DVD Voice

This slow moving (romantic) drama is a little strange and it’s called Don McKay after the leading character played by Thomas Hayden Church (the Sandman from Spider-Man 3). It also stars the lovely Elisabeth Shue along with the man-does-he-look-old M. Emmet Walsh. It’s good to see Emmet working, good for him, you know?

Basically Don McKay is a high school janitor who has been living in his dead end job for 25 years when he receives a letter from Sonny, his high school sweetheart. Turns out she says she’s dying of an incurable disease and wants him to be with her the rest of her life. The two haven’t been in touch since it “ended badly” those 25 years ago.

It is pretty easy to realize that Don McKay is being played, but you wonder how can he be that dull to not notice? Or does he notice and he’s just playing along, pretending to be dull. His character is dull, however, a stiff guy. But really, who is fooling who, and why? I can’t tell if the movie is supposed to be a comedy, a romantic infactuation piece, or what! It boggles the mind.

And perhaps since I’m sort of in the same place in life, with a gorgeous girl who I can’t understand what she wants with me or from me, or exactly what — and I too feel that I’m not getting straight answers. Oh well, that’s not your worries.

“Some things are better left buried” the film tells us. And to a large extent that’s true, when somethings over and done, why dig it up? Another nugget is that you can’t live in the past – and that is very true too. The past is gone and done with, yes there are consequences to what has happened in the past, but you can’t change it, so pick up the pieces and move forward trying to make the most of your life from today forward.

Things learned from this movie: In small towns everyone knows your name and history about you from almost 30 years ago. In small towns no one has an answering machine or caller ID or cordless phones/cell phones and busses run whenever you want them. Old men found locked in a car trunk are subject to arrest. Always have an epi-pen handy. Love letters to former flames are like the Field of Dreams – go ahead, pour your heart out, it will at least get you laid in the future.

Rated R (why? I’m not so sure). 87 minutes (1 hour 27 minutes). Profanity, some. A little violence as someone is killed with a broken milk bottle, and more are killed with frozen meat. Zero nudity aside from a little temptation from Elisabeth Shue’s cleavage.

The Maid, or La Nana, is a one and a half hour picture about the ever fascinating life of a maid. You’ll get to follow Catalina Saavedra, as Raquel, around the house as she cooks, cleans, washes, takes her shower, serves breakfast in bed, and more. The trouble starts when the family hires a second maid, despite Raquel’s insistence that she can still do all the work – she’s been there for over 20 years.

Raquel responds to these new maids with hostility – locking them out when they go outside, not letting them back in, disinfecting anything the other maid uses, and so on. Why some of this would be troubling, well, I guess I’ve never been in that situation.

The problem for me with this movie is that it is in Spanish. I don’t speak it. So, I had to read subtitles. It’s hard to put on a movie from Netflix that maybe you are only mildly interested in when you have to stare at the screen the entire time. I mean I usually do that, but having to read subtitles wears on you after a while!

The movie was interesting if you look at it from the perspective of how do you treat those who you consider to be beneath you. For instance, perhaps the janitors at work or school.

Things learned from this movie: If you lock other help out of the house and scrub the shower after they’ve used it, they will eventually quit. As soon as you get to like someone they will also quit. If you get locked outside its ok to take off all your clothes and sunbathe. If your dad has spent a year working on a tiny sailing ship model, you can glue it back together in a few hours and he won’t notice – unless he gets home earlier than you expect.

Not Rated. 94 minutes (1 hour 34 minutes). Mild profanity, if any. Non-violent. Nudity, you get to see all the maids (except one, thank you!) nude or topless in the shower or sunning. The “man” of the house also is surprised like a deer in the headlights and stands momentarily spread-eagle like totally nude — avert your eyes! Another man’s butt makes an appearance.

How time flies! It’s been a little over a month. Sorry to any of you guys who might have been counting on me, but honestly, too much school work and too much regular work – I haven’t had time for any of my traditional entertainment here!

