We have Kite Runner from Netflix sitting on our TV stand. It's been sitting there since Thursday. This weekend we watched: the new Bond movie, Iron Man, The Matrix Reloaded and The Matrix Revolutions, a Seinfeld episode, and 2 Season 3 X-Files episodes. And Dale watched some football. (A note to the few who don't know - I've been sick all weekend so our movie watching was unusually high). We did not watch Kite Runner.
See, I've read the book. I know what's in that movie. It's one of those movies that's good for you. Everyone knows they should watch it. It's like Hotel Rwanda or Crash - movies that contain incredibly painful content but also contain incredibly painful truths. So we rent these movies, because we know we ought to, but we hesitate to watch them. It's kind of like that volume of Shakespeare on the bookshelf, or the dusty piano in the corner - our cultural guilt. Right? We own Shakespeare, but we avidly check out all the Dexter books from the library and secretly read them with great pleasure. Intellectual junk food. :)
I'm pretty sure we'll watch Kite Runner. Probably. heehee, maybe we'll just want til Mom and Dad are here and make them watch it with us! Most depressing Thanksgiving movie ever!
What kinds of movies or books do you get just cause they're good for you?
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5 comments:
You can count out Mom and Dad! I've read that book too, and it is so sad that I'm avoiding the movie. Do you think they will make one of "A Thousand Splendid Suns?" If so, I'll avoid that also. I can only take very small doses of depressing situations about which I can do nothing.
That's really funny because, of late, I have been voluntarily reading Shakespeare. This last week I read all of Romeo and Juliet and a good amount of the sonnets. He's so poetic!
I love Shakespeare! And I can read sad books, like "A Thousand Splendid Suns." But reading is a "cooler" medium than movies, and I can't take much movie violence or tragedy.
We saw Kite Runner. They use YELLOW subtitles! Over desert scenes and cheesy 70s orange decor! And 85% is in Farsi and needs subtitles. Only a few scenes in San Fran are in English. Plus it is a faithful adaptation of the book. Very faithful. Nothing new was added except for seeing the kites spin around. I like faithful adaptations, but at the end of the day, you are left wondering if you really gained anything from adding the visuals. So it is a double burden to watch.
Send it back and catch "Forgetting Sarah Marshall", if you haven't already. There's an exchange that will fry the Netflix preferences computer!
The most recent book I actually read that was good for me was A Thousand Splendid Suns (I see a pattern here . . . ). I only finished it because it was for bookclub. I had to take a break after the first section to recover from the trauma. But I'm glad I read it, and I didn't think the ending was as sad as it could of been. I just got The Golden Notebook by Doris Lessing (the Nobel winner who I find appealingly grumpy), and will try to convince myself to read it before it has to go back to the library.
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