It has been almost a month now, I have been so negligent. But I did watch a DVD! The Third Man had arrived from Netflix way back in something like February. In all the stuff that was going on it sat and sat and sat and never got watched. One night while Amy was off with friends Brandy and I sat down to watch it.

Brandy was… how shall we say it… underwhelmed. Thought basically nothing happened and it was very slow. Which of course it was. It is basically an atmosphere movie. Black and white. Moody. Very slowly developing and unwinding. And of course without a happy ending.

Given that, I actually liked it. This is the second time I have seen it. A number of years ago Ron sent me a version of it and I watched it. The one Ron had sent me was from before the resoration though. This time I watched the restored rereleased version and the quality difference was amazing. They did an incredible job. In any case, although I must admit I did briefly fall asleep at one point, it was not because of the movie, it was because I was very tired. I wouldn’t watch this movie all that many times, but I did like it.

Of course, a BIG part of why I liked it was the music. (Short sample of the zither music here.) I really was mesmerized by the soundtrack. That is the part of the movie that really grabbed me the most.

Gotta love the zither.

The last night Brandy and Amy were here we put this on to watch. Unfortuantely, they were both sleepy. Brandy was asleep before the end of the first episode. I had been trying to be really good and not freak out and pause it every time I noticed her eyes closing and had made it to the end of the episode. (To keep myself from being bad, I’d given Brandy the remote.)

But at the end of the first episdode, since Brandy was asleep, I started putting things away rather than starting the second episode and told Amy it was time for bed. She was unhappy, but went to bed.

A few minutes later I went in to check on her and she was still looking very unhappy. So I said we could watch the rest if she wanted to. She said “but you said we couldn’t!”. I told her it was OK, we could… that I would like that.

So we got set back up to start it up again, with Amy under a blanket with her head in my lap. We started up the DVD. Amy was much happier.

Of course, she was asleep within minutes.

I did watch the rest solo. And gave them back the disk rather than returning it to watch on the way home on the plane. It hasn’t been returned yet, so I’m not sure that they did.

This episode was the first multi-doctor episode. And it was fun to see the Doctors bickering with each other as usual. I especially liked though the Brigadier’s reaction to them. Not much else to say about it. It was good to see the second Doctor again. I just can’t get myself liking the 3rd.

Anyway, it is now in the hands of Brandy and Amy to watch and return. Gieven that they have each had their current netflix movies for months… Brandy has had Cube 2: Hypercube since 17 Sep 2005, and Amy has had Little Black Book since 10 Feb 2006. So I’m not expecting to to get done and sent in any time soon. (Of course, my current movie was sent out 23 Feb 2006, so I can’t say much.)

Of course, we’ve only been watching the Doctor Who ones together, so I guess it doesn’t matter that much since it will be awhile until we are all in the same place again. The next one is another first Doctor one that was released since we got this one. The first first Doctor episode actually.

I am a little sad this is as far as we had gotten since we started this at the end of the 9th Doctor’s episodes last year. I had really hoped to get up to episodes with Sarah Jane Smith before the episode where she comes back and meets the 10th Doctor comes on. That will be School Reunion which will be on in the UK in just a few weeks and will also feature the return of K-9.

It would have been nice for Amy to have seen some episodes with Sarah Jane and K9 before seeing them return, but I guess that’s OK. Most of the kids who are now fans in the UK won’t know who they are anyway. This is a sop for the older fans.

Of course, if we waited until this episode airs officially in the US, we’d have plenty of time for that…. but will we be able to wait that long???

Six days until new Doctor Who in the UK. I wouldn’t take bets on us waiting until Sci-Fi gets around to it, IF they get around to it…

As for watching more of the old episodes… I’ll let them govern that. I shant be bugging them about it. The main reason we started is it seemed Amy liked them, and I know Brandy had watched when they were on PBS, as had I of course… but there shall be no more prompting on the issue from me. We’ll get to it when we get to it.

While Brandy Amy and I were together, we took the opportunity to watch another Doctor Who. We started in Florida and finished in Washington. A 3rd Doctor episode from spring of 1971. Still before I was born, but not by much. This time it was the turn of The Claws of Axos. It has the Master in it, which is always fun. And some gold people. And some big orange blobby things that look like someone with a blanket over their heads… oh yes, because it IS people with blankets over their heads!

This is an OK Doctor Who I guess, but not outstanding. They seem to be waiting longer to release on DVD the ones that are real classics. Taking longer to restore them and such I guess. And of course we have yet to reach the 4th Doctor, who was my favorite, although I kinda liked the 5th and 7th too.

But this had some good stuff. When the Doctor decided it was time to escape, even if it mean going with the Master. Good stuff. Lets see, better than Spearhead from Space, the last one we watched. And I think better than the Mind Robber, the one before that. But The Seeds of Death, from before that, was better than this. I think the whole trapped on Earth thing they did with the first few seasons of the 3rd Doctor never really worked. The next DVD we’ll watch is the one where he finally gets to leave though.

