Saturday, December 31, 2011

Netflix Movies That Don't Suck- The Next Three Days

Of all the Netflix instant movies i've watched, this comes the most highly recommended, even though thats not saying much. While a little bit far fetched at times, the movie actually was engaging most of the time. The Next Three Days stars Russell Crowe and Liam Neeson and is a thriller/ suspense movie that has some suspense to it, and its kind of cool I guess how the movie comes full circle at the end (you know what I mean if you've watched it).

The plot centers around a husband and wife and their child, and the wife is arrested at the very beginning of the movie after allegedly killing her boss. The husband, determined that his wife is innocent, fights the charges through the courts for a while, then meticulously comes up with a plan to break his wife out of prison. The movie is pretty good for a movie you'd pay to see, which makes it a winner for an instant pick.

Wednesday, December 28, 2011

Netflix instant movies that do suck- Outbreak

Swing and a miss. After seeing the movie Contageon, I was sorely disappointed and a little depressed to be honest. But I didn't lose faith, I was still looking for a decent movie on the same theme and I thought I'd found it-- I thought I'd found it for the first 10 minutes of the movie.

The cast is pretty solid- Dustin Hoffman, Renee Russo, Morgan Freeman, Kevin Spacey, and Cuba Gooding jr. The actual movie, however, super disappointing. The movie centers around a disease that was found in 1967 in Zaire. The town that was infected was firebombed in order to keep the disease from spreading. The disease than surfaces in the same area 27 years later, is transmitted to America by a monkey, which is sold to a suburban California pet store. The conflict of the movie is between Col. Sam Daniels, who believes the town can be saved, and the white house who threaten to firebomb the town. There is also a weird love story between Col. Daniels and his ex- wife. The end of the movie just sucks. It isn't realistic at all, and they try to make it overly sentimental and emotional, but miserably fail at it.

Tuesday, December 27, 2011

Netflix Movies That Don't Suck- Ronin

Netflix recommended this one for me, giving it a 3.7, whatever that meant. So pretty much, it had a lot of stars, so I watched it. At the end, its two hours that I didn't want back, although it wasn't exactly two hours I spent riveted to my computer screen either. The movie is starring Robert DiNero and although I'm not a huge movie buff, I've heard the name before so thats what got me real interested. Robert (I can call him that because we're on a first name basis) and his group of 5 ex- operatives are set to intercept a case that the Russians are trying to get their hands on as well. The case is then stolen from DiNero's gang by a defector from their team. The conflict, then, is between the British team of ex- operatives, the Irish and the Russians. It took me a while to figure out what was going on.

So, Like I said, a pretty decent movie for what its worth. Lots of action, car chases, and people getting shot. So thats good. Definitely not a movie I'd see in theaters, but worth a couple hours of your time.

Netflix instant movies that don't suck (and some that do)

So running. I've hit a rough patch of late, and am lacking in motivation. A week before Christmas, I ran my peak week of 120 miles for the Zoom Zah Yah indoor marathon. Turns out, I'm not going to be running that race.

So now I'm sitting at home with nothing to do. I mean, my parents house. I start my last month of work next week, which leaves me with a week of pretty much nothing to do but sleep and run. And watch copious amounts of netflix and reading a lot of Foreign Policy Magazine, as well as working on grad school apps and peace corps apps and job apps and all that stuff. It occurred to me a couple days ago that there are almost no good movies on Netflix. At all. So, I'll rate the ones I'm watching, post 'em up, and hopefully both of us can find some good movies or at least halfway decent ones.