Digital Joe #39

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Last year, shortly after the inaugural Digital Joe, I wrote about upcoming titles on my "Buy" list. To be perfectly fair, there were quite a few television box sets on the list. I got called out on it with the rationale of "how can you review movies if you don´t actually watch movies?" Valid question, no doubt about it. But I missed something in defending myself, something I just realized as I looked at the list of movies I´ve seen in the last three months.

You don´t need to buy movies in order to watch movies.

Sounds terribly simple, doesn´t it? I don´t know why I didn´t think of it then. I currently get my movies from basically four different sources: discs I buy/review; Netflix; movies I see in the theater; and TiVO movies. With those three categories combined, in the first three months of 2007, I managed a rather impressive (I think) 49 movies. Yes, I fell one short of my stated goal last week of 50. What´s the point of all this, besides a very late defense of something no one is going to remember anyway?

To actually talk about movies. A couple things I want to bring to everyone´s attention before we get started, though. I don´t record or watch movies which have been edited for content, like those on American Movie Classics. All of my TiVO viewings come from Turner Classic Movies (with one exception: a TV movie made for NBC which re-aired on Lifetime). My Netflix queue contains a diverse cross section of genres and time periods. Just because I watched "The Family Stone" in January did not preclude me from also getting "Giant" in February. Lastly, 49 movies is an awful lot, double so when you consider I also got through three complete TV box sets ("The Golden Girls," "She-Ra" and "Justice League Unlimited") this year…not to mention the various episodes of "Buffy," "Seinfeld," "The New Adventures of He-Man," "Desperate Housewives" and "24" that got popped into the DVD player.

Now then, to the movies. Hands down, the best theatrical movie I´ve seen this year is "300." A completely visceral experience which managed to get my heart pumping and engage me in the entire movie from start to finish. We even sat through the credits because they were a dazzling creation. The most overrated? "Pan´s Labyrinth," followed closely by "Zodiac." Both films have praiseworthy parts (the former´s production design and the latter´s acting), but they ultimately felt overreaching…and overlong.

So what does that leave? 2006 holdovers "Children of Men" (excellent, but in a radically different way from "300"); "Ghost Rider" (a fun popcorn/comic book movie); "The Last King of Scotland" (amazing performance by Forrest Whitaker that stumbles in the third act); "The Queen" (powerful portrait of the monarch good for one viewing, but will loose its oomph the second time around); "Breach" (the best of the early-year serious films); "Behind the Mask: The Rise of Leslie Vernon" (missed it, you say?); "Reign Over Me" (so much potential, all wasted); and "Peaceful Warrior" (eye candy, nothing more).

If we had to give the Oscars out right now based only on this group of films (leaving out the 2006 films), I´d want Best Picture to go to "Breach" with Best Actor honors to Chris Cooper. We´d have to do some wrangling, but Best Supporting Actor would be Adam Sandler´s. Frankly, from this crop, only Lena Headey from "300" deserves any mention on the female side of the equation.

Moving on, I´d have to say I enjoyed "Inherit the Wind" the best of my Netflix films. It happened to be how I spent Super Bowl Sunday this year and I couldn´t ask for a better experience. Sure, it was made in 1960 and oft used refrain "We'll hang Bertram Cates from a sour apple tree" can get a bit tiring after a while, but courtroom drama doesn´t get any more involving than this. The battle of evolution vs. creationism; a father casting out his only daughter; a religious leader´s faith being called into question; and the wonderfully energetic Tracy.

Honorable mention on the rental front goes to "Gods and Monsters" (terrific performance by Ian McKellan which, while nominated, was criminally overlooked at Oscar time); "The Legend of Zorro" (great fun with old friends Antonio Banderas and Catherine Zeta-Jones…more fun than the original, even); "25th Hour" (Ed Norton continues to cement himself as one of the best actors of his generation); "Roman Holiday" (Audrey Hepburn…what a doll); and "Giant" (Elizabeth Taylor, Rock Hudson, James Dean, sprawling landscapes, all directed by George Stevens).

Unfortunately, with every good choice, a disappointing one has to emerge. Such were "The Family Stone" (great actors, horrible script); "Beverly Kills" (definitely NOT recommended); "Sommersturm" (a German stab at the coming out movie so filled with genre formula even a baby would spit it back up); and the trifecta of "The Neverending Story"/"The Dark Crystal"/"Labyrinth" (they seemed so much more fun as a little kid in the 1980´s).

Surprisingly, out of the over 300 movies I have in my collection, I only managed to watch three of them: "The Invincible Iron Man," "The League of Extraordinary Gentlemen" and "Shock to the System." For strictly puerile reasons, "Shock to the System" was my favorite. I mean, come on, as great as the special effects spectacle that was "LXG," watching Chad Allen and Sebastian Spence can´t be topped. (Though this second Donald Strachey mystery isn´t as good or involving as the first, "Third Man Out.")

Lastly, my beautiful, lovely DVR which is constantly warning me it is nearly out of space. Picking a favorite here is hard with so many good actors and actresses represented. "Now, Voyager" with Bette Davis; "The African Queen" with Bogie and Katherine Hepburn; Taylor and Hepburn in "Suddenly, Last Summer"; the wonderfully neurotic Woody Allen´s "Hannah and Her Sisters." Even the Orson Welles near-train wreck "The Magnificent Ambersons." I´d recommend them all.

Really, there are only two TiVO movies I wouldn´t recommend: "The Blob" from 1958 and "The Spiral Staircase" from 1945. Neither is effective at building up their suspense or thriller levels. "The Blob" feels like a relic of a bygone era when we were afraid of our own shadows; "The Spiral Staircase" would make a better stage production than a film.

So what can we look forward to in the next calendar quarter? Definitely some big name theatrical can´t-miss titles like "Spider-Man 3" and "28 Weeks Later." Netflix will be bringing…well, almost nothing the majority of you have actually heard of. And things from my collection? I hope to finally get the chance to watch "Cars" and "All the President´s Men" and "The Aviator" and "Whatever Happened to Baby Jane" and "Mommie Dearest"…oh, who am I kidding? I won´t even make a dent in any of those discs.

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