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A few months ago at one of Chris and Liana's parties, Chris and I drunkenly entered into an agreement to start a sort of movie exchange program ("drunkenly" obviously referring to Chris, not I). It seemed like a good idea at the time, before realizing what a disparate taste in movies we have. Apparently a mutual admiration for the Harry Potter franchise does not necessarily a good movie-watching match make.
The first movie he thrust upon me that very night was Hidalgo, which I had less than no desire to see. He owns this movie because he has a fetish for watching men on horseback (Wait, "fetish" sounds too sexual. Maybe I should say "soft spot"). I put it off for as long as I could, then with a resigned sigh forced Tery to sit through it with me one Sunday afternoon when we had absolutely nothing else to do together. I thought perhaps Viggo Mortensen would make it bearable, not that I have any particular thing for Viggo Mortensen. I discovered Viggo suffers from Orlando Bloom syndrome: I have little interest in him when he's not wearing an LOTR wig. I stayed awake only slightly longer than Tery. It was a disaster. I returned it to Chris via Tery so I wouldn't be forced to discuss my opinion face to face. I'm such a coward.
By his request only, I sent him Donnie Darko which he liked/was intrigued by enough to watch twice. Tery brought A Life Less Ordinary to a sleepover and he claimed to like this as well. She's also very keen to show him Shaun of the Dead, but my copy is Region 2, being the purist snob that I am.
She came home one day with his next selections: Reign of Fire and The Secret of NIMH. The first was for Tery, the second for me. Based on this, I doubt Chris has ever even talked to Tery about her tastes (or perhaps did it drunkenly and doesn't remember. Chris does an alarming number of things drunkenly). Expecting her to watch and enjoy a movie like Reign of Fire is tantamount to asking me to sit through a 6-hour frame-by-frame analysis of the Zapruder film; i.e., not in this lifetime, baby.
Because I'm so anxious to avoid having it be one-sided ("I'd like you to watch these movies that I recommend. However, I have no interest in watching the movies that you recommend") I decided to take one for the team. I chose this week while Tery is gone and after watching V for Vendetta for the fourth time to sneak them both in. Secret of NIMH I felt rather ambivalent about...mildly interesting, kind of slow in comparison to modern animated movies, and blessedly less than 90 minutes long. Done.
Last night I did Reign of Fire. I believe watching this movie has earned me a secure position of sainthood. See, I HATE Matthew McConaughey. HATE. Not like Richard Gere and Kevin Costner, who I think are terrible actors but generally tolerable as human beings. I have no problems with Matthew's acting abilities (primarily because I try to avoid watching movies that he's in). My hatred is purely personal. I hate his accent. I hate his cocky swagger. I hate how the rest of the planet was mass-hypnotized into voting him last year's sexiest man. First and foremost, I hate his massive, oversized cranium. Seriously. His head is entirely too large for the rest of his body, as this picture illustrates.
See how Christian Bale, with his more average-sized, proportional head, quakes in fear of Matthew's bloated skull, as any normal person would. No, this wasn't the slightest bit digitally altered. (and 50 points if you can guess the quote I put in the alt roll-over tag) Shaving it for the movie was a big mistake, as it only served to accentuate the enormous difference between his noggin and those of mere mortals. This was probably necessary, however, to give Matthew the needed edge to play the hard-as-nails Army commander; the minute the man starts growing hair, he becomes a spongey-headed, dandelion-shaped hippie that no one in their right minds would follow into battle against a dragon.
Yes indeedy, I hate me some Matthew. But I love Christian and hoped this would be sufficient to counteract the McConaughey vitriol. This might have been possible had the rest of the movie made even the slightest bit of sense.
( ::cut because I only talk in-depth about movies I passionately love or those I violently hate:: )
I was so convinced this movie was a steaming pile of offal I couldn't resist going to Amazon to see all the negative reviews. To my astonishment and confusion, people were giving it 4 and 5 stars (it overall received 3 out of 5, so some reviewers had taste). I can only assume these are the brainwashed souls that consider McConaughey's "Sexiest Man Alive" title to be fully justified. This seemed supported by one reviewer who expressed disgust at being misled into believing McConaughey had a starring role (a reasonable assumption to make when looking at the DVD cover, based on the relative sizes of the two actors' heads. But, I'm not convinced this discrepancy is entirely the fault of the marketing department):
"Matthew McConaughey is not the star of this movie, it's Christian Bale (two roles of which were as a psychokiller in the universally panned American Psycho, and as a JFK Jr. clone in the fairly awful re-make of Shaft. THAT's star power, baby! The new Batman will be trying to live down this fiasco as well)."
Yes, Bale is such an insufferable hack compared to the thespian genius of McConaughey. I'm ashamed to belong to the same species as these people.
