I'm skipping both Terminator: Salvation and Night at the Museum 2 this weekend, and I recommend everyone reading this do the same and urge others to follow suit. There's nothing must-see about either one. I've come up with 14 better ways to spend $14-$20 on yourself and a friend or loved one than either major new release. I was a film programmer in college, and this is my way of reviving those instincts and urging discerning cinema-goers from making a choice they'll regret. I'm also using this excuse to push myself to get a number of items posted by referencing their in-progress nature here, which will pop up throughout the weekend.
I have to explicitly request that anyone reading this not go see Dance Flick, despite the fact it's probably more entertaining than the aforementioned movies on the whole (according to William Goss, who I trust). Some may see paying for Dance Flick as a big "fuck you" to their studio masters who want them watching robots or waxworks. Folks, Uwe Boll is still making movies because people thought it'd be a great idea to pay for his previous movies knowing they'd be bad. Flick will be on video/HBO/TNT soon enough.
The options I've listed below are not necessarily for everyone in and of themselves, but there's plenty of variety overall. You can accomplish them all on a budget of $14 to $20, give or take a little for sales tax. There's a lot of "buy this or that" due to my very American compulsion to buy things.
1. Go see Star Trek again, or take friends or family members who haven't seen it.
There are people who haven't seen what's becoming the return business king of the summer, as I predicted in my sleep-deprived original review. I ran into a coworker who said she finally convinced her boyfriend it was ok to go see it. This is the kind of blockbuster I'll support, plot holes or no. It's a movie that prominently features time travel, folks.
2. Buy your significant other a nice dinner so that they're ok with you having bought the Star Trek: Original Motion Picture Collection. Spend the long weekend overdosing on original Trek.
For my wife, the new Trek movie was the gateway drug. She's more interested in the original series and movies than she ever was before. A full review is coming soon and will be linked here.
3. Rent Valkyrie, The Reader, and Taken on Blu-ray (or DVD) because you missed them in first run.
I don't know anyone outside of critics who caught Valkyrie in theaters, and even fewer (critics included) who saw The Reader. Taken pulled in plenty of money at the box office, but many wait for video at this point. In order, they are: better than you've probably heard or expected; worth saying you've watched so you can love/hate; and very, very sharp. Long weekends are great for catching up on movies about which you said "I wondered how that was, I missed it."
4. Rent Wayne's World (1 & 2) and Major League, and order a cheap, terrible quality pizza. Optionally, insert catalog title multi-movie marathon of your choice.
I review Blu-rays and DVDs for this column, and I'm not shilling for recent releases here, rather, they reminded me of what I'd like to be doing if I weren't stuck working. When I was in school, I always ran through my VHS collection and on-the-fly programmed a movie marathon for myself.
5. Hybrid Option: Buy Man Hunt and rent Valkyrie
This week saw the release of what I'd consider an interesting home-based Let's Kill Hitler Double Feature separated by 67 years. I'll defend Singer's movie to anyone. It's good and worth a watch (particularly the extras...review also forthcoming), but not legendary. Fritz Lang's Man Hunt was released prior to American involvement in WWII, and features a Brit making a selfless sacrifice ten times more affecting than all of The Reader.
6. Take a blank notebook, go to an eatery where you can dine and stay, and put pen to paper.
7. Order a pizza, grab some beer, and clear out all your "I'll watch that when I have time" programs on your DVR, provided Time Warner (or your provider) hasn't accidentally erased it in the last week.
8. Clean your house. Throw away anything that you cannot sell that you no longer need. Knowing this is the year they push Blu-ray heavily over the holidays, prune away DVD titles you plan to upgrade now or soon.
9. Make some focused buys on good deals or movies you like. Love Westerns and/or John Wayne? Buy the new The Man Who Shot Liberty Valance and El Dorado (aka Rio Bravo 1.5). You can get any one of the following Blu-rays for $12.99: Dark City, Bullitt, The Wild Bunch, Superman: The Movie, The Adventures of Robin Hood, or Unforgiven.
Click on the links above to buy, with a portion going to support your bargain-hunting columnist's writing habit.
10. Watch the good stuff on Turner Classic Movies and write a letter/send an email/make a call to ask for it in HD fer cryin out loud!
Tonight: at 8pm, Battleground with Van Johnson and Ricardo Montalban.
Tomorrow: starting at 2:30pm, Where Eagles Dare (Burton & Eastwood), then The Bridge on the River Kwai (but have you seen it?), then Above and Beyond (Hiroshima pilot second thoughts), then The Dam Busters (Michael Redgrave fighting Nazis), capping it off with A Sailor-made Man (Harold Lloyd) and Shoulder Arms (Charlie Chaplin). Fall asleep around 2am.
Memorial Day: Wake up early at 7:45 for Sahara, truck through Hell is For Heroes (McQueen & Bobby Darin), and take a nap. Wake up in time for The Devil's Brigade/Dirty Dozen double feature at 12:30pm. Then try to keep it together for Kelly's Heroes, Sergeant York, and The Dawn Patrol, collapsing a little after midnight.
If you can do all that, you're tougher than I am, but at the very least, check the listings for war films you might not own but should see.
11. Convince your significant other to go in $10 on the Blu-ray of A Bug's Life, which includes a free ticket to see Up next weekend.
I must admit two things: this is the closest to a full cop-out on the price limitation, and I had never seen Pixar's second feature before Thursday. Yeah, yeah, I know. The movie is ten years old and I'm only now seeing it. It wasn't on my list as something to do on a friday night in High School. I haven't seen Cars either, but that'll probably happen next time we visit my in-laws, since Ashley's dad loves it. I'm also working on a review for this, but to put it succinctly, I consider Pixar releases like Criterion. I'll pay extra for them, and when you factor in the money off seeing Up, it's priced like a DVD, relatively speaking. Parents with small children can put the Digital Copy on an iPod and distract their kid at the airport, in the car, at the family BBQ...the list goes on.
12. Buy 14 lotto tickets. It might be your week!
I expect a guilt kickback if anyone takes me seriously and wins. Daddy needs a new ranch on Lake Travis.
13. Go see some live theatre.
When was the last time you saw a play or a musical? Do you have kids? Have they ever been to the theatre?
14. If you want to do something for soldiers, find as many DVDs as you can of your own or can buy on $20 and send them to armed service men and women recovering from battle.
My friend Scott Neumeyer started a Twitter-based phenomenon called #Troopflix a while back. There's no real time limit, as we seem to be perpetually engaged over there, and we never run out of wounded soldiers as long as we're fighting somewhere. Keep in mind who you're buying for or donating to when it comes to selection. From Scott:
Send to...
Care of LCDR Tim Drill
Camp Arifjan, EMF Kuwait (Navy)
Warrior Return Unit
APO AE 09366
Just write DVD Donations on the customs slip that you fill out at the post office. You SHOULD be able to ship via USPS Media Mail so it should be a very minimal cost for shipping. The address says (Navy) but all branches of the military go to the Warrior Return Unit. And if they receive any duplicate DVDs, LCDR Drill says that he will forward them out to other deployed commands. These are nearly all wounded troops returning so they have plenty of downtime and the DVDs are REALLY useful for them. The only restriction is NO PORNOGRAPHY.
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I could have written a list twice as long as this since so many are planning to see both Terminator and Night, but there are only so many hours in the day. It's currently pouring with no end in sight here in Austin, so it's a great night to go nowhere near a cinema. Instead, I wager I'll grab some grub on the way home and watch something worth my time.