Movies from Netflix, part two

(another resurrected-from-the-wreckage-of-diary-x entry)

The Virgin Suicides - I have had the book for some time but haven't read it, and I nearly took it and put it in the giveaway pile the morning after I saw this movie, because this was the most depressing goddamn movie I have ever seen, and I couldn't imagine that I would ever read the book. I have backed off that a little - at least, I still have the book. I might read it someday. This is a good movie (it's Sofia Coppola's first movie, which I didn't realize until I saw the credits), but good lord, is it depressing. I suspect that I may have overidentified with it somewhat because it takes place in the era - the 70s - when I was a teenager. It's possible that everybody doesn't find this quite as disturbing as I did, I don't know.

The Machinist - another one of my husband's picks. Good, but odd and rather disturbing. I think most of the press it got was for the fact that it's one of those movies where the star (Christian Bale, in this case) lost a massive amount of weight for the role. He plays a man who hasn't slept in a year.

Harry Potter and the Prisoner of Azkaban - This is my favorite Harry Potter book, and while I don't think they completely did it justice, at least they didn't screw it up too badly. It helped immensely that they gave it to a decent director (Cuaron).

Farscape, Seasons One & part of Two - You know, the fact is, I want to like Farscape more than I really do like it. Oh, I mean, I do like it, I just don't quite love it like a lot of people seem to. It's always worth watching, though. (Well, there might be a few exceptions to that. There's a couple of episodes that are so bad they're sort of excruciatingly embarrassing to watch.)

Ken Burns' Civil War - I'd completely forgotten we watched this until I saw it on the list. This was a couple of years ago (before I cancelled Netflix the last time) - I really would like to own this set because this is something I will watch from time to time, but it's ridiculously expensive ($125 or so for 5 CDs, I think). When it comes down to the $50 range someday I will buy it. (It's 15 years old now, you'd think it'd be time to reduce the price.) Anyway, this series was what got me started on that Civil War kick that I was talking about the other day, back years ago. There was this, and then there was that Gettysburg movie (which is extremely spotty as far as the acting goes, but which does, I think, give you a fair idea of what the battle was like, overall) and then I read the book it was based on - The Killer Angels - which is absolutely a wonderful book and I would recommend to everybody who's at all interested in the subject. (And from there I went to reading Shelby Foote, all three thousand pages, and then things like Grant Moves South and Battle Cry of Freedom.)