Waiting For Ben Hur Part II

Stupid Netflix.

My 'short wait' for Ben Hur has become a 'long wait'.  Bastards.

But instead of moping, I'm just going to hope it arrives sooner rather than later, and in the meantime, here's the aforementioned reviews of everything I've watched instead of the Chuck Heston chariot chase.

The Dark Knight Rises.  I wanted to like this better than I did.  Not saying it was bad or anything, but honestly, I felt it was the weakest of the three Nolan Batman movies.  Batman Begins was a believable tweaking of Frank Miller's Batman: Year One story.  The Dark Knight was a crime story with a very good turn from Heath Ledger (but with a clumsy Two-Face story shoehorned in), and The Dark Knight Rises was the war movie, I guess?  I liked Anne Hathaway better than I thought I would, but bad move getting rid of Alfred for most of the story, bad move making Bane awfully boring, and bad move by Spielberging your ending.  Didn't suck, wasn't great, but honestly I may never watch it again.  And I've watched the first two installments multiple times.

Contagion.  I felt about this the way I feel about most of Steven Soderbergh's stuff.  Nice to look at, well made, but ultimately it left me a little cold.  I liked Gwyneth Paltrow's part, I thought Matt Damon kinda phoned it in.  I liked Kate Winslet, I thought Jude Law overcooked his part.  By the end I was waiting for it to be over, but as usual, it was pleasing to my eye.  I think Soderbergh makes beautiful movies that lack heart.  That said, he's a talented director and still better than most.  I've just given up connecting to most of his stuff.  Maybe I just don't speak his language.

The Avengers.  Dig it.  Dug it.  Will watch again.  Highly recommended.  My inner nerd rejoices often that this movie hit the mark.  Joss Whedon is not infallable *cough Dollhouse cough* but he is a director that I do indeed understand the language which he speaks and he speaks it well. (that sentence was crap.)  Now.  If Shane Black's Iron Man 3 is a winner, I may just squee in public, rather than to myself while hiding in my nerd lair.  Marvel has done a wonderful job in creating its movie universe.  I wish DC/Warner Bros. would find the same success, but it hasn't worked out so well for them so far.  I hope Zack Snyder's Man of Steel is good, because if it's not, that studio could have real troubles ahead of them.

The Collector.  Bleh.  Pretty much the first line of dialogue turned me off completely.  So on the nose...so very, very bad.  Not long after that, a few characters got introduced and they were so force-fit that I was getting squirmy.  Not long after that, the drawn-out 'suspense' started to put me to sleep.  The first half hour of this thing should have taken about 15 minutes, but the ham handed attempts to create something out of nothing just kept a'comin'.  I tuned it off and was happier for it.

The Hunger Games.  I think if I was a 14 year-old girl, I would have been quite happy with this.  However.  I am a 42 year-old curmudgeon and I found it to be contrived and boring.  Also, shallow.  Also, Lenny Kravitz, have you no shame?  Also, for the amount of money spent on this thing some of the effects were crap.  Also, Wes Bentley?  I preferred your floaty plastic bag to your stupid flamey beard.  Will not watch the sequels unless mandated by law.

Resident Evil: Retribution.  I gotta be honest.  I can't tell these movies apart.  There's, I think, five of them?  Completely interchangeable.  And yet somehow I kinda like 'em.  Definitely need to turn the brain off before I watch, but they're entertaining in their own small way.  Zombies, meta-humans, Milla Jovovich in skintight pleather catsuits, carnage, mayhem.  Yes sir, I'll watch the next forty-two of them.

Skyfall.  I think I need to watch this one again.  Really liked most of it.  Kinda didn't like some of it.  I wanted to watch the director's commentary, but Netflix sent me the vanilla version so I couldn't.  Boo.  Overall, pretty good.  I liked that the villain was memorable.  That was a nice change from Casino Royale and Quantum of Snooze Button.  I liked that the story centered around M for a change, and I think the story benefited from it.  Daniel Craig continues to impress.  Sam Mendes is a fine director.  But something about it just wasn't quite right.  I'll have to watch again and give more thoughts then.

John Carter.  Nerd admission: I never read these books, so I had no real knowledge of what this movie was about.  Sure I knew a few things, but not much.  Turns out that that was perfect because this movie delivered the exact same: not much.  A few laughs (small ones), a few nice set pieces, some unbelievable 'science', some mediocre 'acting', and, uhhh...yeah.  I understand that this tanked so bad there will never be a sequel, and I can say...yay.  Good call.  No need for that.