Christian Bale + passably believable dragon effects - a plot without a shred of logic -------------- Matthew McConaughey = 1 out of 5
Tery owes me BIG time for watching this in her place. I think watching V with me will cover the tab nicely.
The first movie he thrust upon me that very night was Hidalgo, which I had less than no desire to see. He owns this movie because he has a fetish for watching men on horseback (Wait, "fetish" sounds too sexual. Maybe I should say "soft spot"). I put it off for as long as I could, then with a resigned sigh forced Tery to sit through it with me one Sunday afternoon when we had absolutely nothing else to do together. I thought perhaps Viggo Mortensen would make it bearable, not that I have any particular thing for Viggo Mortensen. I discovered Viggo suffers from Orlando Bloom syndrome: I have little interest in him when he's not wearing an LOTR wig. I stayed awake only slightly longer than Tery. It was a disaster. I returned it to Chris via Tery so I wouldn't be forced to discuss my opinion face to face. I'm such a coward.
By his request only, I sent him Donnie Darko which he liked/was intrigued by enough to watch twice. Tery brought A Life Less Ordinary to a sleepover and he claimed to like this as well. She's also very keen to show him Shaun of the Dead, but my copy is Region 2, being the purist snob that I am.
She came home one day with his next selections: Reign of Fire and The Secret of NIMH. The first was for Tery, the second for me. Based on this, I doubt Chris has ever even talked to Tery about her tastes (or perhaps did it drunkenly and doesn't remember. Chris does an alarming number of things drunkenly). Expecting her to watch and enjoy a movie like Reign of Fire is tantamount to asking me to sit through a 6-hour frame-by-frame analysis of the Zapruder film; i.e., not in this lifetime, baby.
Because I'm so anxious to avoid having it be one-sided ("I'd like you to watch these movies that I recommend. However, I have no interest in watching the movies that you recommend") I decided to take one for the team. I chose this week while Tery is gone and after watching V for Vendetta for the fourth time to sneak them both in. Secret of NIMH I felt rather ambivalent about...mildly interesting, kind of slow in comparison to modern animated movies, and blessedly less than 90 minutes long. Done.
Last night I did Reign of Fire. I believe watching this movie has earned me a secure position of sainthood. See, I HATE Matthew McConaughey. HATE. Not like Richard Gere and Kevin Costner, who I think are terrible actors but generally tolerable as human beings. I have no problems with Matthew's acting abilities (primarily because I try to avoid watching movies that he's in). My hatred is purely personal. I hate his accent. I hate his cocky swagger. I hate how the rest of the planet was mass-hypnotized into voting him last year's sexiest man. First and foremost, I hate his massive, oversized cranium. Seriously. His head is entirely too large for the rest of his body, as this picture illustrates.
See how Christian Bale, with his more average-sized, proportional head, quakes in fear of Matthew's bloated skull, as any normal person would. No, this wasn't the slightest bit digitally altered. (and 50 points if you can guess the quote I put in the alt roll-over tag) Shaving it for the movie was a big mistake, as it only served to accentuate the enormous difference between his noggin and those of mere mortals. This was probably necessary, however, to give Matthew the needed edge to play the hard-as-nails Army commander; the minute the man starts growing hair, he becomes a spongey-headed, dandelion-shaped hippie that no one in their right minds would follow into battle against a dragon.
Yes indeedy, I hate me some Matthew. But I love Christian and hoped this would be sufficient to counteract the McConaughey vitriol. This might have been possible had the rest of the movie made even the slightest bit of sense.
( ::cut because I only talk in-depth about movies I passionately love or those I violently hate:: )
I was so convinced this movie was a steaming pile of offal I couldn't resist going to Amazon to see all the negative reviews. To my astonishment and confusion, people were giving it 4 and 5 stars (it overall received 3 out of 5, so some reviewers had taste). I can only assume these are the brainwashed souls that consider McConaughey's "Sexiest Man Alive" title to be fully justified. This seemed supported by one reviewer who expressed disgust at being misled into believing McConaughey had a starring role (a reasonable assumption to make when looking at the DVD cover, based on the relative sizes of the two actors' heads. But, I'm not convinced this discrepancy is entirely the fault of the marketing department):
"Matthew McConaughey is not the star of this movie, it's Christian Bale (two roles of which were as a psychokiller in the universally panned American Psycho, and as a JFK Jr. clone in the fairly awful re-make of Shaft. THAT's star power, baby! The new Batman will be trying to live down this fiasco as well)."
Yes, Bale is such an insufferable hack compared to the thespian genius of McConaughey. I'm ashamed to belong to the same species as these people.
Christian Bale + passably believable dragon effects - a plot without a shred of logic -------------- Matthew McConaughey = 1 out of 5
Tery owes me BIG time for watching this in her place. I think watching V with me will cover the tab nicely.
