The Netflix Experiment part II

After my last blog entry dedicated to the unexpected and unfortunate passing of Zoey cat, I felt that I needed something easy but fun to read to get back to the tone of the usual stuff I like to write about, plus it's a good first step to move on. I decided to reveal the results of my 2nd month of my 3 month Netflix experiment. Basically for Christmas, my sister-in-law got me a 3 dvd at a time, 3 month pass. Due to the live streaming and the overall convienience we've decided to go forward and continue the subscription when the trial runs out. Also these were pretty easy to do and gain quite a few comments when the posts go from my blog to facebook, so I'll probably do one of these every month. Anyway This time around didn't do as many classic movies as last month and I had more recent releases. In addition I took advantage of the streaming feature to have a few more titles. So here's what I watched in February:

Star Trek: First Contact- Since last summer when i realized the CW here played a lot of the classic Star Trek Episodes, i began to Tivo them. Then came the new Star Trek movie, and then once the classic Star Trek episodes abruptly stop, I found out around 3 am, Star Trek: The Next Generation reruns came on a different channel here. Then I found all the old "Kirk era" movies at blockbuster and bought them out. Needless to say, I turned into a nerd this last year. I'm sure I've seen most of this one on USA at some point and time, but this is definitely the best of the Next Generation movies and ranks just behind the new movie & Wrath of Khan . Plus the Borg is awesome. 5 of 5 Stars

Star Trek: Insurrection- eh it was an odd numbered Trek movie, didn't expect too much of it. But there was some highlights like Jean Luc getting his mack on the age-less chick and going rouge. But other than that it seemed a little undercooked. 3 of 5 stars

Star Trek: Nemesis - And this is where for the first time an even-numbered Trek movie sucked. It really wasn't as bad as I heard it would be, but (Spoiler Alert!!) it seemed they really wasted Data just for the sake of killing off a major character. However, like Spock, Data really doesn't die, instead he lives on in the form of his retarded brother B4. Also, for a Jean Luc clone, the antagonist really wasn't threatening in the least bit...maybe the Romulans should have cloned Worf instead, because it's been a while since we've had an evil Klingon antagonist (the last one just quoted Shakespeare a lot). 3 of 5 stars

Surrogates- This is probably the closest we'll get to having Bruce Willis in a Terminator movie. It wasn't bad, but I'm also biased b/c I like Bruce Willis a lot (my wife claims it's a man crush). The thing I think made me not enjoy it to it's full potential is probably due to the fact I already saw the Matrix before seeing this. Had it not been for that this could have been a really awesome movie. But none-the-less Bruce Willis vs robots is still not a wasted 2 hours. 3 of 5 stars

Ratatouille- Seen it before, I just wanted to see it again. By far my favorite of the Pixar movies. 5 of 5 stars

The Fountain- 3 words: "What the F?" I don't know what the hell happened in this movie. I can't argue it's a wonderfully beautiful and artistic movie but I don't have the slightest clue as to how to describe it to someone. Initially I assumed it was about a conquistador finding the tree of life which breaks into the conquistador timeline, the modern scientist timeline, and finally the super-space-monk-astronaut timeline. Sounds cool and simple, but then the crap hit the fan and super-space-monk-astronaut is floating around in the conquistador timeline and i think at one time he turns into a meteor or something and also the conquistador drinks the sap from the tree of life and turns into a flower patch. Even wikipedia (my source for explaining complicated movies) doesn't know what the hell the movie is about either. It does somehow manage to slow down and make sense for 20 minutes here and there so that saves it but still what the hell? It's random crap that makes no sense, but it's BEAUTIFUL random crap that makes no sense. 2 of 5 stars.

