From The Past: August 10, 2004

Once again, this weekend we went to the library and checked out three DVD’s. I enjoyed each one, but my favorite of the three had to be Matchstick Men. This movie had Nicolas Cage playing a con man that has obsessive compulsive disorder (OCD). Sam Rockwell did an awesome job playing his partner. If you’ve ever seen The Green Mile, Sam was the one who played Wild Bill Wharton. If you can play someone who is that crazy then you must be a good actor!

My second favorite out of the three was The Missing. Cate Blanchett plays a medicine woman who is the mother of two girls. Tommy Lee Jones plays her estranged father. When one of her daughters is kidnapped, her father offers to lead in the search. This movie wasn’t as scary as the previews made it seem. It was really more of a western with a little more blood added in. It didn’t portray Native Americans in a positive light, but was overall a very good movie.

The third and my least favorite was Master and Commander: The Far Side of the World. Now, I’m not saying that I didn’t like this movie; I’m just saying that out of the three it was my least favorite. This was what I like to call a one-time movie. It was interesting, but slow-moving. Had I not previously heard reviews; I would have expected it to be fighting the entire time. Fortunately, I knew what to expect so I wasn’t disappointed. This movie had Russell Crowe playing the captain of a ship pursuing a French war ship. The characters were likeable and the story was good. It is worth seeing at least once.