August DVD's
Battlestar Galactica - Season 1 - Mostly just to remind myself why I used to think this show as so great. Turns out it's because it used to be. Unfortunately, when you know what a nose dive all the stories and characters take it's even hard to watch the old ones and enjoy them the same way. BSG jumped the shark when they made Lee Adama all jowly and fat for 4 episodes. "Bear beats Battlestar Galactica" indeed.
Bones - Season One - Which doesn't sound all the exciting except that Season One is 21 episodes long, so watching all 21 of them took, like, what?, 17 hours or something. It was worth every minute (or else I wouldn't have bothered) and I'm totally going to watch all of Season 2 on DVD before Season 3 starts here in a few weeks. So I was able to replace BSG with something else I can be all dorkily in love with. So far I haven't once felt unsure about whether my affections were being misplaced or taken advantage of. The show has a lot of good things going for it but I think my favorite is that it's lead female character is unapologetically smart, uses big words, is great at her job, leads an elite team of scientists and is a total ass kicker. So while I love the David Boreanaz and the chemistry he has with her and that they've really gone out of their way to make him a full, complete, interesting character (as they have with all the recurring speaking parts on the show) and not just a macho gun slinging mouth breather, the fact that they have not (yet anyway) tried to dumb her down or make her somehow unattractive because she's a super genius makes this gal with a huge IQ and a giganitc vocabulary very happy indeed.
Angel - Season 1 - I only got 2 discs in and gave up. I kept trying to tell myself I really liked Angel but the truth is that I really just like David Boreanaz. Unfortunately, the material they gave him to work with didn't really hold my attention. Mostly I just thought the makeup effects were super lame and I can't deal with any show that makes their stunt double work so glaringly obvious. I don't watch Mighty Morphin Power Rangers either, know what I'm sayin'? So I gave it an honest try. It's just not my bag.
How I Met Your Mother - Season 1 - I'd heard good things about this show and since Vulcan had all of the entire 1st season available to rent, I thought I'd give it a whirl. Edward and I ended up watching the entire 4 disc, 21 episode season in 2 days. I was unsure about how they were going to treat their characters. I thought they might make everyone really precious and one note for an episode or two but it turned out that it wasn't just "cute". I'd heard that Neil Patrick Harris is extremely good here, and he definitely is. But so are all the other main characters. And it's strangely weird but nice that there's a couple on the show who met their 1st year in college together, who are goofy and affectionate and still clearly in love with one another 9 years into their relationship. I don't usually see myself reflected in anyone on TV that directly. Alyson Hannigan is great and while I was worried at first that Jason Segel was just going to play a more modern version of Nick from Freaks and Geeks, he keeps bringing these really wonderful surprises with him. I'm not really a big fan of sitcoms these days but this one's really well done. I like these people. I want to find out what happens to them.
So those are all the TV shows I watched on DVD this month. Which left little time for actual feature length films. Although I did get a few in.
The Contract - I'd never heard of it, but it stars John Cusack and Morgan Freeman and since I'll go out of my way to watch anything either one of them are in, I figured it would at least be worth a go. I think it may have gone straight to video since I don't remember it being advertised or released in theaters. It was pretty plodding. There wasn't anything of particular interest that happened story wise (Cusack's out hiking with his troubled teenage son in the woods and comes upon Freeman who is a legendary hit man who is trying to escape capture by the Feds. Chasing through the woods ensues) and neither of them really have anything to sink their teeth into. There's a fight scene where Cusack gets to do some of his own stunts but it's shot in such a way that it's hard to really see what's happening. I was underwhelmed.
A Lot Like Love - I don't know what came over me. I swear. I was flipping around on the TV. This movie was staring on OH!, a station I never watch, starring Ashton Kutcher and Amanda Peet, two people whose collective body of work I don't particularly admire all that much, in a movie about 2 people who fall in love over the course of a number of years. It wasn't HORRIBLE, but I truly don't know why I stuck it out for the whole thing. I guess I got about 40 minutes into it and just didn't have enough reason to jump ship. Generally I'll watch a movie all the way through even if I'm iffy about it if it hasn't given me just cause to just find something else to do. Rarely will I not see a movie through to the end. So I watched the whole thing. And there were parts of it where I was surprised by what appeared to be Ashton Kutcher actually acting like someone other than a brainless doofus. Other than that, I can't really recommend it.
Disturbia - I've developed a highly age inappropriate crush on Shia LaBeouf. Then I found out that David Morse was in this and it was a done deal as I have another highly age inappropriate crush on him too. I was surprised by how great this movie was. It was well written. It actually sucked me right in and got me involved. The performances were all really awesome and it was a really fun, worthwhile experience. That kid has real fucking chops. He's got a real ease about him. He's super charismatic. He makes you want to like him. And he's funny in a way that nobody can teach somebody to be. Plus he's good at doing serious stuff, action stuff and scary stuff. He's got it all. Big star written all over him. It's too bad that David Morse has been turned into the bad guy in everything he's been in lately. I mean, he does creepy bad guy better than most people could ever dream to. He's so menacing. But any time I see him in something and he's presented as a decent dude who you still haven't figured out, I always know. Dude, it's David Morse. He'll smile at you and then slit your throat when you turn around. Haven't you seen any of the last 15 movies he's been in? That's his deal. Don't believe the middle aged man pony tail or the twinkly smile. HE'S EVIL!!! EVIL I TELLS YA!!! Oh well... typecasting of Mr. Morse aside, this movie was great.
