The Last Movie You Saw On DVD or VHS or TV.

Last night I watched The Grand Budapest Hotel, the cast is first class and all though it's a little oddball, it's a terrific movie to watch.

A treasured album from Arhoolie in the 70s in my collection

I enjoyed that one immensely in part because it is oddball.

They seemed part of the great American tradition of preservation.

Inspired by having watched This Ain't No Mouse Music and Ain't In It for My Health -- A Documentary About Levon Helm, I decided to rewatch The Last Waltz. I found the performances more slick and more polished than I did when I originally watched it, but, was impressed again by both The Band and the film itself.

Scorcese has a deft touch with music docs.
The Blues comes to mind

If you've never seen "The Men Who Built America", I highly recommend it, it's on Netflix. Cornelius Vanderbilt. John D. Rockefeller. Andrew Carnegie. J.P. Morgan. Henry Ford. For better or worse, they moved America forward (despite also sometimes being ruthless bastards).

Just try to ignore the fact that they interview Donald Trump and Carly Fiorina during the episodes.

Senator Nelson Rockefeller, grandson of John D., even says he respects his grandfather's ambition but does not respect his methods. Either way, your family is rich forever.

I saw a terrible opinion driven documentary called Dark Legacy in which the one man operation John Hankey proposes that Prescott Bush was behind the Kennedy assassination.

While the quality of Hankey's evidence is thin and his methods are questionable, I have to admit that Prescott makes more sense as a possible mastermind than the others who have been suggested: Cubans, LBJ, Jackie and her second husband, even the mafia, although the mafia would have the power and a reason . . . but, if it is true that Kennedy wanted to dismantle the CIA, than Prescott would also have the motivation.

My lazy Sunday has consisted of watching the last 2 things I cared about on HBO. Legend with Tom Cruise was honestly bland and boring and I'm someone who likes fantasy. However, it was apparently the inspiration for the Legend of Zelda so it gets bonus points. And I just now finished The Lego Movie. It was entertaining. Some of the subtle references were fun, some were painfully forced. Unfortunately, it renewed my desire to buy ridiculously expensive Lego Star Wars sets and use them to decorate the kids playroom.

Saturday I watched 'The Sixth Sense', wow, what a great flick.

I recently watched the new 2013 version of Superman -- the one with Henry Cavill in it. Overall it was just awful, but there was one thing I liked about it. In most films about extraterrestrials, the ET's are either all friendly or all hostile. In either case, they are presented as monolithic. This movie suggests a third possibility: that the alien species is at war with itself, faction versus faction, in a fight that spills over into our world. Wonderfully realistic and refreshing to see to aliens with conflicting motives.

We have it on DVD, it is a great flick.

I just saw a fairly new movie - 'Z for Zachariah' with Chris Pine, Margot Robbie and Chiwetel Ejiofor. And no one else. I mean, they are the only actors in the movie. It's about a post apocalyptic world where the two men are in contention for the last woman on earth. It had promise - I like the actors; love Ejiofor. But, without spoiling it for anyone I'll just say the ending struck me as kinda meh.

Just watched "Shakespeare in Love" last night along with all the dvd extras. One of a very few dvds I have but gonna watch it again tonight.

I was so unimpressed with "Shakespeare in Love" I wanted to ask for a refund of the ticket price. It actually won Oscars, and that was almost criminal.

I've started watching it 3 times...I'll try again

Gwyneth Paltrow's overindulgent tears at an awards ceremony put me off it for life.

I watched about half of a multi-part junk documentary series on aliens which says there are many alien races with varying value systems. That makes sense if there are aliens.

The series, Alien Files Unsealed, is not as bad as the history channel's Ancient Astronaut stuff, but, it keeps saying it will prove but never does.

It's two strongest arguments are the descriptions of vimanas in the Ramayama (which have a parallel in Irish Medieval writings) and the statement made that after "Roswell," science rapidly expanded. Of course, the argument about after Roswell can be countered with the fact that WWII was a technological war and that scientists were commissioned to work together which meant more rapid development and that many of the German scientists who worked on the V-2 rocket came to the US and to other European nations to continue working on scientific products.

Frankly, I do not trust programs as poorly presented and reasoned as Alien Files Unsealed but they are entertaining.

Until I saw The National Theatre Live production of Shaw's Man and Superman, I was not impressed by Ralph Fiennes. After seeing that filmed stage performance, I looked him up and was surprised by how many of his movies I had seen without noting his presence.

I remember after seeing Shakespeare in Love, which glitterbag hated, starring his younger brother, that women were swooning over the Fiennes brothers.

I found Ralph ugly.

But, I was in the middle of a project which involved seeing as many plays as I could during the summer and I once took a course in Shaw but had never seen him performed. Well, Ralph Fiennes' acting -- his character is the play -- blew me away.

When I noticed that netflix was presenting a 1992 version of Wuthering Heights, starring Ralph and Juliette Binoche (who I always liked), I decided to watch it, despite its poor Rotten Tomatoes' rating.

I liked the film as it was closer to the book than other versions and featured three strong performers: Fiennes, Binoche and Janet McTeer as the housekeeper, Nellie Dean. McTeer is one of those actresses whose face, even when she does not speak, reveals everything the audience needs to know about a scene,

The English critics hated that a French actress played the great English heroine but Binoche manages to always project a combination of strength and delicacy that was well suited to playing both Catherine and her daughter.

Fiennes was both menacing and sadistic, yet heart-tugging as the abused Heathcliffe who punishes those who do not support him. My only argument was with his hair. Why doesn't male hair dye well? George Clooney recently said men who dye their hair look awful and they do. I understand that the young Ralph with his light brown hair and green eyes does not look like Heathcliffe anymore than the brown eyed, brunette Juliette looks like Cathy's daughter, but, with his hair/wig he looked more like Tonto than like Heathcliffe.

The film is slow but so is the book. I do recommend it.

Alex of Venice was a friendly diversion - if that sounds like faint praise, it is.

I was briefly hooked on the snappy, smart-ish dialogue in Helen Hunt's Ride. Ten minutes in, the snappy dialogue seems screechy.

Reminded me of surfing though. Realistic ocean-swallowing wipe outs of a middle-aged woman who really hates putting on her wetsuit. I feel ya Helen. Beautiful California. So, I liked it despite myself.