I always liked going to the video store to browse the shelves and find something good to rent but... Lately I just have not been able to find many new movies worth watching. If a movie was worth watching there was a 75% chance I would go ahead and buy the DVD rather than renting it. The biggest renter in my family is probably my daughter. Have you checked the number of variant Sponge Bob DVDs that are on the market? Talk about a parental repackaging collecting nightmare!
"But Dad, this one has all the Plankton episodes on it!"
"But, I already bought you the complete first two seasons on DVD!!!"
"But, but, this one just has all the Sandy episodes from Season one on it, can I get it? It's only $14.99!"
So, we took the plunge and signed up for Netflix
So, within about two days the DVDs came in. With school right around the corner we didn't get to watch them right away. Every day I would peer at their little red envelopes and wonder if that night would be the night we watched them.
Finally, the night arrived. I put in the first DVD, The Bourne Supremacy, and went into the kitchen to make tea and popcorn.
Yes, I said *tea* and *popcorn*! You can call me old if you want to but I enjoy a movie just fine with tea and popcorn. Besides, we watch at night, after my daughter has gone to bed, why would I want to get wired on soda when I can relax with tea???
Where was I? Oh yes... After the popcorn and tea were ready we sat down on the couch and started watching the movie. We had this strange deja vu feeling that lasted all of five minutes, and then we knew.
"Didn't we see this before," asked my wife?
"Hmm.. I'm not sure, I thought we only saw the first one," I countered.
"No, I remember the thing with the headaches."
Isn't that interesting? Here I was thinking, "oh yeah, doesn't he go on a big rampage because his hot girlfriend gets killed" and my wife was thinking, "headaches, yep I can relate to that!" So I turned to her.
"You are right honey. I messed up and ordered a DVD that we have already seen. I'm sorry."
I know what you're thinking, time for a 5 minute break in the movie action. He just admitted he was wrong; no woman can resist that...
"You're not going to make me watch that other movie, are you," was what she said next."
See, the *other* movie was an anime flick called Steamboy. I'd read about it, seen a bunch of books on it at the comic book store, but knew very little about it, so I put it in the queue. That and the fact it was on the front page of the anime section!
So, I pop out the DVD and put in the anime one and sit back to watch.
Now, I'm a big anime fan. I'm one of those guys that will put on the English subtitles and leave the Japanese dialog in place but... The first thing that greatly offended me was the English dubbing did not match the English subtitles, it was not even close. It was a case of the dubbed voice saying, "Hey watch out, the pressure is too high and your going to get us all killed" and the subtitles saying, "That's dangerous, stop!"
I have not seen such bad dub to subtitle work since Crouching Tiger Hidden Dragon. When they dropped American slang words into the dialogue on that movie they forced me to go back to the Mandarin audio...
Back to Steamboy... It's a movie about a kid, who gets this ball of steam and some other folks want to get it back. It came out as being far too preachy for my tastes and it was just plain boring to me. My wife fell asleep somewhere during the movie and I had to try like hell to keep my interest level high enough to avoid the same fate... Perhaps I should have had a soda?
Once the movie finally ended my wife and I went to bed. While lying in bed I looked over at her and said, "I'm sorry I put you through that dear."
By that time of night we were too tired to do much else than sleep...
The next day I sent those two DVDs back. I don't know what will come in next as I have lost my power over the queue.