Movies

My roommate, Matt, left for vacation a few weeks ago. That left me home alone with little to do... so I signed up for a free trial from Zip.ca! Zip.ca is an online movie rental distributor. You choose a bunch of movies you want to see, and they mail them out to you. Simple as that! There are a number of different plans available to suit your movie watching needs. For instance, I get three movies out at a time, with unlimited monthly DVD rentals. So, if I watch movies fast enough, I can watch about 20 movies a month, all for one monthly fee of $24.99 or something like that.

Anyways, I thought I'd fill you in on the movies I've watched so far:

The first movie I received was 'Festival Express', which is a documentary about a rock festival that travelled across Canada in the 1970's. The film included performances from bands such as Janis Joplin, the Grateful Dead, the Band, Buddy Guy, the Flying Burrito Brothers, etc. The movie was enjoyable to watch, with entertaining performances, but it fell short of content. Showing a few performances took up a good portion of the 90 minute running time and left you feeling like you didn't get much out of the experience. At the same time, however, there are many extras on the DVD that include additional performances not shown in the film. Perhaps those would make up for the seeming lack of content.

The next movie to show up was 'Syriana', starring George Clooney. I had heard good things about this movie, so was expecting a good performance. For the most part, it was an entertaining movie. It took place in the Middle East, so naturally I liked it because it took me back to a familiar place. Clooney's Arabic wasn't entirely convincing, but I'm sure mine isn't either. I already forget the premise of this movie (which happens quite often with movies that don't really strike me), but I remember being disappointed with the end result of the movie. Don't even remember why, though.

Next up was 'Maria Full of Grace'. I thought this film was great. It's about a young Colombian girl who becomes a drug mule to America in order to make a lot of money. It's a disturbing movie of desperation, but has a tinge of hope, which I always require movies to have if I am to enjoy them. The story draws you into it which helps you relate to the emotions being portrayed on screen. I gave this film 5 stars out of 5.

'Control Room' was the fourth movie sent to me. It is a documentary about the Al Jazeera news network. The Al Jazeera network is the most prominent news network in the Middle East. It has many journalists working for them who were formerly associated with the BBC and other acclaimed news networks. The documentary takes place during the 2003 war with Iraq where Saddam's regime fell. It was a very interesting movie that showed how different networks spin stories different ways depending on the audience they are catering to. It sort of revealed that there is no objectivity in journalism. Still, Al Jazeera tries to claim as much objectivity as possible in their journalistic endeavours. This movie is certainly worth checking out.

'United 93' is the next film that arrived. I didn't really want to see this movie, but felt that I should check it out anyways. I'm not gonna beat around the bush here, I thought it was a terrible movie. Most of the acting was just horrible. I guess that's what happens when you let actual air traffic controllers do their own acting. I might hand it to them for giving it a try, but the truth is they shouldn't have given it a try. Anyways, the movie was really boring and could have done without the first 100 minutes. It's only a 111 minute film, by the way. I wonder what Americans think of this movie. One out of five stars from me.

The most recent film I watched was Ingmar Bergman's 'Winter Light'. This is a movie about a pastor of a small church who becomes uncertain about his faith in God. It's a short movie, yet it packs a lot of thought into it. Of all these movies, this is the one I have been thinking about the most since watching it. Defintely worth checking out if you don't rely on Hollywood gimmicks to make a movie enjoyable for you.