Movies 9/23-10/7
The Mists of Avalon (2001)
Rating: 
This ended up in my queue after watching and enjoying the first seasons of Merlin and Legend of the Seeker. Here we now have the Arthurian legend with “a feminist slant,” as Netflix’s summary puts it. I didn’t read that before adding it to my queue, or I might have thought twice. That was unfortunate, as it really made the movie feel plain weird. You’d have to watch it to understand how weird it can be, but I would recommend against it. Watch the TV shows I mentioned instead.
We Are Marshall (2006)
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I really have not fallen in love with an inspirational sports story since Hoosiers back in 1986. That might have been the last year I really paid attention to sports, also. Though, I do remember not liking Marshall at all back in the 90′s when UNI kept getting beat by them in National play-off’s. The movie wasn’t all that great, but I feel I can’t rate it too low considering it’s about what happened to the town (and team) after almost the entire team, coaches, etc. died in a plane crash back in 1970. That’s a hard thing to make an inspiring movie about.
Excalibur (1981)
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Yet another version of the Arthurian legend showed up, this time in my Netflix instant watching queue. It was surprisingly well-done, though a bit graphic in some scenes. This is definitely not a film for kids, but is pretty cool for any adults who love the legend.
Duplicity (2009)
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I really, really liked this movie. The ending was absolutely perfect. I think it was Ebert who stated it was like watching the Spy vs. Spy comic from Mad Magazine, which I feel is a perfect description for how this movie plays out. This is a very entertaining spy/love story, chock-full of sarcasm at every corner.
Sunshine Cleaning (2008)
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Amy Adams stars in a fairly funny Indie film wrapped around her starting a company that cleans up houses or other buildings after suicides, murders or other deaths take place there. She does this after finding out how much crazy-money can be made if you’re willing to subject yourself to serioiusly nasty conditions. It plays the line between drama and comedy very well, and is definitely worth watching if you generally enjoy Indie films.
Delgo (2008)
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Interesting animated movie from independent filmmakers (i.e., not Disney, Pixar or Dreamworks). The biggest problem with this movie was the violence, which is something that escaped me. I normally preview movies before watching with the kids, but let this one ride (bit of a mistake). It wasn’t too bad, but I most likely would have sent it back if I had watched it first. This thing was viciously slammed by critics, but was much better than they state. I think I enjoyed it mostly due to loving fantasy world films, books, games, etc. It felt like they brought the world of Everquest (a game I spent too much time playing years ago) alive on film. If you like that sort of thing, check it out.
Clone Wars: Vol. 1: A Galaxy Divided (2008)
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Ugh. The movie was entertaining enough, but the show simply falls flat. Lafe still likes it, but I think he likes absolutely anything to do with the Star Wars universe. I think they will need to create some real-life action films again (#7-#9?) if they are going to get adults back into it. Of course, not all adults buy an insane number of toys, so I guess they are playing to the right crowd.
Colossus: The Forbin Project (1970)
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Sort of smart technological thriller from the early 70s. It felt like a precursor to WarGames from the 80s, which is one of my favorite movies from childhood. To summarize, there is a super-computer in the U.S. being used to protect us as well as the world. It’s artificial intelligence is amazingly advanced, and it being touted as the solution to war. Well, when they unleash it on the world, it turns out there is a similar computer in Russia, so the two start communicating with each other and get really P.O.’d when the silly humans disconnect the communications between them. It’s an interesting ride from there.
State of Play (2009)
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I understand this is based on a BBC mini-series, which is much better than the movie. I didn’t find the story all that interesting, though it seemed very well-done, so I won’t bother watching the mini-series itself. While Russell Crowe is one of my favorite actors right now, Ben Affleck can easily and utterly ruin a movie for me. Every time he was on-screen, I got a yucky feeling in my stomach. ;) Speaking of Crowe, when are they going to make Gladiator 2?!
Survivorman: Season 1 (2004)
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This TV show was available on Netflix instant watching, so I decided to check it out over the past couple weeks. I found it highly entertaining and fairly informative. Les Stroud seems to know a ton about various survival techniques. While the show tends to follow the same lines, his 7-day survival adventure is always in a completely different location, with different things to cope with. What freaks me out is that he handles all his camera-work by himself. When you see long shots from various camera angles, HE set those cameras up to get those shots. When he’s travelling miles to find shelter, that means he travelled multiple times just to keep getting footage along the way. That’s just plain crazy.
Survivorman: Season 2 (2005)
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I found the first season more interesting, though the show is still well worth watching. I think it might be the fact that I’m watching both seasons back-to-back over only a couple weeks, though. By the way, he doesn’t always make it out successfully every episode, in case his continued success bores you, or feels contrived. In at least one of these, he and his “safety” crew have to be helicopter-lifted out before a vicious storm.
Phineas and Ferb: The Fast and the Phineas (2008)
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Coworkers Jake and Maria seem to be able to easily quote this Disney show, and laugh so hard every time they bring it up, that I finally had to add it to J’s queue to see how it was. I certainly enjoyed it enough to sit down with her while Lafe watched “his” movie, though I have to admit this very-formulaic show can get a bit tedious after watching four episodes back-to-back. There are some great gems for jokes in there, though. We might have to check out other discs available.
Bionicle: The Legend Reborn (2009)
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This latest installment in the Bionicle movie series was another fine production, both in terms of interesting-enough storyline and decent animation, especially for a LEGO movie. Lafe loved it as expected, and I found it fun enough to sit through the next night before sending the disc back to Netflix.
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