Movie Roulette

We watch A LOT of movies at our house. Dramas, documentaries, comedies, and cartoons all have a chance on our stage. Just based on the law of averages there are few winners and a graveyard of losers. Here's a rundown of the notable viewing at our house over the past couple weeks.

• True Grit - LOSER; This movie received numerous Academy Award nominations and oddly enough became a pivotal launching point for a number of sermons for an associate pastor who has recently moved West. So we thought we would give it a try. Nope. Still don't like Westerns. And this particular Western moves at the speed of a wagon train with a narcoleptic mule. Do you know what else I don't like in a movie? . . . Griminess. Bleeech. It just makes my skin crawl. I can neither confirm nor deny that the movie Waterworld is worthy of watching, because I cannot make through the whole show. If it's a WATER world, why is everyone so dirty?! True to its name True Grit was a B- on the dirt scale. However, it was an A+ on the nap-able scale so it's still a LOSER at my house.

• The Box - Minor LOSER; This movie arrived via Netflix and kept getting pushed aside and buried under the mail. Finally it was unearthed and we watched it. Let me say first that this did not come from my queue so I was pretty in the dark as to where it was headed. And that's where it landed - in the dark. This was originally a short story that was made into a Twilight Zone episode that was made into a feature film. At the last turn in its creative journey they added about an hour and a half of sci-fi fantasy, which in my opinion was pretty unnecessary. I would have liked the 30-45 minutes of twisted terror that the Twilight Zone episode offered.

• Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows Part II - WINNER; Now this one we liked. It was a great last hurrah for our British friends. Of course, since the books have been bestsellers since I was in college and the movies played non-stop prior to the opening credits of this movie, it was a little hard to avoid a pretty complete knowledge of where things would all land. And no, I did not complete my book reading before going to the movie. It was a definite violation of my own personal book to movie rules, but the childcare was available and those are opportunities that must be seized. CARPE Dinner and a Movie.