Monday 3 August 2009

Film recommendations please

A while back I thought I'd rent a DVD for H and me. We haven't been to the cinema much since K was born (er, once together plus once on my own?), and we haven't even rented many DVDs either so I thought I'd have lots of great films to choose from, but actually I had difficulty finding one single film I wanted to watch...

There were lots of films in the 'big-on-budget-low-on-story' disaster genre (generally seeming to be about the end of the world), plenty of action films and lots of horror flicks. I didn't really want stupid comedy either, nor did I think H would be very interested in girly romantic comedies. In the end I rented 'Blindness'. The basic storyline is that everyone (in the country? in the world? I don't really know) goes blind, except for one woman. Now obviously I didn't expect this to be a laugh a minute, but I did think that it sounded interesting and original. Actually it was horrible. H and I struggled to think of one part of it which we actually enjoyed. I could have quite easily just stopped watching it half-way through.

One problem I have with a lot of films (and TV shows - 24 springs to mind...) nowadays (sounding like an old granny here...) is that there seems to be so much really nasty, torture-like violence. I've never really liked blood-and-guts horror films much, but I used to say that 'suspense' was one of my favourite types of film. However, the films labelled 'suspense' recently don't really match my definition. My idea of a 'suspense' film is one that asks things like 'What really happened to the wife of the gruff architect (probably played by Harrison Ford)? Did she really just leave him and all her stuff? Is it a good idea for his new girlfriend to be poking around in his attic? Why was he digging up the patio in the middle of the night?' You know the kind of thing.

I'm not quite ready for a diet of Disney yet mind you. I do like serious stories as well as more lighthearted stuff. So, what can you recommend?

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