That's all I got for today kids.  I'll be back soon with more boring reviews that aren't Ben Hur.

Peace.

Ugh, my brain...

I'm not the world's stupidest man, nor am I a Hawking-like genius, but I get by.

Some days I can't remember what I had for lunch yesterday, how old my brother is, or the name of that guy in that movie, you know, that guy...

But some days I am gifted with a wondrous flashback to something long forgotten, something that makes me quite happy.  Something like this...

Here's the deal.  I'm driving home from work and all I'm thinking about is getting out of my crap work clothes and into my pajamas and getting some food into my gullet, when I realize that I'm humming something that I recognize, but can't think of the artist or title, but I've got the words and then it all came flooding back into my old, decaying brain...

Seriously, I cannot tell you how excited I am to have this song back into my life.  About the video, the thing I remembered were, the Devil lady, the asymmetrical heart on the drums, his sideburns (I wanted them so bad back then, but I didn't have the facial hair to do it) and the biker dude faux-choking him.  The things I did not remember were the seemingly genuine happiness he and the old lady share, the weird instrumental break with the drum-noodling, and that in 1991 he and I dressed quite a bit alike aside from his up-around-his-sternum pants.

Anyway, I will leave you now, because I have gotten into my pajamas but I have not eaten yet, and I am hungry.  Strange that I felt completely compelled to write this first...

Adios, muchachos.

Waiting For Ben Hur

First.  To all three of my (semi-) loyal readers, sorry for not being here for you to help waste your work days. I've been eyes deep in my stupid screenplay and work and I moved a few miles and I hate winter and blah blah blibbity blah.

The good news is that spring appears to be here (fingers crossed) I like my new place, and my screenplay is done.  I missed a few (self imposed) deadlines but I finally put that ornery bastard to bed last week.  This week I have not thought about it one bit (or at least if I did think about it, I quickly changed my mind) and I have been decompressing with video games, sleep, and movies.

Second.  A few weeks ago I got an email from Netflix wherein they offered me a free month of their disc-based service.  I have had the streaming only version of Netflix for ages and I have often sighed when what I wanted to watch was not available in that fashion.  So I gamely accepted said offer and have started to get the discs again. Two at a time.  Blu Rays.  It's nice and I like it.  The caveat, you ask?  Well, in the past, when I had the disc delivery plan, sometimes I would let the discs sit on top of my TV for weeks at a time without watching them.  Sometimes I would watch them, sometimes I would mail them back unseen.  I was wasting what I consider to be a quality service.  So.  This time I decided that I would have an agenda with my selections.  I selected the AFI top 100 movies list and decided that I would watch the movies, in order, from 100 to 1.  Even the ones I've already seen.  I would intersperse these hundred movies with other, less prestigious movies so as not to feel like every disc was an IMPORTANT FILM.  I decided that I would write reviews of these movies here in this blog.  I was/am excited for this.

Except.

A Tangent.  When you select a movie that Netflix does not have a bazillion of, they inform you right there on your queue that it will require a short wait.  Year ago, I forget the movie, I had a short wait.  Netflix emailed me and said that they were awfully sorry for the short wait so instead of delivering my movie from my usual distribution center, they would send it from a different center, in Florida no less, so it would be an extra day or two before it arrived.  That kind of service and short wait I do not mind.  Apparently this is not how they deal with the short waits anymore.

Third.  Number 100 on the AFI list is Ben Hur.  I haven't seen this movie since I was a kid.  To be honest, with the exception of vague memories of chariots, I have no recollection of it and will be able to watch this movie completely afresh.  I'm looking forward to it quite a bit.  Except.  Except there is a short wait.  I have received no email informing me of it being sent from a different distribution center.  It just sits there atop my queue reminding me that I can't have it.  I expected the first two movies I received to be The Dark Knight Returns and Ben Hur.  Instead I got TDKR and Contagion.  And then the Avengers.  And then the Collector.  And then the Hunger Games.  And then Resident Evil: Retribution.

Sigh.  I mailed the last two movies on this list back today and needless to say I do not expect Ben Hur to arrive to replace them.

So as I review these films (reviews will start in a few days) I will continue to title these posts as Waiting For Ben Hur until it actually shows up and I can watch it.

Anyways, I will now bid you adieu as I will attempt (yet again) to consume my body weight in meats/carbs.

Thank you and good night.