I think I have my priorities right now. The only thing I’ve been able to see recently has been to finish Part 2 of Season 6 of the Sopranos. That was one good show! I’m sorry to see it over. But, I guess on the bright side … something new is on its way for me!

The Boondock Saints II: All Saints Day is a sequel to the popular Boondock Saints. This one, however, doesn’t really cut it.

The action is ok, but the attempts at humor, which might be ok in a drunken group are just too over the top. It’s like your seeing mafia types and police and FBI detectives acted by the Joe Pesci and Daniel Stern – at once laughable for the inane comments they make referencing pop culture, and at the other part so damn stupid it makes you wonder how they ever got to those positions as police detectives or crime lords/underlings.

The McManus Brothers are in Ireland and they hear of a killing of a priest inside a church in Boston. Before the police are finished removing the body from the church even, they have heard about it (because someone is making it look like they did it) and are stowed away on a freighter bound for America. They meet up with Mexican named Romeo on the boat and he decides he’s coming with them because he can hook them up in Boston when they get there. Not trying to give away the story but their father will end up needing to appear from Ireland as well and how he knew about what was going down, well, we’ll never know.

The movie is highly quotable, if you’ll take time to remember some of the lines. As Murphy would say, “Let’s do some gratuitous violence.”

Rated R. 118 minutes (1 hour 58 minutes). Profanity. Violence. Nudity is a few views of naked men’s butts. There are some tempting cleavage shots and almost down blouse on Julie Benz, but sadly…

Ben Kingsley and Jim Sturgess star in Kari Skogland’s 50 Dead Men Walking, a film based on a true life story about the Irish Republican Army. As a drama, I felt it was a good film … realistic and will keep your interest. My main problem with the film was that it didn’t make the IRA situation and Northern Ireland understandable, in fact to me it make it a little more convoluted.

I didn’t mind the violence, or the torture, or the profanity, it was all a well done part of a captivating movie. It did leave you feeling sad for the guy who seemed destined to have only one option in life and he did not have the opportunity to make a choice.

It is a well-done, almost recommendable piece, that those who are drawn to this subject matter will probably like.

Rated R. 117 minutes (1 hour 57 minutes). Violence – and realisticly done. Profanity. Plus given the Irish dialect, there may have been more profanity than I realized or maybe you’ll actually pick up on less!

Tonight’s feature was Hachiko: A Dog’s Story, starring Richard Gere, Joan Allen, and Jason Alexander. But the real actor was the Akita dog! This movie is based off a true story in Japan about a dog who who meet his owner at the train station each evening and even after the owner’s death the dog would still wait for him. Read about it here on Wikipedia. And now that I’ve just spoiled the story… LOL.

I really enjoyed this thing. I’m not much for sappy stories, and this one there really isn’t much that happens. It just underlines for us the importance of love and loyalty. That the people in your life are very important and should not be overlooked but instead valued and treated as they deserve, or better. It is a touching story and especially sad when you realize the part about how if you love someone sometimes you have to let them go, that trying to hold on doesn’t help.

That is one cute puppy! Expressive dog that can’t help but pull on your emotions.

Rated G. It’s very rated G. I didn’t know what this was rated before I started watching and I wonder how long it has been since I’ve seen a G movie. It may upset the little kids, still.

In The Loop is a film about the time right before the start of the Iraq War. A minor British Government official makes a statement that war in the Middle East was “unforeseeable” — that means, to him that he can’t foresee it. The opposite of a foreseeable war, is unforeseeable. LOL. Well, spin doctors try to hush it up, but he stands by his comments, digging himself deeper. He makes a political trip to Washington DC and does more ‘damage’ while getting in to a bigger scheme of political machinations that he is not aware of or understands.

This movie isn’t laugh out loud funny, but it is full of clever little quips and situations that are funny. You’ll enjoy the zippy references to pop culture. James Gandolfini, Peter Capaldi, Tomm Hollander, Gina McKee all star in this film.

