This is the website of Abulsme Noibatno Itramne (also known as Sam Minter).
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![]() ![]() A few weeks ago it was time for another DVD that we own but have never watched. Amy chose. It would be disk two of season one of Roswell. Amy had a friend over that night. We all watched the first episode together. But then partway through the second episode Amy and her friend and Brandy started making noise and throwing candy around, and after the second or third time it happened I couldn’t deal any more and left them to watch the rest on their own. (When I watch DVDs I need to do so in complete silence, concentrating on the screen, and any distractions throw me completely out of the experience and make me quite unhappy.)
Anyway, slowly over the last few weeks I watched the rest of the episodes on this disk. I finished sometime last week. So time to post it.
Not too much to say though. The episodes were:
“Missing”: A lost journal with all sorts of secrets. I don’t remember much else. It wasn’t hugely memorable, but it was an OK episode.
“285 South”: This is the one that I left in the middle of. I liked it better. It was a little funny, and they went and found the dome thing.
“River Dog”: They go and find a cave with stuff in it that may have information about their past.
“Blood Brother”: Max gets injured and Alex helps cover up, and his relationship with Liz suffers. I actually liked this one the best of the four I think.
All in all four decent episodes. Nothing super exciting though.
 While Amy was away, it was time for us to watch a DVD we own, but that we had not watched yet. Since Amy was not there, we could watch one that she had seen, but Brandy and I had not. So Bridge to Terabithia it was. Brandy had read the book a few months back, and had given away that it had a sad ending, but not what that ending was. Otherwise, I was spoiler free. I had no idea what it was going to be about, and actually expected a Narnia wannabe sort of movie. That is not what it was.
I was expecting from the beginning for something bad to happen to the girl because of Brandy’s one spoiler, but I must admit, what actually did happen was not what I expected to happen. For anybody else spoiler-free, I have already said too much, and won’t say more. For those who have read the book or seen the movie… well, you already know.
Anyway, the exact nature of what happened was actually a bit more powerful than what I was expecting. And in a bit different way than your standard tear jerker. It just left me a bit cold. A sort of “Wait, that’s it?” sort of thing. But I think that was kind of the point.
Anyway, a good movie. Not a WALL-E but still a decent movie. It was worth a watch.
 Last weekend it was time for an Amy Netflix movie. (Once again damn you Netflix!) Her movie this time was Stardust. I had never even heard of it, so I had no idea what to expect.
And it was, well… odd… and that meant I kind of liked it. It had a little fantasy magic thing going on. With your standard sort of predictable setup with the hero thrown in with a girl and at first they don’t like each other, but eventually… well, you know.
And there were ghosts, and a flying ship, witches… and a falling star that is really a girl… and it was all very tongue in cheek and funny.
Oh yeah, and Robert De Niro dancing around in women’s clothes. There is something to be said about any movie that has that. I’m not sure exactly what, but something.
It was a cute movie. Entertaining. Light hearted. I little bizzare. Not taking itself seriously at all. But fun.
This is one of the types of movies I tend to like. So thumbs up and all of that.
And all three of us watched it together. Which is always good.
 Time for another old Doctor Who. This time it was time for the second disk of The Invasion. We has watched the first disk back in March.
The second disk is much like the first. Slow and plodding, with not much happening, and those things happening at a glacial pace. There is never a significant sense of menace. And the ending is very anti-climactic.
I thought I’d heard some people point to this as a particularly good Second Doctor story, but I must admit I just don’t get it if so. I’ve certainly seen others I like more. This one was just… long.
The first disk had the novelty of a few of the episodes being animated, because only the audio from the original episodes had survived, so they animated it to let you be able to watch a whole story. That was interesting, although it didn’t help the pacing obviously.
The second disk had no animation in it, so it was just kind of there.
Oh well. Next!
 Last weekend, right after we watched Indy in the theaters, we watched the DVD of the week. Now, I’ve been pushing really hard to make the weekly movie really a weekly movie, but after doing a theater movie immediately followed by a DVD at home, I’m thinking maybe on weekends where we actually go to the theater maybe we can skip the DVD.
