It's been kind of slow on the DVD front...

A couple of times a year I hit a wall. I get to a point where I feel like I am using way too much energy just trying to find a good movie to watch. Now, as many of you may be able to tell, I am pretty easily entertained, and I can usually find something enjoyable in every movie, but lately I've been running out of new releases to watch and I've been delving into my Blockbuster online resources trying to find some good movies that I may have missed in the past few years. Hence the reason that I recently watched An Unfinished Life (2005) and Stir of Echoes (1999). I also went back to the New Release wall and rented Obsessed, Observe and Report, and Duplicity. Let's just say I didn't knock any out of the park this past week, but I only struck out once, which, if you're taking down stats, isn't too bad.

I think I'll review my recent viewing from worst to first, that can be my rating system until my roommate Timmy can think of a better one for me to use.

BAD. Obsessed. Do you ever wonder how some movies go to the theater, have wide releases, have big name stars, and are so bad they are kind of laughable? I was wondering that from the beginning of the movie to the end. Non-stop. The name of this movie should be called A Boring Dude and Two Crazy Ass Women. Some one decided to take Fatal Attraction, take out everything that made that movie cool, and you'll have this movie.

Let me just briefly explain the premise. Idris Elba (if you don't know the name, you most certainly will recognize him) plays an executive who has the "perfect" life. The opening montage is meant to inform the viewer of this as he and his wife (Beyonce) are have just bought a new home and are just walking through it and exchanging glances. It is so bad and cheesy that I was literally laughing out loud at how bad it was and how awkward and uncomfortable it was. But I digress. Ali Larter (the whipped cream bikini girl from Varsity Blues) is a temp at Elba's company, who, after one sort-of, mildly, kinda, maybe flirty conversation, becomes, drum roll, Obsessed with Elba's character. I used all those vague adjectives to describe the conversation because Elba's character is too boring to flirt. But there is really nothing else that happens between Elba's and Larter's characters to fuel this obsession, except maybe one compliment thrown to Larter from Elba. Well, you don't have to be a rocket scientist to figure out that Larter's character takes things to another level, which in turn cause serious problems in Elba and Beyonce's perfect marriage. Which by the way is not even kind of perfect because Beyonce is the most jealous, untrusting person on the planet. So much so that Elba isn't even allowed to have a female assistant. This jealousy is never really explained either, except that Beyonce was once his secretary and the dude married her! But Beyonce is just as crazy as Larter in this movie. And another thing. Beyonce is a secondary character the whole movie until the end and then, this well spoken, proper woman turns all ghetto.

Now, I like Beyonce as much as the next guy. I mean she's hot. And she's pretty classy (remember the Taylor Swift VMA's thing). But she needs to stick with singing. She's not a good actress. Not that she's terrible, she's just not really good, she's actually kind of bad. There I said it.

This movie really doesn't have many redeemable qualities. For a movie that makes the audience believe it is going to be a sexual thriller ala Fatal Attraction or Discretion, there's no sex. There is a split second of Ali Larter in lingerie but the scene is not sexy and neither is the lingerie. There's a fight scene at the end that makes you wonder if all women are secretly trained MMA fighters. The only believable character is Jerry O'Connell's (Rebecca Romijn's husband). And he serves absolutely no purpose in the movie except for the audience to say, well at least one person is normal.

Don't waste your time on this one.

SO-SO. Duplicity. This movie is advertised as a sexy, smart thriller starring the sexy, and smart Clive Owen and Julia Roberts directed by the guy that directed Michael Clayton. In it, Owen and Roberts play corporate spies who work for the same company but Roberts' cover is as an inside person for the competition of her employer. The two of them meet while they are working for the CIA and MI-6 and hatch a plan to work for a commercial company and steal secrets for themselves and run away together with millions. While this sounds like a cool idea, the movie just left you feeling unfulfilled. The story is told in the form of a series of flashbacks explaining how the two stars got into the situation that the currently in. The ad's make you think that this is going to be one of those movies where you go, "Ohhhhh, that's how they did that!" Kind of like Ocean's 11 or something. I'll just tell you now, that never happens. It's more of a story about the love and lack of trust between Owen and Roberts.

