June 8, 2008
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My DVD Binge
I could have read a book yesterday, after Doug took over the computer. The book I am reading hasn’t really engaged my attention, however, and I have a big stack of DVDs that Greyfox has brought up here for me over the past year or so. He plans to bring supplies up again on Thursday. I decided yesterday to watch some of those DVDs so he can take them back with him.
A little side note here: Our TV sets have been used for nothing but video viewing and as monitors for game consoles for several years. I don’t rent videos or buy them. Doug and I watch some of the ones that Greyfox brings, but sometimes they go back unviewed. This behavior appears to baffle my husband as much as his video madness baffles me. He is easily entertained, and seems to need a lot of entertainment. I go more for either books or interactive entertainment, and am picky, as befits a Virgo.
Greyfox’s main sources for the movies he brings to us are yard sales, dumpsters, and people who come by his stand selling DVDs cheap. He classifies some of his favorite movies as, “so bad they’re good,” a judgment I simply don’t grasp. In choosing videos for me to watch, he doesn’t seem to do any better when he tries to guess at what I’d like, than he did before he quit trying to foist his tastes off on me. Lately, he’s developed a tactic of reading off titles and plot synopses, and letting me vote yea or nay. It’s the best system we’ve come up with yet, but not perfect.
Yesterday, I started with The Stepford Wives, the one with Nicole Kidman and Christopher Walken. It didn’t stink like I half expected it to. Next, I watched Denzel Washington and John Lithgow in Ricochet. One big floater early on in the plot, a perimortal wound that supposedly fooled a coroner into misidentifying a corpse, stuck in my mind throughout but didn’t really spoil it for me any more than any other factor.
Best of the bunch, for me, for my entertainment purposes yesterday, was M:I-2. The stunts were spectacular, which made up somewhat for the fact that none of the characters impelled me to care whether they lived or died. Since the climactic sequence revolved around beating the clock to save the girl’s life, that at least spared me an adrenaline surge I really can’t spare. Besides, the hero’s success was a foregone conclusion, yes?
Last on the program yesterday was a twenty-some-year-old movie that I recall had gotten a lot of buzz when it was released. That DVD had been here a year or more, during which I could neither force myself to watch it, nor to send it back, all because of that buzz. I had heard that it was a great film, but twisted, a mind-bender. It’s true, Blue Velvet, written and directed by David Lynch, is unforgettable… dammit. Two of the musical hooks from it are stuck in my head today, along with images I could do without. Dennis Hopper does demented as well as any actor can, and somebody involved with the film knows the ins and outs of schizophrenia.
In retrospect, I probably should have saved The Stepford Wives for last.
Comments (13)
Good morning! Hope you are enjoying the weekend!
last april,,, i bought me one of those little dvd portable players,,, just because i didnt have one,,,, really didnt know why i bought it,,, just because,,, well,, i didnt have one.
amazingdoggo likes to frequent this used book store in san antonio,,, i took him up there one day and i like to look around,,, they have computer stuff too,,, really good prices.
well,, they also have dvds,,, so i bought a pile of them,,, good stuff,,, a lone ranger series,,, commander cody and the moon men,,, the entire serial,,, and a bunch more of like material,,, i spunt almost a hundred dollars and a lot of them were only a dollar,,, i may have given almost 5 for a couple,,, not many,,, i had a pile.
i took it all home and put it on a shelf with the rest of the stuff i didnt use,,, and went about my business.
about a week later i had my heart attack and found myself laying in a hospital bed in intensive care,,,i hate hospitals,,, time drags and i dont watch tv,,,
i told amazingdoggo,,, hey,,, bring that dvd player,,, and my dvds,,,, and a can of snuff,,,, hahahahahaha,,, cant forget the snuff,,, not in a hospital.
he did,,,,
that was the fastest week ive ever spunt in a hospital,,, i slept as much as i could of course,,, every waking minute tho i was watching something,,,, and it wasnt ophra.
i still remember “blue velvet” once and awhile and still shudder. gad, it was just too too graphic and flat out bad/evil for me.
i just replaced my dvd player. have a stack of movies i’ve purchased from sale bins and/or been loaned by my brother.
none of which i got around to watching before the first dvd player bit the dust.
i’m not picky so much as just fidget prone. probably explains why i don’t go to theaters often, either.
My hus and I have very different tastes in movies. Over the 30 years though we’ve found some middle ground. I’m okay with that. I didn’t go into the relationshiip thinking we need to be the same. We are quite opposite yet are both water signs. We have learned from each others strengths and weaknesses. I always thought that was what a marriage was about anyway.
I also would perfer to read posts or books or gardening or art for that matter than watch a rerun or a “whose going to die in this one movie” I do like a good “slice of life story” One of my all time favs is Truly, Madly, Deeply. Have you seen it?
It’s so difficult to find decent movies. I usually go for the mindfuck ones, that either make you think because the characters are so hard, or that confuse you just enough to make you figure out what the hell is going on (and usually you don’t). The most mainstream of my favorites is Eternal Sunshine of the Spotless Mind. I Heart Huckabees is probably my absolute favorite of this genre. Short Bus was good for going along with the characters’ existential crises and whatnot, but it was also about as graphic as a porno.
But yeah, movies aren’t exactly my type of entertainment either. And I don’t find much time for books, although I love them. But you should check out those titles if you ever get control of what people bring to you.
@Jaynebug - No, I haven’t seen Truly, Madly, Deeply, and the title sounds like one my Old Fart wouldn’t bother with. I had to talk him into seeing Hidalgo, and that’s about as far as he’s willing to stray from horror and thrillers.
@KaiOaty - I know that stiry well myself. This one is about a woman whose husband dies and then comes back with some new friends from the otherside and wants to stay. They don’t have to sleep or eat and they like to watch TV alllll night. Maybe he’d relate toward the middle of the movie. ha ha
Waiting is one movie I recommend. It’s spot on and funny.
Have you had the opportunity to watch Beloved? If you like psych-disturbing movies this one rocks. It was so mindbending for me that it stuck with me for a week. I could go on and on about my favs…I am extraordinarily picky about movies. Most of them don’t keep my attention past the first half hour and I wander off.
Try to find Lost Highway,another film by David. David had been running his own interactive website with shorts and stuff but it was a pay site. Also eternal sunshine of the spotless mind was indeed excellent
bill
David Lynch lives to be scary, doesn’t he? What are your favorite movies?
@arminus9 - I saw Lost Highway. Eternal Sunshine has been on my list to see for quite a while. Maybe Greyfox will find it somewhere sometime.
@BoureeMusique - I don’t have a favorite genre, and my favorite movies change every time some new one comes along to crowd out the old. I really like the Pirates of the Caribbean series, enough that Doug and I have seen two of them on the big screen. LOTR was good, too, but the books were better. Harry Potter, of course…
I don’t think you answered my followup questions to your question about norms.
Okay, now I can verbalize the good/bad thing. You can look at movies as art or entertainment (among other things). Sometimes a movie falls so short of being art–poor production values, artless acting, pedestrian directing, and so forth–that it is, for me, very entertaining–myst-worthy, in other words.