you too can be a heroin mule!
We've decided to abandon Netflix -- owing to the hectic movie-watching schedule accorded to us as parents -- in favor of simply going to our local video store. (That, and Mer is entranced by their porn selection.)
Anyhoo, on our first day back at the video store we went a bit nuts and got the maximum, 3 movies, which we actually watched with whirlwind intensity over the past few days along with our last Netflix movie:
40 Year Old Virgin, which was funny in places but more genially sweet than anything else. I might've figured, since it was directed by Judd Apatow, who directed one of my favorite TV series of all time.
Batman Begins, which was pretty damn good for the oversaturated market of superhero movies. I'm somewhat of a heretic in the comic book nerd population in that I actually love the very first Batman movie, even though yes, Nicholson is only acting Nicholson. A guilty pleasure. This one is Batman as if it was Blade Runner, or maybe Taxi Driver, with all the brooding gritty intensity you might suspect. (That, and the digital Scarecrow effects are damn creepy.)
House of Flying Daggers, one of the few that I'd consider owning -- amazingly stylized, oversaturated colors, and incredible acrobatics. That and it has a plot that's pure melodrama, but you'd expect that. The digital effects are a tiny tiny bit dated, but with visuals straight out of a marriage made in heaven between Bruce Lee and Busby Berkeley, it almost seems like every frame is a work of art. That, and there's a whole fight sequence in a bamboo forest that's eerie and chilling -- like the entire troupe of Cirque du Soleil became assassins.
And the downer of the list, Maria Full of Grace. It was in this movie that I learned how a pregnant 17-year-old can practice to become a drug mule: on grapes. If you can swallow a full grape and not gag, you've got a future career in the growth industry of the drug trade. (I must admit I'm curious, so next time I go to the grocery store I'm going to get a bunch of grapes just so I can find out. After all, I don't know how much this whole Silicon Valley career is going to last.)