Earlier this month, I received an e-mail from the folks at
AT&T U-Verse that over the (Thanksgiving) holiday weekend, they were going
to give all subscribers a free preview of their “U-450” package—which is the
company’s top of the line subscription deal (the ‘rents and I have the “U-200”).
What this entailed for us was four days of
premium channel largess: HBO, Cinemax, Showtime, The Movie Channel, Starz—you get
the idea.
What this entailed for me was
that because the On Demand access is also included (I think the only channels
exempt from this were the ESPN stuff and Disney), it gives me carte blanche to
add a few movies to the dusty
Thrilling
Days of Yesteryear archives.
They have some sort of block on the HBO/Cinemax stuff, so I
wasn’t able to record anything off of those channels.
(Drat.)
This didn’t keep me from helping myself to a look at a few newer movies
that I had not seen; my BBFF
Stacia
mentioned in an e-mail that she and Mr. Stacia were amused by
The Lego Movie (2014), and I sat down
with that Friday night.
I wasn’t
particularly fond of the fact that the movie shifts gears toward the end (it
gets a bit sappy) because a good portion of it is some fairly smart satire in a
kind of
Rocky and Bullwinkle mode (the kids will enjoy the Legos while
the adults chuckle at the jokes) but overall it was most entertaining.
The best HBO offering I watched was
Dallas Buyers Club (2013), which I thought Mom would like because
she’s a big Matthew McConaughey fan (though not so big that she’s been able to
figure out why I keep saying “All right, all right, all right” every time his
Lincoln commercial comes on) and I didn’t think I would because the subject matter
sounded depressing.
Yet I thought the
movie was sensational (both McConaughey and Jared Leto won well-deserved
Oscars) and she hated it (thought the profanity was a bit much—“It’s Texas, ma…whaddya
gonna do?”).
A genuine first-rate film,
one of the best I have seen in a long while.
Starz offered up the 2011 Academy Award winner for Best
Documentary Feature—
Inside Job
(2010), which I also thought was a winner.
(I put this on for Dad…and he shrugged at it in a most uninterested
way.)
Curiosity also bid me welcome to
Saving Mr. Banks (2013), which, sadly,
was simply not my cup of Harmless Harvest.
I liked Emma Thompson’s performance as P.L. Travers, the author of Mary
Poppins…but the movie seemed to suggest that she was a bitch because she had
daddy issues and it was up to ol’ Walt Disney (Tom Hanks) to come to her
rescue.
I guess what I’m trying to say is because I have been
distracted by all this movie goodness—not only have I been able to watch some
more recent films but I’ve been indulging with past favorites like
Blow Out (1981),
Big Trouble in Little China (1986) and
The Purple Rose of Cairo (1985)—that’s the reason why there’s no
Serial
Saturdays in this space…and why there’ll be no
Doris Day(s) on
Monday.
(Now…now…let’s not all be
disappointed at the same time.)
But I
will have material at the ready this week, including an interesting entry in
Tuesday’s “Overlooked Films” feature and a review on a Grapevine Video purchase
as well.
In the meantime, my look at
The Strange Love of Molly Louvain
(1932) is available for your perusal at ClassicFlix.
Now—back to the screening room!
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