internet interest

too many movies, or how i spent my tuesday

Last semester I could probably be forgiven for sitting around watching movies during all of my free time. I had bronchitis for the first month or so of school, had just learned how to download files off of the school network, and my boyfriend had an awesome sound system set up, perfect for all-day movie marathons. Alas, that time passed; my boyfriend took the semester off, and with it, his speakers; my beloved computer died without warning, and along with it all of my movies and my downloading program; and my bronchitis passed, leaving me with no excuse to sit around all the time.

Turns out, though, I don’t really care whether or not I have an excuse. I’m just lazy, and I don’t care who knows it. When I have to work and actually get somewhere or get something done, I do it quickly, and well; but when I have free time, or nothing to do, I’m so, so lazy.

And today, with the combination of bad weather and being at my apartment alone, I was inclined to sit around and do nothing. After chatting on the phone until I had nothing left to talk about, showering, making lunch, and taking care of most other time-wasters I could think of, I gave in. I started watching movies.

Although I don’t really realize it in my daily life, I love movies, especially bad ones. I feel I have fairly good taste when it comes to my favorite movies, but when it comes to wasting time watching bootlegs online, I don’t care whether a movie might turn out to be a favorite or not. Most of the time I go into a movie-watching situation knowing full well that what I’m about to watch is going to suck. But I watch anyway! Because I just love the experience of watching a new movie, whether it’s cheesy or serious, just getting to see something new is fun for me. Especially if I don’t really have to move off of my bed to do so.

So, today was somewhat of a movie marathon for me. And I feel enriched for the experience. Out of the 4 movies I watched, one was really, very good. Here’s the list of movies I watched today.

The Descent

This movie is about a bunch of Scottish women who go spelunking in an uncharted cave. Guess what? That’s almost never a cool idea. You can probably see where this is going. They end up encountering and fighting native bat-people that live in the cave and eat humans and other animals. While the movie offered cheap jumps and thrills, it had little substance other than a lame subplot involving one of the women’s tragically killed husband and daughter. 4/10! Also, though, I definitely had a nightmare earlier during a nap as a direct result of this movie.

Grey Gardens

Now THIS was a good movie. I’m talking about the original version, because I don’t have HBO and can’t find the new one online anywhere. This is a documentary from 1975 about Edith Bouvier and her daughter, “Little” Edie Bouvier Beale. They were relatives of Jackie Onassis, former aristocrats who lost all their money when Edith’s (Little Edie’s mother) husband abandoned his family and moved to Mexico, taking his fortune with him. Edith and Edie lived off of their Tiffany jewelry, selling the pieces off one by one so they could keep buying food. The women lived alone together in the estate where the family had been raised, in East Hampton. The house was called Grey Gardens as it at one time had a world-famous garden, which had become wildly overgrown by the time the filmmakers came to make the documentary.

The movie shows Edith and Edie’s life of squalor; they live in the rotting mansion with 8 cats and raccoons running around everywhere. The house and yard are littered with trash and cat food cans, and there is animal feces everywhere. In the early 1970′s, the Bouvier family (Jackie Onassis’ kin) stepped in to help the two women as the legislature of East Hampton was going to evict them due to their failure to comply to any of the health code regulations for the house.

This movie was a sad portrait of two lives wasted. Edith spends most of her time on the porch or sitting in bed, screaming for Edie to help her with little tasks and scolding her daughter. Meanwhile, Edie laments the life she could have had, talking constantly about her missed opportunities to go into show business and her desire to move back to New York. She reveals that at a younger age she was courted by and proposed to by some of the richest men in America, including Howard Hughes. When the documentary was made, though, Edie had been living with her mother again for almost 20 years, helping her with absolutely everything. She can’t leave her side, and is trapped in the relationship with her mother, and they are both so utterly codependent upon one another it’s hard to believe they function at all with other people.

Edie was so charming and likable that it truly saddened me to see her stuck forever in the decrepit house in which she grew up, taking care of an old woman who is neither kind nor sympathetic towards her. The movie is beautiful, though, and I hope to see the remake soon. 9/10!

Knowing

This movie was awful, just as I knew it would be. Are you surprised? Nicholas Cage has been making the same movie with a slightly different premise every year for the past 10 years. I SWEAR his character in this movie was the exact same one as in The Wicker Man, a movie so bad that if it were a comedy, it would be the funniest movie I’ve ever seen. Evidence: just watch this montage of Wicker Man clips. Keep in mind that this is meant to be a serious movie.

So in this movie, he plays the same obnoxious, nameless, bland, generic “single dad whose wife is tragically missing/dead/remarried” and, just like most of his other movies, this has a weird sci-fi twist to it. Pretty much from the first 10 minutes you can tell this is going to have something to do with aliens. Totally not worth the 2 hour running time and horrible bootleg copy with people walking in front of the camera. If you want to waste your time watching a slightly disappointing sci-fi thriller single-dad movie, just watch Signs. At least it’s entertaining. 3/10!

17 Again

Ok, listen. I didn’t hate this movie. In fact, parts of it were very funny. DON’T JUDGE ME! Who knew Zac Efron had it in him to do comedy? Although this also just proves he can’t not play a High Schooler on the basketball team. Pretty much, Chandler from Friends magically becomes his high school self and falls back in love with his wife, crazy lady from Knocked Up. But the true stars of this movie are Thomas Lennon of Reno 911 fame, and Jan from The Office. I don’t feel like looking up her actual name. But it’s a good fun movie if you have nothing else to do! Except I’d wait until it comes out on dvd. The bootleg copy was pretty bad. 7/10!

I’m just going to turn my computer off before I watch anything else!

Robin

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