My Massive Blockbuster Haul (Part Deux)

Considering that the Blockbuster down the road from me is still open for a few weeks and seeing that the movies were dropped down by another couple bucks to $5.99, I decided to pick up a few more last night.  Despite the fact that their inventory is shrinking, they still have a lot to choose from but this time my haul isn't as massive as it was before.  Maybe I showed a bit more restraint but I think either next week or the week after, hopefully they'll be even cheaper and I'll just go nuts on the leftovers.  But this is what I got last night, along with a few thoughts of what I've been watching.

Hamlet 2 - I've already seen this as my ex-roommate had it but, much like Street Fighter: The Legend of Chun-Li, I wanted a copy of my own when he moved out.  I thought it was going to be some stupid pretentious indie comedy but it's really quite awesome and I'll suggest it to anyone with a skewed sense of humor like myself.

I Love You, Man - Again another movie I saw (this time at a New Year's Eve party) that I wanted for my own.  You really can't go wrong with Paul Rudd, ever.

Aqua Teen Hunger Force Colon Movie Film For Theaters (For DVD) - I'm a pretty big Aqua Teen fan, even though I kinda gave up watching after Season 4 and I still have yet to get the other seasons on DVD.  I think this was played at the local Cheap-O-Plex (which is sadly no more) for like a week or two and I missed it.  Then when it came to DVD, it was (and still probably is) about $30 on the store shelves.  I had attempted to buy a used copy at Family Video last year but when I found out they had thrown away the bonus disc (which has so many deleted scenes that it's basically a whole other movie), I took it back and ended up getting Hostel II or something.  Thankfully Blockbuster didn't throw away the bonus disc so now I have a copy.

Drag Me To Hell - This was pretty much the only movie that came out last year that I was pissed off about missing in theaters.  I was psyched to see Sam Raimi return to horror (Spider-Man 3 doesn't count) and most people have said that this is the closest we'll ever get to an Evil Dead 4.  So I'm pretty excited to finally see it.

The Rebel - I saw a trailer for this on a few other Dragon Dynasty titles (including Battle of the Warriors, which I'll touch on later) and it looked pretty awesome.  Actually, the trailer started off kinda slow, making you think it's some sort of drama, but then out of nowhere people are getting kicked in the face left and right.  So yeah, this is basically People Getting Kicked In The Face Hard: The Movie.  And sometimes that's all you need to sell me on it.

So, those five movies cost me about $30 total.  Not bad, eh?  I don't know if they intend on knocking prices down any further but I'm not sure what else I would get.  I'm holding off on some of the more mainstream movies considering they have A TON of them.  There's literally about two shelves worth of Crank 2 that's tempting me, despite me not having seen the first one.  Also, I might pick up Watchmen and just forget about the Director's Cut.  I still haven't seen it since I saw it in theaters and want to see if it holds up.  Also, they don't have a lot of video games and they're only knocking them down by 30% (compared to the 60% for movies) but they do have a copy of Smackdown vs Raw 2010 for the Wii left.  It would end up being about $28 which isn't too bad but I'd like it to be cheaper, especially since it's used.  But if it's there next weekend, I'll probably pick it up.

As for what I've been watching, it's not much.  The "Watch" pile is much larger than the "Have Watched" pile and would be even more so if half of the movies in the "Have Watched" pile I hadn't already seen before buying.  I watched Battle of the Warriors with my roommate for his birthday and it was pretty good.  It's pretty similar to Seven Samurai but instead of seven samurai protecting a small village from bandits in feudal Japan, it's one war strategist protecting a small kingdom from being invaded by a larger kingdom in ancient China.  Despite being under the Dragon Dynasty label, it's not a martial arts movie but a war movie and pretty well done, despite some of the CGI being suspect.  However, it runs a bit long at just over 2 hours with a lengthy battle taking place before the first hour ends, making you think that the movie's over, so I kinda lost my attention span after that point.  Also, the ending's a bit of a downer but I still recommend it.  I already mentioned Terror Toons in my previous entry so the less said about that, the better.  I also watched Murder-Set-Pieces and I'm half-tempted to save that for a more long-winded review, possibly even a video review should I ever get a camera.  So, not to go too in-depth, let me just say a part of me wanted to like it but overall, it's not that great.  I know horror movies aren't exactly known for being "deep" but Murder-Set-Pieces is more shallow than a shot glass.  Truth be told, I did get the edited version and there is an unrated cut with an extra 20-something minutes that were too gory and reprehensible but I'll hold off on checking that out for now.

Finally, I watched Pontypool a few nights ago and it was very good.  If you saw my link to The Spoony Experiment, he equates it to radio theater and he's right on the money.  Of course, I'm sure it helped that the movie was based on a novel which was turned into a radio play.  Basically, the entirety of the movie takes place inside of a radio station while a riotous outbreak takes place outside amongst a small town.  So instead of seeing what happens, you hear what happens and its actually really effective.  I heard some flack on the IMDB boards saying that this is a horrible zombie movie because you hardly see them do anything but it's not really a zombie movie (despite a review on the box saying so).  The "zombies" in Pontypool are as much zombies as they are in the 28 Days/Weeks Later movies: they're infected.  In this case, the infection is carried through certain words in the English language and when they're understood by a person, they go crazy and attack.  It's a very interesting concept but to me, it kinda falls apart at the end when the main characters figure out how to "cure" the disease...or at least think they do.  But still, that doesn't take away Pontypool's originality.  I am sort of bummed that I bought this at Blockbuster though as even though it's been available to rent, Pontypool was just released for sale in stores this week and the Special Features include the original radio play among other things, while my mere rental copy just has a trailer.  Oh well.