Thursday 13: Netflix Edition

I wasn't going to do a Thursday 13 this week - hell, I haven't done one in forever, but then I got hit with a wave of inspiration and decided what the heck. So here it is.

The Last 13 DVDs I've Gotten from Netflix (starting with what I have at home now):

1) C.S.A - The Confederate States of America -- This is a mockumentary that depicts events that might have been had the Confederacy won the Civil War and reinstituted slavery in the North. It plays like a TV show that you're watching from the British Broadcasting Service because there are even faux commercials - the first one is for Confederate Family Insurance, protecting family and property (cut to an African American man trimming the hedges) for blah blah blah years. As a history buff and a big fan of "what-if" type stuff, this is really interesting to me, although ultimately it's flawed as the goal of the Confederacy was never to take over the North, but to establish their own country. I'm about half way through this one.

2) The Departed -- This year's Best Picture Oscar winner. I got it on the pretense of watching it prior to the Oscars. Didn't happen. And now, I'm not really in the mood for it, so I sent it back unwatched. I really hate it when I do that.

3) Bram Stoker's Dracula -- I hadn't seen this movie since it was out in theaters in 1992. Obviously, there was good reason for that. There was enough melodrama to sink a ship and the scenery chomping would have been forgivable had there been decent character development and pacing. Mostly, it just plays like bad 90s nostalgia. Heidi reviewed it in detail here.

4) Hard Candy -- OK, this was a good movie. Excruciating to watch at times, but still very good. Patrick Wilson plays a 30 something photographer who meets up with 15 year old Haley who he met in a chat room. Sounds like he's a predator, right. Well, maybe. But Haley has a few tricks of her own up her sleeve. Definitely worth watching and I have to say that admire Patrick Wilson for taking these meaty roles when he could just become the next Matthew McConaughey.

5) An Inconvenient Truth -- For all the cries of liberal bias and bad science, this was probably the best horror movie I've seen all year. Dear Lord, what ARE we doing to our planet? Definitely worth a look.

6) Harlan County, U.S.A. -- A movie about the plight of coal miners in 1970s Kentucky. See my blog post here for a more in depth look at it.

7) American Dream -- This was the Oscar winning documentary about striking workers at a Hormel plant in Minnesota that was directed by the same director that won the Oscar for Harlan County, U.S.A. I still think she was robbed that her latest documentary Shut Up & Sing (which is probably the next movie I'll get from Netflix) wasn't at least nominated for Best Documentary this year. Although it wouldn't have won (nothing could stop the freight train that was An Inconvenient Truth), it would have been a nice nod to this two time Oscar winner. Again, a more in depth look here.

8) Morvern Callar -- I tried to like this movie, but I couldn't do it. Perhaps it was just not the right time for me to watch it, but I couldn't do it. I watched about a half hour of it, and when the dialogue was so sparse and quiet that I realized I didn't know who half the characters were, I turned it off and sent it back.

9) Resident Evil: Apocalypse -- A sub par sequel to a great zombie movie. There were some good moments, but I really liked the original Resident Evil a whole lot more. Rumor has it there's another sequel in the works. You know I'll watch it - it IS zombies, after all.

10) Resident Evil -- My sister has been on my case to watch this movie for a very long time now. Usually, video games turned into movies don't fare very well (see Super Mario Bros. and Tomb Raider) but this one was very good. Of course, the fact that it was a zombie movie helped its cause immensely. There were some very good genuine scares and it was also very atmospheric as well. Plus, it had just about the best ending scene in a zombie movie that I've ever seen - even though it was an obvious set up for a sequel.

11) Strait Jacket -- Ah, it's a Joan Crawford "so-bad-it's-good" flick. Joan's been in the insane asylum for 20 years ("20 years of pure hell!") after axing her husband and his mistress. But now she's been released and is going to live with her grown daughter. Only now, there have been a series of ax murders that look remarkably like Joan's doing. Are they?

12) Severed: Forest of the Dead -- Yep, another zombie movie, and another one that I reviewed in detail before. Not a bad zombie movie. It was trying very hard to be 28 Days Later but it was still very capable.

13) Alice: TV Favorites -- Join Alice, Vera, Flo & Mel at Mel's Diner. And you can be assured that Flo will say "Kiss my grits!!" at least once per episode. Too bad there aren't complete seasons out there of Alice. It was always one of my favorite shows growing up.