Here I Go Again

It seems, lately, that Mike and I have either 1) become ridiculously lax in getting to bed at a reasonable hour or 2) we've become insanely addicted to Redbox and being able to see a new movie every night for $1.08*. Or, as the case may be, both.

So I started this run of "Let's go nuts and try to see as many Academy Award nominated performances as humanly possible in the next few days."

We warmed up the DVD player with Up in the Air because, frankly, I would die a thousand deaths of horrendous pain and torture for a mere five minutes with George Clooney. When I saw Vera Farmiga** was in the cast, I was hooked on getting this movie "NOW. Not ten minutes from now. NOW. Dangit."

And, boy, did this movie deliver. The acting was superb, the writing was delicious enough to eat, and the plot twist near the end should have been served with a kleenex. GOOD STUFF.

We took in The Blind Side later in the week. We laughed, we cried, we ate non-concession stand snacks and drank little bottles of contraband water***. And it was good.

Way to go Sandra. You deserved Best Actress. But your husband's behavior? OHHH, girl. NOBODY deserves that.

So, on to the last contender for the week: Inglourious Basterds.

I should have picked up on the strange fact that neither of the words in the title of this movie was spelled correctly and just not hit the "Rent" button at the Redbox. But, alas, I did.

From now on, if I see the names "Weinstein" and "Tarantino" in the same sentence, I'm running, screaming at the top of my lungs, for the nearest safe shelter.

In some, sick, twisted way, I actually enjoyed Tarantino's Pulp Fiction, which was actually bloodier, possibly more violent, and most definitely more ripe with cursing.

But IG tried to hook us in with violence against "Natzis"**** that was so gruesome, in some spots, that it made Pulp look like a lightweight contender in the ring with Mike "I'm all cranked up on hatred" Tyson.

Now, I have to give credit to Best Supporting Actor winner, Christoph Waltz, who took a fabulous turn as an SS officer. He was completely believable, evil, and as creepy as you would have expected any brainwashed Nazi officer to have been. But, even his performance couldn't save this movie.

Skip it. Even at $1.08, you'll be wasting your money. And burning junk into your brain that you'll wish you hadn't.

So, get your credit card warmed up and go rent you and your honey a little movie tonight.

If you love it, let me know. If you hate it, and I warned you, no griping.

If you hate that you loved it, you're probably me. And you are trying to clean mascara off your face with the bed sheets. Good luck.


*Even if we saw one movie a night, every night for the entire month, we'd still be way short of blowing our entertainment budget. Love, love, love me a little Redbox.

**So tell me to shut the heck up already about how good Vera was in "The Boy with the Striped Pajamas". And while you are at it, tell me to stop telling you how much you need to see the movie. Yes, you.

***Between the allergies we possess in this family (which include corn, thank you), Mike's propensity to regretfully eat an entire bucket of popcorn sans help, and a budget that doesn't allow us to purchase combo packs that cost 3x the price of my last meal at Morton's Steakhouse, we have to pass on the concession stand snacks.

****Pronounciation courtesy of a Tennessean accent sported by Brad Pitt. I guess you'd have to grow up there to fully appreciate that this was what those poor folks actually sound like.