I rented a couple movies this weekend. Apocalypto and Charlotte’s Web. Could I have found two more different films? I dare you to try…. If I’m picking up more than one movie I usually try to mix genres. It makes for a more interesting experience. And it feeds my attention deficit. Like reading while the TV is on. But that’s a different story.

I learned my lesson about renting movies that are too similar when I watched Thelma & Louise and Whore the same weekend. [Don't ask.] I suppose I should explain that I mean those are too similar because to me they are both depressing chick flicks. Bummer of a weekend! Whore was released about a year after Pretty Woman and was much more realistic about the life of a prostitute [except the mug shots I see on TV don't look much like Julia Roberts or Theresa Russell]. It got little press and mostly mediocre reviews. And I never understood why Pretty Woman was such a popular movie. I mean, aside from the fact that Julia Roberts and Richard Gere are both pretty people, I never got the attraction. Unless we really want to encourage our daughters to become hookers until some rich jerk comes along….

Anyway, I didn’t have high expectations for Charlotte’s Web, but it was entertaining enough. My fourth grade teacher read that book to the class [and everybody else cried at the end, but not me]. So I watched for sentimental reasons [not that I'm sentimental at all -- mental, but not sentimental]. And at least Julia Roberts was a spider and I think we should encourage girls to be spiders rather than hookers.

I wasn’t sure what to expect from Apocalypto since it got a little lost in unrelated publicity surrounding it’s director. The violence wasn’t as graphic as I expected, but there is a lot of it. For me though, it just kind of dragged along and I never bought into the story. You’d have to believe [or suspend disbelief] in mysticism or wild coincidences and I just couldn’t for this one. And the end… are you kidding me? But I won’t post a spoiler.

Posted by Tim