The Fate of Tyrlon and other Dubious Things

So I started a free trial of Netflix in the middle of last week and got my first 3 selections on Saturday. I had picked out the three DVDs listed in the title of this post and was looking forward to seeing them. What i’m trying Netflix out for is that there are a lot of movies where i’m just not sure that I will like it or not so I don’t want to spend a lot of money buying the DVD and then ending up hating it. With Netflix I can just watch random DVDs that I might not otherwise have gotten to see, and since I’ll be paying a fixed monthly fee it won’t even matter if I don’t like the DVD. I can just drop it in the mail and receive the next selection on my list.

The first movie that I watched was “Sunshine” which is a great little sci-fi film, directed by Danny Boyle who you may know from his directing of such films as “Trainspotting” and “28 Days Later”. Sunshine has some really good CG effects and tells a good sci-fi story with a little bit of horror thrown in toward the end. It is sort of a cross-genre movie and I actually enjoyed it a lot. It stars Cillian Murphy of Scarecrow fame from the “Batman Begins” movie. I’d give the movie an 8.5/10 on the ubiquitous 1-10 scale.

The second movie that I had put in my queue was “Eternal Sunshine of the Spotless Mind“. The easiest way to tell you something about the story is to tell you that, “it’s a Charlie Kaufman story”. The movie was directed by Michel Gondry and starred Jim Carrey in a role a little bit outside his normal comedic background. The movie took me about an hour to really get into and realize what was going on. The visual effects played well into the movie and were nice and low key. Kate Winslet co-starred with Jim Carrey and both did an admirable job pulling off a different type of role. The basic premise of the movie is that two people who are in the later stages of a relationship (the “i hate you stage”) decide to erase the memory of each other from their mind using a fictional companies memory erasure procedure. The story follows the two as they struggle with the loss of something they don’t even remember. The movie, like most Charlie Kaufman films, tells multiple stories at the same time and doesn’t follow the normal beginning-middle-end of most movies. I can’t say more or i’ll ruin it, but i’d give Eternal Sunshine a 9/10.

The last DVD that I received from Netflix was “Robin Hood” which is a BBC TV series that started in 2006 (it is currently in production on its third season). I had never really heard about this show but Netflix recommended it to me based on my ratings and I always did love the Robin Hood legends. This show is one of the best shows that i’ve seen in a long time, and the casting is great. The characters are witty and have great banter. It is not your typical Robin Hood, but many of the normal elements are still there (deadly marksman, rob the rich and give to the poor, Earl of Locksley etc). This is a great show to pick up on DVD if you can or rent from Blockbuster or Netflix. I’m anxiously awaiting the next 3 discs of the first season (Netflix doesn’t send you the entire box set - you have to get each disc separately for TV shows). I’d give Robin Hood a 9.5/10 as far as TV shows go. If you like witty dialogue and British humor, you’ll love Robin Hood. The show can be purchased from Amazon, but it is pretty expensive (as most BBC shows are) considering it is only 13 episodes.

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