Anyway, it was time for an Amy Netflix movie, but Amy’s Netflix movie was a sequel to a movie I hadn’t seen, so it was disqualified. And then she watched it on her own before movie night, so it was doubly disqualified. Any way, that meant we went with the second choice, which was Brandy’s Netflix movie, which was Sin City.
What can I say. It was odd. It was disturbing. But it was strangely compelling. I am mystified to say that I think I actually liked it. It had my attention the entire movie. In part because I felt like I had to pay close attention to understand what the hell was going on… and even then I’m not sure I actually did ever really understand. But it pulled me in and kept me.
And did I mention it was odd? It was done in a very highly-stylized comic book sort of look. Which just added to the effect. This movie wouldn’t have worked at all if it was done “normally” I think. But matching the style of the comic book… sorry… graphic novel it is based on worked very well for it I think.
Anyway, I didn’t expect to be really interested in this or like this at all, but I did. Weird. But I liked it in a curious can’t stop looking at the bizarre thing you almost stepped on in the sidewalk sort of way, not in the way you get when there was a really compelling story that resonates emotionally.
 I really should post these sooner to when I watch them. In any case, last week it was time for a Brandy Netflix movie, and the one she had at the time was Funny Face, a 1957 Audrey Hepburn movie. Now, I really like Audrey Hepburn in a bunch of things. Ones I have seen and liked are Sabrina, The Nun’s Story, Breakfast at Tiffany’s, Charade and Wait Until Dark.
I remember having seen this one on TV years ago, but then and now it is just not one that I particularly liked all that much. There were parts that I liked (her first scene in the bookstore) but for the most part it just fell flat for me. The musical numbers didn’t excite me, and the whole fact that over the course of the movie she started out interesting and intellectual and ended up all doing the modeling thing just didn’t have a trajectory that inspired me.
And what the hell was that dance in the nightclub? That was just freaky.
Now, it wasn’t bad or anything, just not one of her best I think. And not one of a style I particularly like.
And the movie poster is really long, and I don’t have much more to say, so we may end up with the picture being longer than what I write. I kind of hate it when that happens, and it kind of tempts me to just keep writing random stuff until I make this long enough to be longer than the picture. Of course, that depends on how wide you make your window, so it is kind of pointless anyway, so I will stop now.
Summary: If you are an Audrey Hepburn completist, of course you have to watch this, it is one of her famous ones. But otherwise, unless you really like this kind of 1950’s musical, it can probably be skipped.
 Last weekend we finally watched another DVD. And for the first time in a long time… it actually was all three of us watching together. Anyway, this time it was my turn, and next on my Netflix list was Enemy of the State. Although I am sure I had never actually seen this whole movie, as I watched it, I was sure I had definitely seen various parts of it before. And on the part where they run away from an exploding building, I’m pretty sure I’ve seen a “making of” thingy too. All about how they only had one shot since they were BLOWING UP A BUILDING while simultaneously driving a train past it and driving a car away from it, and it all had to come together just right, but if they screwed it up they wouldn’t be able to blow the building up again or anything.
In any case, this was your typical action/thriller type of thing. It was fun enough, but I can’t say I was really ever much in suspense and it didn’t have my heart racing during the action sequences or anything. It was fairly straightforward. No really unexpected twists or anything.
I guess it was perfectly OK. Not a bad way to spend two hours. Just nothing special.
Although, for once, it was a movie that all three of us could watch without complaining. And there was popcorn and stuff. So all was good.
We don’t watch enough movies. I’m pushing for Saturday DVD night for the summer, but we’ll see how that goes. It often seems to get derailed because one or more of us have other things to do, or not enough of us actually want to see the movie that is next in line, etc.
But it would still be fun. At least I think so.
 It was finally time for a another Doctor Who DVD. This time it was time for The Invasion. Well, actually the first half. This story is split into two disks. It is an eight part story, the first four parts of which were on this disk.
This had the typical slow pacing of a Second Doctor episode. Things progress VERY slowly and not all that much happens. As an example, the reveal of who the real bad guys in this story are happens at the very end of the 4th 25 minute long episode.
