While I am very much a fan of horror, gore, violence, and bloody, anger-filled cinema, my wife is most certainly not. This means I do not get to watch them in her presence. She doesn’t mind if I watch them on my own; she just doesn’t want to to be involved. This was no problem as I’d just watch them when she was off to work or had gone to bed. Even for the first couple of years of our daughter’s life, this was no biggie as I could throw it on while the girl was napping or playing with her toys or even sitting on my lap as she was too young to really pay any attention to the things that were happening on the screen. (Although I do have to admit, I had to turn things off during a certain eye-gouging scene in Zombie 2 and in the middle of A Serbian Film.)
But now as she’s gotten older and more able to comprehend what is being watched, I have to be much more choosy. Or rather she is choosy for me as she quickly lets me know if what I’m watching is not what she wants to watch. Thus my violent-movie watching has been shifted completely to when both my wife and daughter are sound asleep.
As one might imagine, this has created quite a backlog of films I’d like to watch, but haven’t been able to. Now, I get to add Prisoners to that list. Hugh Jackman and Jake Gyllenhaal star in this drama about two young girls being kidnapped and the father who takes things into his own hands when the police are unable to apprehend the perpetrator. It looks to be an intense, violent, really good bit of cinema. One that my wife, no doubt, will have no interest in, especially with a plot that will bring up her own nightmares about our daughter begin hurt in some way.
So, I’ll put it in my queue of things I have to stay up late and watch, and add it to my list of Picks of the Week.
Also out this week that looks interesting:
The Family: Robert De Niro and Tommy Lee Jones star in this dark mob comedy from producer Martin Scorsese and director Luc Besson. Besson’s track record is pretty spotty, but I’m willing to get my hopes up with the talent this film has acquired.
Justified: The Complete Fourth Season: Unlike most shows, this one keeps getting better season after season. What started as a pretty typical cop drama has turned into a layered, exciting, and funny show that is now a must-watch.
Elysium: Neill Blomkamp’s science fiction political metaphor is not nearly as good as his first film, District 9, but there’s enough interesting things to make it worth a watch.
Kick-Ass 2: I’m not nearly as in love with the first film as many of my friends, and this sequel got its ass kicked by both critics and fans but I’m willing to give it a shot. Someday, after I watch all those others things I want to watch more.
Shameless: The Complete Third Season: I caught a few episodes of this show a while ago. I wanted to like it more than I actually did. William H. Macy is always fantastic and is here too, but something about it just didn’t grab me. I’ll eventually give it another try though.
The Blue Angel: Kino Classics 2-Disk Ultimate Edition: I don’t think I”ve ever seen a Marlene Dietrich movie, but I know she’s someone I ought to know better. A Kino Special Edition is always a good place to start.
The Whip and the Body: Kino Classics Remastered Edition: See above on Kino being a good place to start. I have seen a couple of Mario Bava films, but that’s really not enough for someone who wants to really be a student of early horror films.
The Lone Ranger (2013): I really kind of hated this. There were some good scenes and Depp was good as Tonto, but the pacing was all over the place and the story was not at all compelling.
