DVD Tales: Blue Planet to Bourne Supremacy

Following from Blood Simple...

Blue Planet (BBC, 2001)
After a lot of Walking with... documentaries, I was looking for another hot animal series. There are a LOT, but are they any good? The only one I knew by reputation was Blue Planet, which I'd been interested in for a while when I made my move and bought all 8 episodes. Some images from wide across the series will stay with you, like the tuna feeding frenzy, but my favorite has to be The Deep, not only for the first look (ever) at some really weird species, but also for that heavier-than-water "lake" at the bottom of the ocean. It is surreal.

Boogie Nights (Paul Thomas Anderson, 1997)
This movie enjoyed an excellent reputation in that contingent of my friends who liked porn a lot, but it's not until PTA's Magnolia became my favorite film of all time that I went ahead and purchased it. Turns out to be good, but an overlong, meandering, anecdotal film, which isn't my cup of tea. Anecdotal stories, whether written or filmed have never really turned me on. Still, it IS interesting, and several set pieces are great fun.


Bottle Rocket (Wes Anderson, 1996)
Got this one the cheap when it was suggested by Amazon as something I'd like. I guess I do own a lot of gangster movies. I didn't even make the connection between Wes Anderson's other work and this one until after I'd seen it.
This Week in Geek had a short review to which I really have nothing to add.

Bourne Identity (Doug Liman, 2002)
I hadn't seen any of the Bourne movies when I ordered both sometime last year, though I'd heard good things. I wasn't disappointed. You wouldn't think Matt Damon could be an action hero, but it works. It works like Bruce Willis suddenly worked in Die Hard. A great "realistic" spy thriller than has since engendered James Bond Begins, I'm quite sure, and a DVD release that pays hommage to the real CIA and the book's author as much as the film making process.

Bourne Supremacy (Paul Greengrass, 2004)
Changing directors is usually a sign that a sequel won't live up to the original, but Paul Greengrass pulls it off. His grittier style has more intense action, but it's still believable as Jason Bourne's world. That autoduel in Russia is especially kickass. I don't go to the theaters very often, but between these two films and Casino Royale, I've wet such an appetite for The Bourne Ultimatum, that I won't be waiting for the DVD. Wow, that will be the first film I see this summer. I've been a recluse.

But what did YOU think? Next: Bowling for Columbine to Bubba Ho-Tep.

Comments

Anonymous said…
Ouuuuhhhh new header...what's with the change?
Siskoid said…
Would you believe: Because I can?
rob! said…
i loved Boogie Nights (and Magnolia, and P-D Love), because Anderson is just so in love with movie-making, and it shows. i wish he made films more often!
Siskoid said…
The latest one has been 5 or 6 years coming. According to IMDB it should release no later than next year and is called There Will Be Blood.

Their synopsis: A story about family, greed, religion, and oil, centered around a turn-of-the-century Texas prospector (Daniel Day-Lewis) in the early days of the business.

Sounds like a massive interlinked story, at which PTA excels.