Journal of a Sick Man

So I'm sick. I've been battling something for the entire Fall/Winter since the weather can't pick something and stick with it, and it's come to a head this week(end). Right now, I have what I'll only describe as a (fairly) productive cough, and since my lungs are covered in some kind of sticky goo...it's completely affected my ability to be active in any way.

It probably didn't help that, even though I felt sick since last week, I spent most of the week going to Stars' games, playing tennis, and going to bed after 11pm. So I'm remedying that with a lot of rest and television watching this weekend. I also spent like $60 on medicine.

Anyway, one of the "perks" of being sick is that I've been able to catch up on all of the shows I've missed over the course of the week, and I was able to watch three movies yesterday. And since today is Oscar day, I'll give you a brief review of the movies. I was hoping to see "The Wrestler" yesterday, but that would've involved me getting up and putting on big people clothes.

Now the three movies are, in order that I watched them, "3:10 to Yuma" , "Balls of Fury" , and "RoboCop"

Remember that I didn't want to get up and go outside. So my choices were all derived from free movies that I already had on DVD/Blu-Ray ("3:10 to Yuma"), free movies On Demand (because I wasn't going to pay $4 to watch something I was only mildly interested in...and that's where "Balls of Fury" came in), or on Hulu ("RoboCop").

3:10 to Yuma

I thought the acting in this movie was great, but I would've loved this movie if it'd bothered with a plot. Ashley and I watched this movie (we started Monday and finished yesterday), and we could only summarize this movie as "Russell Crowe gets on a train and a lot of people die in the process." I've never been huge on Westerns, but I've actually watched a lot of the best ones made. I can certainly say that it was a well-done movie, but I can't say that I enjoyed it. But Crowe and Christian Bale rock, and they did a fantastic job.

Balls of Fury

You're going to have to believe me, but this was my best option On Demand. I checked, and there was absolutely nothing. And while I didn't really want to see it, I knew that I was going to see it eventually (because it's been On Demand for a couple of months, and it's always been my "maybe" movie). And I thought it would at least be entertaining.

And it wasn't. "Balls of Fury" is one of the dumbest movies that I've ever seen and not in a good way. It was one of those movies that I started, quickly realized my mistake, but decided to fight through anyway. I should've known it was going to be bad, since it starred a guy I'd never heard of (so even Rob Schneider passed on it), and "the guy from Mortal Kombat" was one of the three people I did recognize.

"Balls of Fury" attempted to do to ping pong what "Dodgeball" did for dodgeball. And I guess it did make me want to play ping pong, but that might've just sounded really fun instead of watching the movie.

RoboCop

And this was another example of "this was the best that was offered." Considering I paid nothing to watch either "Balls of Fury" or "RoboCop" I can't really complain. But, for this one, it came down to either this movie or "Karate Kid" - another cult classic from the 80s that I'd never seen. I flipped a coin, and it landed on "RoboCop"

Incidentally, Hulu has all three RoboCop movies for free.

And it was basically what I expected it to be. It was a crazy, uber-violent, 80s movie that entertained me. I came in with pretty low expectations, and I was satisfied with what I got. There was cheesy dialogue, bad 80s special effects, and cliched characters, but it was a movie I found myself enjoying.

I also have always found it odd that Dallas was chosen for the filming location. As far as I know, it's the biggest film to ever be shot in Dallas...according to wikipedia, it was chosen for its "futuristic buildings" - and I guess I see it in some kind of retro 80s way. But it was kind of cool to recognize buildings in some of the scenes, and it was cool that futuristic Detroit is just 80s Dallas. So you can imagine how cool Dallas will be in the future.

I was disappointed to read that RoboCop 2 was filmed in Houston. Seriously?

Summary

All in all, I can't give a great review to any of these movies. They did a great job of wasting my sick-time, but I would've preferred to be outside doing something else. But as a guy who'd like to see as many movies as possible, I can at least knock a couple more off the list.