My Relaxing Weekend

This past weekend was a nice relaxing weekend for me. I’m going to enjoy it while I can because basketball starts in a week, consuming everyday with almost no time to breath. Fun right?

I brought up this because on my nice relaxing weekends I have nothing better to do then to watch movies. I think that I watch a lot of movies, and most of that movie watching comes on weekends. My dad says how I need to be “movie educated” and watch all of the good old ones. I agree. I think that to understand and enjoy a good movie, you have to know what you are looking for.

Last weekend I watched The Shining (it was close enough to Halloween). The classic horror movie with Jack Nicholson and Shelly Duval in which Jack becomes the caretaker of some far off hotel for the 5 month winter and goes crazy. The original trailer for this movie is the elevator doors with the blood running through them. That’s all. After I saw this trailer, I couldn’t not see the movie, I was intrigued. I could not have pictured anybody but Jack Nicholson in that role; he plays the best crazy person, just watch One Flew Over the Coo Coo’s Nest. It is hard to explain why, but some parts are just plain creepy and make you never want to be with JUST your family again. There is just one last think I need to say about this movie, “all work and no play makes Jack a dull boy” was running through my mind, like it was running through the typewriter, for the at least week.

The movie that I saw this weekend was Apocalypse Now. Martin Sheen in the Vietnam War going up a river to kill an American officer gone crazy. It has many famous actors around Sheen, including Marlon Brando, Robert Duval, Dennis Hopper, and a 17-year-old Lawrence (“Larry”) Fishburne. I have seen my share of war movies, and I think this does one of the best jobs of showing the thought process going though soldier’s minds during the war. Insane. That’s all. It shows how war basically makes men go crazy. Robert Duval, as a commander early on in the movie, who wants to surf while an attack is taking place, and Lawrence Fishburne opening fire on a woman who just wants to save her puppy. These are small instances of insanity, but they are evident as you watch the movie, we see the characters go through the transformation from sane to crazy. There are two acts to the movie, and I liked the first act better. I think it was because there was more action going on, and the second act was just weird, it was when the craziness really showed its true colors. But the movie was really good overall, and it left me thinking, which is what I look for in a movie.