Since marrying Jim, I’ve started watching some of his collection of movies on DVD. Jim says that seeing them will help give me “a common frame of reference”. A few of them he even considers survivalist training films. I suppose that the endeavor will also keep me from giving him odd looks when he quotes lines from his favorite movies out of the blue.
Recently, I’ve watched:
- Big Trouble in Little China [1]. Parts of this movie really creeped me out. Yes, it seems John Carpenter (the same director who made The Thing [2]
) couldn’t resist including horror elements in even this supposed light-hearted comedy. I hated this movie! Let’s face it: Its a guy movie. Oh, and it is one of Jim’s favorites.
- Blast From the Past [3]
. A hilarious film that requires some serious suspension of disbelief. (For example there were not thirty years worth of logistics squirreled away. That would have taken a pantry room at least ten times that size.) I really liked the clean and wholesome parts of it. It had one annoying gay character that was obviously added for the sake of political correctness. It is perhaps unintentional, but this movie makes a very strong case for homeschooling.
- Buckaroo Banzai [4]. It is a science fiction comedy cult classic that defies description. Jim says that to be fully appreciated, this film must be seen at least three times. I’ve only seen it once and unfortunately by coincidence, I had a very bad stomach ache during it, so I did not get to fully appreciate it at the time. Jim quotes this movie a lot (as much as I quote The Sound of Music [5] :)). He even squeezed the line “So what, big deal” into the first chapter of his new novel. (It is the first sequel to “Patriots” [6], now in the final editing stages, and scheduled for release in about 10 months.) I need to watch the movie two more times, because frankly, Jim quotes it a lot and I’m not privy to these inside jokes. He just gets a blank stare out of me when he says: “What’s that watermelon doing there?”, or “Hey man, what’s in the pink box?”
- Defiance [7]
. This movie was loosely based on the book by Nechama Tec. It shows (with some typical Hollywood embellishments) the true story of the Bielski partisans in Byelorussia, during World War II. This was an inspiring film and I do recommend it. But it has lots of bloodshed (cover your eyes, block your ears until those scenes are over), so it is not a movie for kids.
- A Room with a View [8]
. Oh my goodness! Now this is movie that ladies can relate to. It is a costume drama/comedy. It has excellent acting, great location shooting in Italy, and a very witty storyline. (It is based on a great E.M. Forester novel.) It has some brief nudity (male nudity, I was surprised to see. In American films you never see fully naked guys!), so it is also not one for the kids.
We have some travel planned over Christmas, so that will give me a chance to delve back into my stack of books. I’ll have another update on my latest books, next week.