one man's junk

The Eleven was lazing our way through the long weekend by studying law, reading books, doing some house tidying, and running a few errands in search of groceries, plants, and household goods when we decided to grab a movie for a Saturday night date. I think we’re all well versed in some of our movie issues (my documentaries, her Jane Austen, etc.) so wandering through a Blockbuster can be more than a little confusing: should I offer this? How about a comedy? Maybe a drama? Anyway, I came across National Treasure and vaguely remembered someone telling me it was a pretty good movie – a movie everyone should own so they can watch it multiple times! In fact, if I remember correctly, the public was on edge awaiting the sequel that came out last summer. Allegedly, the original was a nice combination of action, drama, comedy, and mystery. What ‘they’ forgot to tell me was that is was also a horrible movie. I’m not sure how to make this clear to anyone who even remotely told me this was a good movie: it may have been the worst movie I have ever seen. We weren’t even out of the parking lot before X was reading the ‘reviews’ and summary on the back of the box – and it was right then that we knew we were in for something horrific. We toughed it out the two hours by simply hoping there wouldn’t be another clue revealed that would lead to another 15 minutes of misery, nauseating acting, bad plot twists, stupid Nicholas Cage riddle-decrypting faces, a complete lack of sex appeal by the female lead, crappy dialogue, and poor action / chase movie etiquette by everyone involved in the caper. What our little viewing date became was something more akin to MST3K than enjoyment of a ‘film’. Don’t get me wrong, cutting a movie to shreds while watching it at home holds a certain charm. Compared to our Friday night movie, O Brother Where Art Thou, is was like being forced to read descriptive essays by college freshmen: believe me, I’ve done it, and once you’ve read someone describing a baseball diamond’s infield as “marshmallows floating in a sea of hot chocolate”, you’ll understand what I mean. I’m still having nightmares.

That’s a positive, top of the morning entry, isn’t it?

Love to all

t.