DVD Reviews for the week of 04.20.07

As with the last post, I should point out that I’m cheap and I love the fact that I can pause a movie until I get refreshments or for going to the washroom. An added bonus of being a DVD movie watcher is to have the ability to smoke while I watch. So, on with the DVD rental reviews for the past week:

Casino Royale, The Pursuit of Happyness, and Borat were this past week’s rentals and this is the first time that I can say that I REALLY enjoyed all of them equally, but I have some issues with each of them.

Casino — Am I mistaken, or wasn’t this supposed to be the story of how agent 007 started? I was expecting a sort of retro piece and, thus, the disappointment. Also, if you couldn’t see the ending of this story coming a mile away, then you’d have to be blind or have never seen a movie before — one of the two. Nevertheless, it was pretty good. I still wish that Remington Steele would have given it one more shot.

Pursuit of Happyness — for all the things that this character endured, I sure did not feel the grief or the anguish as it relates to a person loosing everything bit by bit. Do you think it’s because I knew in the end that the real life person that was being portrayed became a multi-millionaire in the end and, thus, it made it very difficult to sympathies with his bouts of homelessness, loosing his spouse, having to sleep in the subway washroom, etc… — Or was this something the movie lacked to convey to the reader?

Nevertheless, I still enjoyed the movie. For some reason, I like anything that Will Smith is in — as far as movies go. Being born in Africa myself, although I do not look it — I do not know what happened, but I have 7,000 years of African genes, yet people tell me that I look like I am an Italian or that I am of Greek orgin. Thought I’d let you know before I am labelled as a racist.

With that said, I am glad that there are more diverse roles available to African-Americans than there used to be and I am proud of Will Smith and others for making that possible. Maybe one day, someone can be given a role regardless of their appearance and instead, land a role by their skillset.

Last but not least, Borat. The only complaint I have about this DVD rental, is that I bet I would have enjoyed it even more in the theatre with others laughing along with me. Naturally, when I see a commercial telling me that this is the greatest this and the greatest that… Then I automatically think, this is going to SUCK! Someone got paid to review this, the reviewer must have been to lazy to go and sent his 16 year old intern to see the movie, etc…

Nevertheless, this movie lived up to it’s hype. I wish someone would have told me Sometimes my thriftyness — OK, cheapness (as my ex-wife would put it) can really screw me over, but it works for the most part and, no, I have no money to lend.

Just getting started