rent rent

I think - no wait, I know I've mentioned before that I watch a lot of movies. I probably have offered rationalization and explanation before as well but rather than dig through my blog for a past post to link to, I'll just do it again.

I'm in grad school so most of my social contacts are in grad school. Those of us who are not independently (mommie and daddy) wealthy are tight for money and time. We also tend to have similarly restricted lifestyles. Hence, social plans are rarely made and often fall through due to lack of time, energy, or general involvement. But you gotta unwind. I will not pay for 100 channels of shit just to get a couple of good but still far too commercial laden shows on cable. Going out to the movies eats up about half my week's budget, so it is a rare and usually guilty indulgence when I do go.

But I do crave low energy entertainment fairly often. You put that all together and you can see why I am in the top 5 renters at the excellent local independent video store near campus.

Lately it seems the incidence of shit movies is getting too high. There's a new genre of "holy shit I had kids and it didn't make me feel grown up or fix the world/my life/marriage/family and now I'm freaking the fuck out" movies developing. This is a big item it seems (see my list of really shitty movies below). My fella and I have taken to renting one good and one shit movie. It's intentional and often worth the 99 cents for the second movie. Not just any old thing but something that looks like serious shit. If it wasn't super bad, it wouldn't be entertaining. It would just be bad.

But tonight I stumbled across a new release that was suprisingly fun. It's called Kiss Kiss Bang Bang. Because it's got a film noir/crime setting, there's violence, nudity, and tons of swears. The violence isn't bad, one finger scene I could have done without. Swears and nudity don't bug me but hey, if I had little kids I might want to know that sort of thing.


Here are a few super shitty movies that have come out somewhat recently:
The Dark Kind of horror but too stupid to be scary. Evil sheep and other spooky welsh stuff torment this terrible mother (she has a tatoo). Kid is lost in the first 20 minutes I think.
Half Light Tries to be creepy but ends up being laugh out loud bad. Think Lifetime presents Nancy Drew meets romance novel.
Godsend It's a pun, get it? Evil clone baby...is it God send or God's End?
The Forgotten Aliens took Julianne Moore's child!
Freedomland Julianne Moore's child committed suicide!
Cold Creek Manor Ok, not so recent but this was, for me, the start of it. The leads (Cooper and Leah Tilson) are played by Dennis Quaid and Sharon Stone. The Tilsons are good (rich) people who became bad parents when they lost touch with natural, normal gender roles apparently due to living in the city (darn that women's lib). After one of their children is nearly killed due to parental neglect and/or mother's looming infidelity (and/or career move), they wake up and realize, well, not much but what is certain is that they must abandon their evil ways. So they move to Connecticut and try to reinvent themselves as some kind of rural community family Robinson. However, there is a price to pay for their arrogant deviance. There is a battle that must be fought and the prize is a year's supply of denim button up shirts for Coop and several adorable halter tops for Leah. The post move plot consists of a series of events and characters which result in gender based symbolic trials. Yes, there is a splitting of Cooper's psyche into an id and equally evil super ego, both of which he must destroy to become an integrated but manly man in the end. And there is a re-birthing scene (sort of) where the work is shared between the parents (awww). There is an unfortunate incident with a pony and a pool, but hey, you really really know it's coming. Because how else was Cooper going to get his mojo back?

Eeek! There's a phalllic symbol in the pool!
Note: Beefcake not provided by Dennis Quaid.