Generally, I watch at least one movie a day. This will probably go up since now I’ve got a batch of personal narrative papers to grade. Movies in the background help me survive grading. Especially scary movies do wonders for reducing my stress. We have a fantastic movie collection, and I could go a year without repeating a movie. Maybe even two years.

We don’t really rent movies. We don’t do the Netflix thing. Generally speaking, if we want something and know we’ll watch it more than once, we just buy it. Since we didn’t have a good cable setup in Flagstaff, we did decide to splurge the extra 7 bucks or so a month for the HBO/Cinemax package, which I think has been really worth our while. Not only do we watch Hung, Entourage and Curb Your Enthusiasm (starting next Sunday), but I get to watch new movies all the time. I just wanted to give you some quick mini-reviews of the movies I’ve watched in the past week.

Charlie Wilson’s War: A movie that starts with a Vegas hottub nails it. I’ve had Mr. Smith Goes to Washington on the brain, as I saw it for the first time over 4th of July weekend. So since I’d watched that relatively recently, it was fun to compare the ideal politician to one who’s a little rougher around the edges. Charlie Wilson loves his booze and women, and you can’t help but love him for his good intentions. Tom Hanks and Philip Seymour Hoffman were wonderful. Julia Roberts..meh, kind of disgusting as a blonde Texan.

Unknown: I seriously thought the cable guide was screwed up when I saw this title, like it hadn’t loaded the information for this movie properly. The synopsis said Reservoir Dogs meets Memento. I’d even throw Saw into the mix there. Five guys wake up in a room with amnesia. Who are the kidnappers? Who are the victims? Wonderful cast includes James Caviezel, Greg Kinnear, Jeremy Sisto, Peter Stormare (i.e. Pancake’s House from Fargo), and Chris Mulkey (from Twin Peaks). Probably not the most sophisticated or original movie, but I liked it.

The Secret Life of Bees: It’s been probably eight years since I read the book, but it’s one of my favorites. Watching this movie made me want to reread it, which I think a good adaptation should do. I was particularly impressed by Queen Latifah and Jennifer Hudson. This isn’t the kind of movie where you think CGI would matter, but I’d like to say that the bees looked really real. This one made me cry. Wonderful characters/acting all around. Oooh, and the photography/colors. This is a movie that makes me love being in the South and want to paint my house pink. I think Dakota Fanning redeemed herself for War of the Worlds with this one. I think she’s going to be beautiful when she’s 30.

Marathon Man: Just finished watching it 15 minutes ago. I came in 15 minutes late, but I think I caught up okay. Roy Scheider was a nice surprise, since the only people I cared about coming in were Dustin Hoffman and Laurence Olivier. Honestly, I watched this movie only out of curiosity and wanting to see the dental torture scene. The whole movie is worth that torture scene and Dustin Hoffman’s running. Fabulous!

If you have any specific questions about these movies, I’m happy to answer them! Minireviews don’t leave much room for spoilers.