Starved for Cinema

I’m the type of person who is, generally speaking, too cheap to pay nine bucks to watch a movie in the theater. Kevin’s not too cheap but, in light of the fact that he’d rather watch a movie from the comfort of his pillow, on the living room floor, with the ability to pause the movie for random bathroom breaks and snack times, he agrees with me that it’s usually better to watch movies at home than at Regals.

I was especially delighted to receive, buried with a bunch of other junk mail, a coupon from Blockbuster for video rentals at 99-cents each. :)

Certainly I'm not alone when I say that I've often been burned by watching movies that are either a) completely demoralizing or b) an utter waste of time. So, this time around, as I entered the video store, I was armed with several recommendations by trusty sources. We hit the jackpot. All three movies we got this past week were very enjoyable. Here are some of my meager little musings. (I will leave full-blown movie reviews to the prowess of other bloggers.)

1) He Loves Me, He Loves Me Not - Recommended by my sister, Christy. Wow. This movie is all about obsession and its consequences. For a French movie, it is surprisingly clean. We were really taken off guard at the end. I love a movie that can totally mess with my mind.

2) Big Fish - This movie made me cry like crazy. Don’t get the wrong impression - it’s also a very funny, creative, and original film. I think I cried because I saw a parallel in my life and was able to really grieve, for the first time, over a lost loved one. It really struck a chord with me. It’s a movie about life and death and people who mean a lot to us even when we don’t always understand them.

3) Secondhand Lions - This is a good one but, honestly, I think I expected more of it than I got - probably because so many people highly recommended it. (Even Michael Medved!) ;) We still enjoyed it, though, despite some mild philosophical problems we encountered. This movie definitely has both funny and touching moments. It is a good story about a boy becoming a man. And Haley Joel Osmont is always great.

Besides being vegetables for most of the weekend, we helped some friends pack up and move and Kevin had a choral performance. His chorale sang a Haydn piece and a Mendelson piece. (Did I spell that right?!) It was fabulous. I especially liked the soprano soloist. Her voice was very soothing and gentle - which is a hard thing to pull off when you’re a soprano (no offense to my soprano friends!). We went to coffee afterwards. It was fun to be escorted to coffee by a man in a monkey suit. I felt all significant . . . or something like that. ;)