes his ministry possible. Gonzales and Quaid are excellent in the lead roles.

Blue Miracle isn't a Christian film in the same genre as, say, War Room. Faith is a major part of Blue Miracle, but it's not the primary story. Still, you don't have to look very far to find faith elements.

Omar leads the orphanage with love, emphasizing God's protection and power over the children. When one little boy expresses worry about the present and the future, Omar gets creative and pulls out a "miracle nail," telling the boy to write his problems on a piece of paper and hang it on the door as a reminder to pray. "God hears me every time," Omar says. (The boy takes the lesson to heart and follows Omar's instruction.)

"I really do hope that the movie holds up and is respected as art because [these are] fine performances," Dowling told Crosswalk. "[Director] Julio [Quintana] did a fantastic job. It's beautifully shot. I know a lot of the movies that have faith in them continue to get banged on and overlooked for their artistic merit."Blue Miracle, he said, is a movie that anyone can watch and "be inspired."

Few of us, though, sacrifice our lives for others as Omar and his wife do. Instead of settling down in a nice home, they live in an aging orphanage. Instead of cooking for two, they cook for more than 20. And when a young boy is wandering the dangerous streets in the middle of the night, Omar goes after him, knowing both of them might get killed from street violence.

Often, Omar's work is thankless. When Omar lectures Moco, an orphan who stole a watch, Moco retorts, "Maybe if I work really hard, I'll be able to drive around the orphans in a broke-down truck like you."

It promotes fatherhood (one father, Omar, is the "Papa" to dozens of boys who lacked one, while another father, Wade, has not lived up to his responsibility as a dad -- but becomes convicted to do so).

Michael Foust has covered the intersection of faith and news for 20 years. His stories have appeared in Baptist Press, Christianity Today, The Christian Post, the Leaf-Chronicle, the Toronto Star and the Knoxville News-Sentinel.

Naturally, Lily and Eileen have secrets, all of which come roaring to the surface when Chrissie (Linney) returns to town, just in time to catch the talent show. She's been gone from the town for decades, and clearly, there's a lot of bad water under the bridge. Eileen can barely look at her; Lily turns her nose at her. Dolly has no idea what's going on and warms to Chrissie immediately. Before you know it, through twists, turns, and coincidences, the quartet is off to Lourdes, praying for personal, physical, and spiritual miracles.

It's easy to predict how this will go, but with actresses like Bates (whose accent is a bit spotty) and Smith (whose accent is very good), there's always a lot to dig into and appreciate. Linney's character is the opposite of expressive and remains so for much of the film, but there are cracks in the armor as the women's time in Lourdes continues. Smith, in particular, gives a heart-breaking performance, guilt, and shame basically pouring out of her eyes, even as she struggles to cover it up with an imperious manner. She plays both simultaneously. It's tempting to say Smith is "unsurprisingly" great, but this should be resisted. Maggie Smith is always surprising; we should not take her for granted!

There are moving moments (O'Casey is very touching), but once the "miracles" start coming, the film tilts into very shallow waters. It's best at its most casual: the interplay of emotions and resentments, the silliness of holding grudges, the pain beneath the surface of these women. We are also treated to supposedly humorous scenes of the menfolk back home falling apart without their women: they have to shop for groceries now, they have to change diapers, oh, how clumsy they are! Considering that this is a period film, which takes place in a world untouched (so far) by the upheavals of the 1960s, these scenes are still pretty rote.

It's worth it, though, to wait for Smith's performance of the line: "God punished me for taking him away like that." The line comes from her guts, her soul, and the shallow waters immediately yield to deep.

The inspiring story of the team that transcended its sport and united a nation with a new feeling of hope. Based on the true story of one of the greatest moments in sports history, the tale captures a time and place where differences could be settled by games and a cold war could be put on ice. In 1980, the United States Ice Hockey team's coach, Herb Brooks, took a ragtag squad of college kids up against the legendary juggernaut from the Soviet Union at the Olympic Games. Despite the long odds, Team USA carried the pride of a nation yearning from a distraction from world events. With the world watching the team rose to the occasion, prompting broadcaster Al Michaels' now famous question, to the millions viewing at home: Do you believe in miracles? Yes!

If you have never seen the movie, here is a quick recap. The movie starts by introducing us to Herb Brooks, in an interview with the Team USA hockey board. We learn that the 1980 Olympics are coming up, and the US needs a coach, as well as learning about the Soviet Union, a hockey powerhouse at the time. We then go on to find out Herb Brooks gets the job as the head coach for the United States. Then on comes tryouts for the Olympic team. A team that was going to be made up of college hockey players. It is here where we meet some of the main players and characters for the movie. As well as learning some stories from the players' college playing days and some rivalries inside the team. Brooks went on to choose the team only after one day of tryouts, while there was scheduled to be an entire week. This is also where we find out that Coach Brooks is going to lead and coach this team in some unconventional ways. After that, we learn some more stories from the players, as well as Herb Brooks as they prepare for the Olympics. Team USA goes on to win gold in the 1980 Olympics in a very exciting way. But that is just a quick run-down of what happens throughout the movie for those who have not seen it before.

I believe that Miracle on Ice has some interesting ways to be entertaining as it was based on a true story. Giving the viewers a look into what the world was like at the time outside of hockey. The main issue at the time was the Cold War.

Kurt Russell also played the part as Coach Herb Brooks very well. He served as a good leader throughout the movie and made the role his own. As well as some of the lesser-known actors who played as the hockey players filled their roles quite well and took it to heart.

Overall, everyone loves a good underdog story. And this is what Miracle on Ice is all about. We learn about the team and what they go through to prepare for the Olympics and that everybody gets to experience that joy that the team felt at the end of the movie. Being able to kind of have an idea of the feelings that those players and coaches and fans are going to experience is one of the main things that bring this movie to life. It makes you feel like you were there watching the game and you feel very invested in it. The fact that you can feel like you are a part of the story is one of the best aspects of the movie itself.

In his new Netflix special "23 Hours to Kill," Seinfeld marvels at the mundane. He celebrates the Pop Tart as a miracle of modern science, breaks down the inanities and intricacies of modern conversation and laments the annoyances of, well, everything.

Seinfeld is a scientist of comedy, and he's honed his act to hyper-focus on the minute details of everyday language, such as differences between staying "in" and going "out," and the small gap between things that "suck" and things that are "great." It's safe to say "23 Hours to Kill" is on the front half of that equation.

Seinfeld opens by talking about the exasperation of going out and getting together with friends, a luxury none of us currently have, but he's speaking truths that are conveniently forgotten when romanticizing life pre-quarantine. Yes, we want to go out, but once we're allowed to, it will be just as tantalizing to stay in and not deal with all the things that routinely drive us crazy.

Seinfeld, now 65, shifts in the second half of the special to talk about married life, offering up relationship observations that again zero in on specifics, such as the way tone of voice becomes critical in every conversation.

He's one of the most successful comedians of all time, but here he's just a married guy who's still figuring things out. He's a master at bridging the (admittedly gigantic) gap between himself and the audience, and in "23 Hours to Kill," he's as sharp and studied as ever.

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