|
| |
DVD Dribble
8-Jul-2005
Written by: Dominick A. Miserandino
Fighting the Depression of DVD sad endings
The week started off simple enough. I tried to cover the first DVD, The Biggest Fan, and put it in the player. My sixteen year old goddaughter saw the DVD, screamed excitedly that the film involved “Chris Trousdale, only the hottest boy from Dream Street”, grabbed the DVD and ran off into the distance. Somewhere on the horizon she was leaping for joy. I’ve yet to see the DVD again however I’ve heard that she’s played it countless times.
I reached into the vault to find something else to watch. I pulled out the Oscar Winning movie Million Dollar Baby. My wife Margherita was thrilled to watch it as the film won countless awards or something. Basically everybody involved with the production won some sort of award ranging from Best Actress, down to Best Guy Who Helped Out On A Movie In A Minor Capacity. Was it a great picture and certainly a best one, yes? Was it something to cheer me up after my loss of a DVD to my goddaughter? Well, the ending left me a bit traumatized although it was a damn good film.
I excitedly opened the next package as it contained what I thought was the blockbuster, War of the Worlds. Hhowever in this case, it was the documentary, The War of the Worlds – The Real Story. No, it wasn’t the Tom Cruise picture however considering how he’s acted lately maybe the documentary is the better way to go. There were no horrific endings unless you count the fact that people panicked with the radio show. At least I got a good education on why people believed the original radio broadcast. My biggest complaint is that the DVD would probably have been ten times better if they actually had clips of the original radio show so now I was just as sad as before although I learned something new about history.
Something needed to pick me up after my “sad ending” experience. The next day, I was babysitting my godson and opened the package with Little Joseph, a Little Leaders Production. He was quite happy watching the DVD and learning about colors in five different languages although I really got a bit tired of hearing the word for “yellow” in languages ranging from German to Portuguese. My mother-in-law was traumatized to learn that the five languages didn’t even include Italian. “No is good.” was her only response. Christopher on the other hand however was happy to ask my mother-in-law for objects by their color in a language which completely eluded her. That infuriated my mother-in-law as “Japanese and French is not as good as Italian”
However that observation pleasure wasn’t enough to pull me out of the “sad ending” slump. I popped in the next DVD by Don Friesen called Inexplicable. Recorded live in Sacramento it was like being right there in the night club although without the mandatory “two drink minimum”. This seemed to work quite well at reversing the “sad movie ending” trend, until the wife kicked me under the sheets that 1am is not the time to be watching comedy DVDs. I told her that Don’s last joke regarding Arnold Schwarzenegger was funny, but she didn’t go for it.
In a desperate attempt to clear the depression induced insomnia, I popped in the DVD of Life and Times of Pope John Paul II. Even though the hour was growing late, she couldn’t debate with learning about the Pope. Nearly every religion in the world considered him a great man, and my devout Catholic wife wouldn’t complain. Not a ha-ha funny film that would pull me out of my “sad ending” induced depression but it was a fascinating documentary about how the Pope was a major influence in the fall of communism.
The next day the wife insisted we watch what she wanted since I kept her up the night before. With Season Three of Monk recently released I watched a half a dozen episodes of a man who is nearly as neurotic as I am. Every time I see this show I’ve yet to understand why it’s not a bigger hit. It’s original, it’s well done, it’s funny, but yet it doesn’t get the level of recognition it deserves. Sure, I didn’t want my wife in charge of the remote, but I’m always happy with Tony Shalhoub.
Well, now that Margherita sensed the power of the remote, she popped in all three discs of Simply Ming - The Complete Collection. Watching cooking shows to me is about as exciting as watching paint dry. I’d rather eat the food than watch somebody else enjoy it. It seems nothing less than a visual culinary torture. At the end you have to suffer as they try the food and tell you how good the food is and how unfortunate it is for you to miss this food. The good news was that Ming covers my favorite types of food, a fusion of east and west. Margherita printed out the recipes from the DVD-Rom. I had to watch three DVDs in a row but you should try the sweet potatoes on a skewer and cranberry teriyaki sauce that she made the next day.
The week was drawing to a close and the trauma of seeing the really sad ending in Million Dollar Baby was still in my mind. There was one package left… would it help or would I be stuck thinking about that ending (which I won’t reveal but man, it was sad). Salvation! The last DVD contained, My Personal Trainer Bellydance Fitness by Rania.
Margherita felt that watching a DVD doesn’t constitute a healthy weight-loss program. She didn’t understand the psychological and emotional impact of Rania. Was I going to try to do this belly dancing? Of course not, but watching the DVD put a smile on my face and it had a far less traumatic ending than Million Dollar Baby. Plus having my heart race should count as a work out in some sense.
Talk to other readers about this story.
|
|
|
|
|
