Confessions of a Liberal Puritan

After spending most of my Christmas vacation with my parents being sick as a dog and unable to do more than cough up phlegm and fitfully sleep the days away in my Dad's recliner, I drove back from Wisconsin on Saturday, January 5th (in plenty of time to preach on Epiphany Sunday), and since then I've finally been getting back to seeing movies in the theater, after what feels like (and apparently WAS) many, many months of NOT going to the movies.

I'll try to note below where there may be spoilers in my very, VERY BRIEF review comments.

( Django Unchained )

Then, after a faculty meeting on Jan. 11, I saw "Jack Reacher", followed by "Skyfall".

( Jack Reacher )

( Skyfall )

Most recently, after church yesterday, I saw "Zero Dark Thirty" and "Les Miserables".

( Zero Dark Thirty )

( Les Miserables )

( Les Miz, cont'd (minor spoiler, possibly) )

Since I was far too sick to go out and see any movies while I was with my family in Wisconsin over Christmas and New Year, my sister did her best to at least keep me entertained with DVDs.

( DVD summary )

( Prometheus DVD (possible minor spoilers) )

It's been so long since I could actually watch a cartoon on Saturday morning and thoroughly enjoy it -- not have my intelligence insulted, or be filled with an overwhelming desire to reach for the 'fast-forward' button on the remote.

But this morning the cartoon series Batman: the Brave and the Bold (which rarely occupies my full attention, and occasionally seems too lame even for watching while eating my Saturday morning oatmeal) finally justified its continued existence on my DVR timer list with a really clever, well-done rip-off of the BtVS episode "Once More, With Feeling": Mayhem of the Music Meister.

Neil Patrick Harris as the voice of the musical super-villain (hmm, wonder if anybody ELSE ever thought of doing that first?) is superb, singing his heart out and putting the 'fun' in 'dysfunctional' ( Read more... )

What a nice surprise to wake up to! I'd advise anyone who enjoys musicals and/or animated super heroes from the DC universe to check it out in re-runs, if you didn't catch it on the Cartoon Network this time around.

I've seen every Lerner & Loewe movie musical numerous times on TV over the years, and I used to have at least a couple on VHS (Paint Your Wagon and Camelot -- and I had all the soundtracks on vinyl, of course!), but I still gave in to the temptation to record Gigi off of TCM Sunday afternoon and re-watch it, just for the sake of nostalgia.

And you know what? I noticed something this time that I'd never seen before.( somewhat lengthy ramblings on relationships, movies as mirrors, and the virtues of fannish re-viewing )

And speaking of mirrors, isn't it strange to look in an old familiar one -- like an often-watched movie, or a novel you've re-read many times over -- and realize that you might finally be ready to leave behind some of your own childish issues (once so prominently displayed there) and see something a little more substantial, in its place?