We need to pick up the pace on the Doctor Who episodes. I want to make sure Amy sees some of the original Sarah Jane Smith episodes and K9 before we hit the new Sarah Jane and K9 episode that’s coming up for the 10th Doctor… I’m sure they’ll make it so you don’t NEED the background, but it will be more fun with I am sure. The whole being in different states though makes it tough though.

Oh, and for those of you who didn’t see it when it was new, it starts up this Friday on the SciFi Channel here in the US. Of course, they’ll add commercials to it and probably mess up some editing to make it fit right in the time slot, but OK. Also, I’m sure it will not do as well in ratings as it would have, because I’m sure most folks who were die-hard and really wanted to see it already have. So after they show last year’s episodes I won’t be holding my breath for this year’s episodes to be promptly available or anything. But it will be there. I won’t pretend it is not an acquired taste though, especially for Americans. This new version is quite the hit right now over in the UK though and is doing quite well in the ratings. So who knows, but…

I’m not sure how this got on my Netflix list. Probably the same way many things do. It came up in a conversation, I realize I have never seen it, and I go add it to my list, just cause, hey, when something comes up in conversation, I should have the cultural reference point. In any case, this arrived from Netflix many months ago. I tried once in December (I think) to watch it on one of my plane flights back and forth between Seattle and Florida, but I was sitting next to little kids, and then things started happening on the screen that made their eyes go wide, so I stopped that and watched Buffy instead.

A few days ago I decided to try again. It had been awhile, so I started over rather than continuing from where I’d left off.

In any case, here are my conclusions. The movie to me was essentially three very distinct parts, so I will talk about them seperately:

Before the John the Baptist: William Dafoe is a sucky Jesus. Or he was directed that way. Or the book this is based on is that way. Fine, OK, this is before he “started” and I can understand some of what they are trying to do here in terms of showing this poor schitzophrenic man and the voices in his head, but… he just engenders no sympathy through his performance. He just stumbles around looking pitiful and depressed. Fine. Got the point in 5 minutes. Did not need 45 minutes of it.

During Jesus’s ministry: William Dafoe is still a sucky Jesus. You get absolutely NO understanding why anybody would ever follow this man. They show more and more people deciding they should follow him and there are crouds and you see there is a “movement”. But you can not see any possible reason for it. This Jesus shows no charisma whatsoever. You expect a David Koresh type of guy. Someone who is insane, yes, but who has an appeal, who is compelling, who you would understand why some people would be drawn to him and why many people might follow. Defoe’s Jesus is someone that people would walk away from or ignore. His tone is lethargic and sleep enducing. Not something that would energize anybody to give up their lives and follow. Or even to change their behavior and do what this man is recommending. At least Judas is a bit interesting in this phase.

On the Cross: Here it gets at least slightly interesting. Finally the actual “last temptation” happens. Basically you get an Inner Light type scenerio. [I’m sure other places did that sort of thing earlier, but I just thought it was amusing to make a Star Trek comparison while talking about a Jesus movie.] Basically Satan gives Jesus the chance to live a normal life instead of dying on the cross. Jesus does not know it is Satan and accepts. He lives out that whole life, then at the end realizes the truth and begs to go back and do the right thing. Then he is back on the cross and the movie ends. Of course, this completely makes the whole temptation moot. Because Jesus did NOT have to choose. He got both. He lived the entire normal life, out to being an old man, then got to go back. Yes, there was supposidly the spiritual choice, and at the end of the life he saw, he had to choose to go back and die on the cross. But… he had already experienced the normal life. He gave nothing up. He was not presented that as an option and refused it. He accepted, lived it, then went and did the other as well. Perhaps that is the point, he DID give in to the temptation and thus really was just a normal man. I don’t know. Of course, in the end it was all just the final hallucinations of an insane man slowly dying, so doesn’t really matter.

Anyway… all in all… bottom line… about 30 minutes of interesting material in a 164 minute movie. Maybe if you push it, an hour of stuff worth watching. But it was way way too long. And be it the actor or the director or the writer, the Jesus character himself was just never compelling or believable. I never felt sorry for him or sympathised in any way. I certainly wasn’t inspired or anything of a religious sort of nature that would lead me to want to admire this man in any way. I just wanted to slap him and tell him to get over himself.

Anyway, worth seeing on the grounds that it was very controversial when it came out and is a cultural reference point of sorts… but that is the only reason.

So one of Amy’s presents from Santa was the Fantastic Four DVD. She watched it during the day, then insisted that we all watch it in the evening. I was slightly curious about it when it was in the theater. Superhero movies are often fun. Usually mindless, but fun. But I was nowhere near curious enough to actually go to the movies. And I probably would not have gone out of my way for the DVD either. But if Amy puts it on and asks me to watch, OK.

And yup, it was a cute little movie. No plausibility whatsoever of course, and big plot holes, but if you ignored all that… Oh, and the fact that Sue Storm was not convincing in the slightest as an actual smart person… well, then it was just fine. And I never followed the comic, so was not worried about the changes from the original story. So I just had fun. You got the origin. You got some “oh my, how do we deal with these new powers”. You got Ben being all sad. And then you got the big battle thing at the end. Pretty much all that was advertised. If you don’t expect any more than that, then tis a good thing.