The Host - God love Korean cinema. The previews for this made me really want to see it. It's basically about this mutated beast that terrorizes a city and the story of one particular family's quest to save its youngest member. I haven't given anything away that isn't in the previews, but let me be clear here. This movie is fucking amazing. There are a couple of scenes in it that we (me and Mr. Clare) had to pause so we could confirm with each other that we'd just seen what we thought we'd just seen. Or to just take a second to catch our breath and say "holy shit!" before we kept going. It's weird. It's scary. There are parts that are really funny. It's so well done. Check it out.
Smokin' Aces - If you read these regularly you know I've seen this movie already this year. I went to see it by myself the first time and Ed was curious so we watched it together. It definitely held up. I actually think I liked it better the second time because I wasn't bogged down with trying to keep all the characters and their motivations straight or untangle the knot of a story they put together that's actually really simple but gets told sort of round-aboutly. I was able to concentrate on the performances and since there are so many of them and all of them are different and none of them suck (yes Ben Affleck, I admit you didn't suck okay? You grew a porn 'stache just to fit your character. I give you credit where credit is due.) it was a fun little diversion from reality for a few hours. Sure, Guy Ritchie is probably pissed that they stole all his innovative story telling techniques, but it worked.
Touristas - Horror movie about a group of ugly Americans (and Brits and Australians) who meet each other when their bus breaks down in Brazil and they get suckered in by the locals. I had zero expectations about this movie and figured it would be pretty lame. I was wrong. It did what any good horror movie will do. I got all wrapped up in it and was scared and tense and worried and actually unsure if any of them were going to make it out alive. There's a prolonged scene toward the end that's all shot underwater that had me holding my breath with the characters that worked REALLY well in creating tension. Surprisingly good flick.
Superbad - There was no way I was going to miss a movie written by Seth Rogan starring Michael Cera. No way! I don't want to compare this movie to The 40 Year Old Virgin or Knocked Up since, while they have things in common, aren't really supposed to be in the same family. But I'll say this. 40 Year Old Virgin and Knocked Up were better movies. Which isn't to say that I didn't thoroughly enjoy Superbad. It's not to say that I didn't laugh until I cried or that I wouldn't recommend it. It's more just to say that it wasn't as spectacularly brilliantly awesome as I was thinking it would be. Good? Yes. Shit, it was even great. But it wasn't mind bendingly life alteringly great like Virgin and Knocked Up were. At least not to me anyway.
Bourne Ultimatum - For some reason all month we've been referring to this movie as The Boring Old Tomato or The Borneo Potato depending on our mood so calling it by it's actual name feels unnatural at this point. Anyway, I loved the first Bourne movie and didn't hate the second one. I'd heard that this third installment was the best of the three or at least that it wasn't worse than the second, so we went on a little date a week ago and checked it out. It was passable. There were parts of it that were pretty decent. I think it's pretty hilarious that Parkour has made it's way into so many mainstream action flicks this year after District 13 came out. There's the sequence here, there's one in the new Die Hard movie and there was one in Casino Royale. I'm not saying it's not cool. Because it is. I'm just sayin'... Make a Parkour movie that mainstream US audiences can actually get their hands on without having to dig for it and you've got yourself a hit. I don't want to see Matt Damon's stunt double jump from a building through a window on the other side of the street 2 stories down. I want THAT GUY who did that to be in a movie where he's the star. I guess what I should say is that Bourne Ultimatum was okay. But mostly it just made me want to watch District 13 again.
Smokey and The Bandit - We rented this because over dinner one night I let it slip that I'd never seen it. There are a bunch of movies I've never seen. This was one of the ones that Edward got indignant about and stood up and went and put it in the top of our Netflix queue all "no wife of mine has never watched Smokey and the Bandit!" So we watched it. And it was fun. Kind of amazing to me to watch Burt Reynolds be all swaggering, macho, cocky and brash and still sell it. Like I totally bought that he was a total prick but also really charming and handsome and sexy. It's weird. I mean, I wasn't expecting to buy into the Burt Reynolds-ness of it all. I figured I'd just look at it from the perspective of when the movie was made and be on my merry way. Especially when you know what kind of a weird Katherine Helmond from Brazil kind of fucked up looking weirdo he turned into as a super-vain older man. But yeah. Back in the day when he was Burt Fucking Reynolds, I totally get it.
Okay. That was August. September just started and I have 4 movies sitting in the living room waiting for me to get through today. So off I go...