Moon- Another re-watched movie from the summer. I really liked it a lot. It's basically Cast-Away but on the moon plus throw in some really good sci-fi twists and that's pretty much what Moon is about. Plus Kevin Spacey voices the computer/robot (the "Wilson" of Moon). Also, David Bowie's son directed so that was kind of cool. 4 of 5 stars

Terminator: Salvation- Like Moon, I caught this last summer. It's definitely better than 3, but not quite at the level of the first two. There is a few cheesy parts such as when the Harvester, a 50 foot tall robot, somehow sneaks up on Chekov (aka Kyle Reese in this movie) without anyone hearing it. Seriously shouldn't this thing be shaking the earth every step it makes like the T-rex in Jurassic Park? Anyway it's still a pretty enjoyable movie and even CG Arnold shows up at some point. 4 of 5 stars.

Neverwas- This was a movie I've never heard of when it came out, but I did see it when I worked at Hastings and wanted to give it a try sometime. This movie goes to show that Ian McKellan is freaking awesome no matter if he's a mutant, wizard or crazy old man. It did end a little differently than I expected it to (I expected a Narnia-esque fantasy ending), but it was pretty good none-the-less. 4 of 5 stars.

Pee-Wee's Big Adventure- I've seen this movie several times and had to make Stacey watch it. Plus I thought this movie was freaking awesome in the old days but also a lot of movies I thought were awesome back then turn out retarded nowadays (like Cabin Boy). So I needed a rewatch. I also had the urge to see it after Paul Ruben's made a few Tonight show appearances and it still holds up today as a comedy gold mine. 5 of 5 stars.

Spartacus: Blood and Sand- This actually isn't a movie, rather this is a new show on Starz. After having tons of promo material at work for this new show, i decided to see the first two episodes. Basically it's 300 as a tv show, but toss in a little softcore porn (they are Romans after all), the modern profanity that was in Deadwood, and the most ridiculous CGI blood imaginable and that is what this show is like. Story-wise, it's pretty good, but the CGI blood looks like they employed someone that is still learning how to do CGI and there are SO many times in the span of 2 episodes where way too much of it is shown to "Army of Darkness" levels, but I think unlike Army of Darkness they were being serious about the blood. 2 episodes of that and I was done, I could care less what happens now, the crap CGI ruined it for me. As for the cast, the only noticeable people in this show are Lucy Lawless (who shows a few years too late what exactly was under all that warrior-princess armor) and the guy that played Johnathan from the Mummy movies. Everyone else seems to be 300 rejects. Horrible, but if you're into campy stuff you'll like it. 1 of 5 stars.

Brick- Seen it already, mostly rented this for Stacey to see. I personally liked it a lot, especially since I enjoy the Raymond Chandler hard-boiled detective stories which this movie plays into. This 2nd viewing of it made me realize that Claire from Lost has a small role in the film. Pretty cool and hip. 4 of 5 stars.

The Invention of Lying- This could have been one of the funniest movies I've seen in a while. But about a hour into the movie, it takes a hard left turn and becomes an Atheist platform movie. Personally I didn't care about that part, nor was I offended, it's just a movie (I love Tarantino movies but they don't make me want to rob banks or anything, so the Atheist sub-plot wasn't going to convert me) . I think it would have been funnier had it been a minor detail and the movie stayed more focused on the romantic comedy portion of the film. A movie about a world where no one can lie (except Ricky Gervais' character) and where there's no imagination ("movies" are historians reading books) and people say exactly what's on their minds was enough to carry on the film without the whole Atheist subplot (which was a little worse than the robot subplot of Rocky 3). 3 of 5 stars.

Fletch- Never seen this classic before. I think i like this better than the vacation movies honestly. 4 of 5 stars.

Nick and Nora's Infinite Playlist- Pretty fun movie, Micheal Cera in yet another awkward teen role, no big surprise there. 3 of 5 stars.

Hornblower: The New Adventures- Before dating Stacey, I never heard of Horatio Hornblower and Ion Grufford was just the guy who played Mr. Fantastic. She got me into this mini-series and I've enjoyed watching them. These are pretty good for a mini-series and it's a bummer that A&E won't be producing any more. This would make a great big screen series should they ever go forward with it. 4 of 5 stars.