Rated Not Rated. 106 minutes (1 hour 46 minutes). This film would probably be rated ‘R’ due to the strings of profanity. I’d love to quote a few of the lines from the movie, but most of them are profanity ridden.

Tonight I watched Appleseed. This is the 2004 version of the film, which is apparently another version (1988) of this comic book based movie.

I must say! The animation and computer graphics in here are eye-popping! At times I felt like I was watching the The Matrix it was that well done. It is about a post World War III world where a single city has developed into a Utopia of half-human population and half mechanized bioroids (biotic androids I think). There is animosity between the humans and the bioroids, but for the most part it is peaceful. Until “things” start to happen and parties begin to try to manipulate the giant computer the controls their society.

The bioroids have an artificial limit on life, they cannot reproduce naturally, they must be built and they also must get treatments every so often to extend their life – miss that and they’ll die very soon afterwards. This is spelled out quite plainly and you just know that one of the main characters will succumb or fall into peril because of this. A couple of other plot points are explicitly described to you beforehand. Enough so that you can almost take notes and wait for something along those lines to happen.

The main protagonist is quite cute and deadly both at the same time, as she does flips and turns in slow motion fighting sequences with her short shorts or skirt. And of course when given the opportunity cleavage is showcased (they don’t go out of their way to do so, however).

This was a fun little action animation adventure. I enjoyed it and it far exceeded my low expectations before the evening began.

Rated R. 105 minutes (1 hour 45 minutes) Cartoon violence.

Planet 51 is a Pixar-like animated movie. It is about a planet full of “aliens” living an idyllic 1950s-like life when a NASA astronaut sets down and plants Old Glory in one of their front lawns. The inhabitants are full of pop culture (like our 1950s space movies) of aliens coming to eat their brains, and naturally are scared of the astronaut who really wants to just get home.

A band of local kids, led by the jr assistant manager of the planetarium (when he’s not in school) help reunite him with his spacecraft so he can return to Earth.

It’s fun, and funny – though arguably not as funny as Finding Nemo, or Toy Story. This one stars Dwayne Johnson (The Rock), Justin Long, Jessica Biel, John Cleese, and Gary Oldman. Highly well done graphics, fun to watch, you’ll enjoy the evening just like you were one of the kids.

Watch for references to other pop-culture stuff, such as Back to the Future, 2001, E.T., etc. Look for the intresting things like floating food, well everything pretty much floats!

Good time to be had by anyone who lets themselves be taking away by this film.

Rated PG. 91 minutes (1 hour 31 minutes). Violence – cartoon violence with army weapons and threats of brains being eaten.

One of the movies up for the Best Picture oscar is Precious: Based on the Novel Push by Sapphire. It was released today, and well, wanting to be up on the Academy Award nominees, and see one of the winners (Mo’Nique wins Best Supporting Actress for this role). Can’t really say that I knew what to expect from this one.

In short, it’s an Oprah Winfrey presented story about an overweight inner city teenager who is pregnant with her second child. It shares with you her struggles to obtain a life and her strength to better herself and pull herself out of the unfortunate circumstances which are not her fault.

It’s a tough one to watch. It’s hard to see how cruelly people can treat each other – but on the flip side it is amazing how far a little kindness goes. I don’t know that I can really empathize well with the characters here, because honestly I can’t imagine myself in that kind of situation – but I know it has to be really hard. If you take the time to watch this and honestly feel what’s going on, you can’t help but feel grateful for your life, no matter how hard you think you have it. I know I don’t have it very good, but in comparison my gratitude meter has gone up.

P.S. It is also amazing to see how the character changes over time as the education she is getting (and honestly it isn’t a whole lot) sinks in and makes her more refined and “with it” if that makes sense.

Rated R. 109 minutes (1 hour 49 minutes). Profanity out the wazoo!