Somehow I had never got round to watching the first Rambo film. I missed it as a little boy, forgot or postponed watching it when I got older, tried to watch our VHS copy a few months ago, and discovered that it had never existed; a case of mislabelling meant we had two copies of the first sequel. I had seen trailers and read reviews of the most recent Rambo flick, and had seen the third film, in which Rambo rescues the Colonel from Hot Shots! Part Deux and blows up a Soviet armoured brigade in Afghanistan with the aid of the Mujahideen. After seeing that, I realised that the actor playing the colonel had been chosen because of his part in the Rambo films. I do wonder how much airplay that Afghanistan-set film gets these days, now that the soldiers and vehicles being shot up and blown up are not villainous Soviets. I digress.
There are a few films such as this. I have never seen Titanic, nor Avatar. I do fancy seeing the latter, although I keep missing it when it's on the telly. Titanic, however, has nothing that strikes me as worth my time, so I expect to go to my grave ignorant of the film's details. I tend to trust my gut on these things. I once was compelled by a girlfriend to watch What Lies Beneath, and it was just excruciating. She had insisted on watching a favourite film of mine, American Psycho, and after about ten minutes had dragged her legs in front of her body, and was clutching them tightly with her arms in a classic defensive posture. I turned the film off and she was quite pleased about that. One of my housemates and friends at the time had a love of horror flicks, and he enjoined us to watch Cannibal Ferox (or perhaps Cannibal Holocaust). I kept a close eye on her, and after about five minutes we abandoned that one, too. Such films are not for everyone - especially not for people who find American Psycho too unnerving!
Clockwork Orange and Blue Velvet are a pair of films, the subject-matter of which dissuades me from viewing. Obviously, that's quite different from my reaction to Titanic, which simply fails to excite or interest me a jot or to the film of The Da Vinci Code, which was just appalling. I did watch that, mistakenly thinking that there was a good comedy to be had from such a thunderingly bad book. I tried to read it, and got no further than a chapter or two in. I expect that there is a good comedy in all that faux-sincere, turgid prose, but that film was not it. I went to see Tomb Raider with some friends, and to this day it is the only film that still makes me remember it strongly enough to wish I had just left my friends to suffer it alone. Perhaps my problem was never having played the game, but then again, my friend, Si, who was a fan of the series, thought it every bit as dreadful as I did! I caught the end of it the other day, as my young lady is a bit of a fan, and was surprised to see Daniel Craig in it.
I'm not typically a pushover when it comes to awful stuff like that. For instance, she started watching Desperate Housewives the other day, and I retreated upstairs and read some Gibbon for half an hour! I returned and we both watched Tucker and Dale vs. Evil, and laughed ourselves silly. I really recommend that film to you, if you have a funny bone!On that cheery note I wish you all a pleasant Sunday! Maybe you should pop on an old film and take it easy.
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