Last Day Of Vacation

The school district we live in started back today, so the wife and kids were back to reality.  The district I work in set aside today as a Conference Day or a "freebie" if you make up the time later.  Easy choice for me to make!

I am not a very deep thinker nor a very clever man.  When I have time like this I go straight for the movies that no one else in the house will watch with me.  I recently told The Armchair Squid that my movie tastes generally fit in the 6 to 7 on a 10 point scale.  Luckily, our local video store has a 5 movies 5 nights 7 buck special!

I started last night with "The Island".  I am a big fan of MST3K's savaging of "parts: the clonus horror", a movie from which the "creators" of "The Island" stole 90 key points.  I will admit that the movie did not have my full attention as I was busy getting information off of our "old" computer and re-installing it on our "new" one, as well as fiddling with my comic book database software.  That being said, I give what I saw and paid attention to a solid 7 on the action/cheese scale.  A quick check of imdb.com indicates the movie currrently holds a 6.9 out of 10 rating based on 88,460 votes.


This morning, after a quick breakfast at McDonalds and then dropping the kids of at school, I went with the 2010 remake of "Clash of The Titans".  I really enjoyed the original but have not watched in in around 25 years.  I am quite certain that it would not stand up to the memory I have of it.  I was a little wary of the remake, given the bad press I remember it receiving when it came out.  As far as a "sword and sandal" type of movie, this one wasn't that bad.  I freely admit that I watched this just for The Kraken.  I have found that those big "monsters" that populate movies like this these days invoke a certain visceral reaction in me akin to fear.  I felt the same thing watching the monster in "Cloverfield" (another on-my-own-movie that I enjoyed) and like the reaction.  The Kraken had a very short amount of time on screen, but the rest of the movie wasn't too bad.  I gave it 8 stars on imdb, but 58,025 other voters have it at 5.9.

Next was the comedy "Zombieland". I already knew about the big surprise cameo but still wanted to give this one a shot.  I did find it very funny at times.  It suffered from attempts at fleshing out the characters from time to time rather than just getting with the funny, but overall I enjoyed the narrative structure and storytelling devices it employed.  And while I am not usually squeamish about movie gore, I must admit some of the zombie-centric feeding type stuff was a bit too much.  I gave it a 7, while it is sitting at 7.8 on imbd based on 97,412 votes.

After "Zombieland" I indulged in my solo-day lunch: Stouffers French Bread Pizza! Unfortunately, the only "yucky" in the next movie was right at the beginning while I ate!


"300" had not been on my list when I went to the video store yesterday, but I grabbed it none-the-less.  I like some of Frank Miller's work and enjoyed Zack Snyder's "Watchmen".  The gore here did not bother me as much as the "priests" in the beginning.  I was amused by the CGI or make-up enhanced Spartan Six Packs but the 2 hours went by pretty quick.  I might seek out the source material.  I gave it an 8, nearly matching the aggregate score of 7.8 that 249,470 imdb users have given it.

The final rental of the day was "The Prestige" but Nan says she will watch this one with me, so it will have to wait until Friday night for us to see it.  I am very excited about that one.  Christopher Nolan. Christian Bale. Hugh Jackman.  It should be good.