This movie wasn't so much bad, as it was disappointing. I guess I had the wrong expectations. But still, even if I had low expectations, I don't think I would have enjoyed the movie because it really just didn't do anything cool. Don't rent this, but if its on HBO, maybe MAYBE waste an hour and fortyish minutes watching it. And only then, if you have some wine and an attractive snuggle buddy.

OKAY. Observe and Report. Instead of saying this movie was okay, I think I should say this movie is just strange. For those keeping score, this is the mall cop movie with Seth Rogen and not the Kevin James aka King of Queens movie Paul Blart. If you had asked me before I saw Observe and Report, if I thought Paul Blart was funny my answer would have been No. But now I think it is because Observe and Report was just really dark and disturbing. It's like someone decided to take Taxi Driver and try to make it funny. Seth Rogen plays our mentally disturbed protagonist who is the head of mall security and of course takes his job way too seriously. The problem in the movie is that there is a flasher terrorizing mall patrons, and Rogen takes it upon himself to singlehandedly stop the pervert.

Don't get me wrong here, there are plenty of funny parts in this movie, but the overall dark theme kind of takes away from it. Anna Faris plays Rogen's lust object and she is her usual crazy self, and has some pretty funny scenes, but isn't in it nearly enough. Rogen's mom is pretty funny in a couple of her scenes as his alcoholic mother, but the fact that she is his alcoholic mother is disturbing and sad in itself and makes you feel bad about laughing.

If you are into dark comedies you may like this one, but I don't even think this even fits into the dark comedy genre. It's just kind of messed up. I kind of want someone else to watch this and tell me what they thought so that I can figure out if I was just in a weird mood when I watched it. I mean I did watch this a few days after I was run over by an old lady in a Cadillac...

PRETTY GOOD. Stir of Echoes. This movie came out in 1999. This was before I discovered my affinity for watching movies. This was while I was too concerned with getting tail and improving my bench press max. So I missed the boat when this movie was actually popular. But apparently I'm not the only person who thought this movie was really good. So don't just take my word for it, this one is definitely worth watching.

This movie stars Kevin Bacon as a average Joe who, after being hypnotized by his sister-in-law, begins seeing visions of a dead girl played by Jennifer Morrison (Cameron from House, good one to know when playing Six Degrees of Kevin Bacon - a game I recommend on long boring road trips). We learn that these visions are actually messages from the grave trying to tell Bacon's character where the dead girl is and who killed her.

The movie is as simple as that. Its told in such away that the audience becomes just as invested in these visions and what they mean as does Bacon's character. The audience learns bits of what happens throughout the movie to the point where you can't wait until the end to find out what happens. The ending to this movie actually surprised me. Normally I can figure out the ending to a movie pretty quickly, but this one kept me guessing until the end.

The movie isn't complex, and while it is kind of advertised as being a scary movie, its not particularly scary, but what it lacks in complexity or scariness, it makes up for in intrigue. Kevin Bacon is just weird enough to play a believable possessed person but just normal enough for the audience to not get weirded out by him.

GOOD. An Unfinished Life. First of all, I want you to notice that I didn't rate any of these movies really good, or great on purpose. I didn't watch a really good or great movie in the past week, but this one was a good movie...I'd even say quite good.

This film stars Robert Redford and Morgan Freeman. That should be enough for anyone with any sense to want to see the movie right there. But then I have to tell you it also stars Jennifer Lopez. And many of you with any sense might NOT want to see the movie. Let me tell you know though that she is not that bad, and this movie is the exception to the rule that most movies with J.Lo suck.

Redford plays an aging rancher, who holds a serious grudge against his daughter-in-law, Lopez, whom he blames for killing his only son in a car accident years before. When Lopez decides to run away from her abusive boyfriend, she decides that the only place she can go is back to Redford's ranch. And oh yeah, to throw a chink in the chain, she has a daughter, Redford's granddaughter, that Redford never knew about. Freeman plays Redford's sage best friend and ranch hand who is now crippled because of he was attacked by a bear a year before. Well, as you can imagine there is lots of tension and turmoil, but in the end, everyone learns to forgive and face down their own demons, and you have yourself a very well acted, beautifully shot, heartwarming film.

For anyone out there like me, who just wants to see some great actors work together to create a good, solid piece of film making, this movie is for you. Its not a great movie, but it is a GOOD movie, and I don't think anyone in their right mind could argue that. I was happy after I watched this movie, and I was glad I rented it. In the end, isn't that all you want when watching a movie?