Movies@home

[Lisa writes]

I'm in between academic years at the moment, and enjoying the non-school work days. Outside of work-hours, I thought I'd take the time to work on my "other lives" and it's been good.

One of the things I've been catching up on is movies. We are somewhat movie-buffs, but would rather avoid the cinema crowd, preferring instead to watch dvds or vcds in the comfort of our own home. Joerg especially likes that he can make his favourite shot for both of us using his prized Rancilio from Brisbane! Well where do we get the movies from? We frequent the Video-ezy at King Albert Park most often... not to borrow movies, but for the stock of ex-rental sales there. We can usually find bargains at between $4.95 to $8.95 (vcds) but the challenge is to find a GOOD movie! I reckon part of the problem is that we've collected so many of them, that we're running out of options! Sometimes we can spend a good half-hour there trying to dig out something good, and unfortunately there are times when we leave empty-handed. Other times, we leave with 3 or 4 pretty good shows. And they're ours for the keeping!

There are a couple of nice ones which we watched recently which definitely are worth re-watching. One of them is Facing the Giants, an independent (non-Hollywood) flick about a coach who is struggling to bring up his football team to victory. In the process, he re-discovers God's power and work in his life, and eventually brings the team together again to greater heights. Although somewhat predictable, it was very real; we were still drawn in to the struggles faced by the coach, and encouraged by the faith-journey he experienced. It was particularly meaningful for Joerg as he's the soccer teacher-in-charge in his school. Really inspiring, and funny at times too. I think we'll be picking this up to watch every now and again. Here's a clip from the movie...

Actually, while I like inspirational movies, I do also really go for mindless violence, action, and psychological thrillers as well - yeah give me stuff like Kiss of the Dragon, The Mummy, Flightplan, Terminator 1, 2, 3, ... . However I'm starting to realise that there's only so much violence I can take. For example, I coudn't bear to watch all of Saw and Untraceable... all that torture - physical and psychological - just had me cringing and hiding behind pillows! Recently we also bought this movie called The Strangers which stars Liv Tyler... the hide-and-seek which the bad guys played with the victims seemed never-ending, and the part which I hate most, is that they (the bad guys) got away with it! I need a movie with an ending where at least some justice is done. So shows like P2, although with some torture and violence in it, at least was more bearable because the bad guy got his just desserts.

As of last week, we couldn't find anything at Video-ezy... looks like we'll have to survive on cable for a while, sigh!