The most interesting thing about this disk is actually the fact that Episodes One and Four are actually among the “missing episodes” which were destroyed or lost from the BBC archives and which have never been found or recovered. However, some fans recorded the AUDIO of the episodes by putting tape recorders next to their televisions. And this audio did survive. So in 2006 when they were looking to do a DVD release, they produced ANIMATED versions of the two “missing” episodes using the audio which still existed.
So part of this was a cartoon. And that was kind of interesting.
Not GOOD mind you, just interesting.
These early Doctors definitely are an acquired taste that I haven’t actually acquired yet. I watch them out of a sense of wanting to learn more about that era, and curiosity. But not so much for actually enjoying the episodes. Now, there are a few good moments. But for the most part, these are a bit tough to watch with modern eyes.
But there we go, another Who.
 So, last weekend it was time for another one of my Netflix DVDs. And once again it was time for one of the 100 Years 100 Movies movies. In my quest to slowly see all of these (starting from #100 and working my way up) it was time for #54, All Quiet on the Western Front, from 1930. I knew it was a war movie about World War I, but otherwise pretty much did not know anything at all.
At first Brandy watched with me, but she HATES this kind of movie, so that didn’t last. Amy watched the last half of it with me, and didn’t appear to hate it, although I doubt she’ll be watching it again any time soon.
From my point of view, I was actually enthralled for most of the movie. I particularly was impressed by the large scale scenes with dozens and dozens of extras. I mean, this was 1930. In 2008 if there is a movie with that kind of scene, it is done with CGI. You just don’t see that kind of massive thing done with real people. But here it was, done some 77+ years ago. And done well. Massive battle scenes. Explosions. Things happening all over the place. It was just very well done. And it was done in 1930. I was impressed.
Also, I did notice they REALLY liked the camera shot with a view from inside of a room through a window or door to a lot of things going on outside. Those are fun, but you can tell they were using that over and over and over again.
As for the story itself… the acting was not great. Especially at the beginning. But it still got the effect across. Kids who were initially innocent changed by a senseless war as everybody dies around them, with the world that has not been directly touched now a completely alien place for them. And the iconic final scene still resonates today.
Anyway… it was a little long… at times the audio wasn’t great and it was hard to hear what people were saying. But it was a good movie to have seen… once anyway. :-)
 It was time for an Amy pick, but she actually watched this without us… saying she didn’t want to watch it together. This of course made me more curious than I already was having just seen the title and the short couple sentence description before she got the movie. The basic summary was the story of a girl going to a Christian school who gets pregnant and how she deals with that. Wait, let me get the actual description from Netflix: “When Mary, a devout senior at a Christian high school, accidentally gets pregnant, she starts to see her peers and her faith in a whole new way.”
Not having heard of this, I was worried it was going to be some sort of anti-abortion/pro-life propaganda film… I figured Brandy and I should definitely watch it in case any “conversations” would be needed afterwards… of course if I’d looked up any more about it I would have seen that was not the case. Quite the opposite. It was quite the satire of the born again crowd in terms of their attitudes toward… well, everything… but specifically toward teenage sexuality and teenage pregnancy and such. It was for the most part pointing out the absurdity of some of those attitudes. And all done in a pretty humorous way. There was lots of laughing out loud.
And I can understand why Amy wanted to watch it alone… just because some of those type issues are awkward at that age… especially around parents… but there was nothing in here I found any more objectionable than any other PG-13 movie. (Which Amy has been allowed to see for years, despite not being 13 yet.) Still a somewhat odd choice for her. But aside from the teenage pregnancy angle and the religious satire, the rest was your standard sort of teenage romantic comedy / high school hijinks kind of movie. And that is right up her ally.
Of course, it was a lighthearted comedy movie, so it had a happy feel good ending… so it never addressed any of the serious negative consequences that often do accompany teenage pregnancy… but that would be something that a more serious movie would do. This movie was mainly a movie poking fun at fundamentalist Christians whose own self-righteousness leaves them hopelessly out of touch with the reality around them.
And of course in the end everybody is happy (including the baby) and Jesus still loves them.
But it was funny.
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