I’d been looking forward to watching Murderball for a while now. I couldn’t wait and listened to Michael Geohegan’s Reel Review. Murderball is great for one reason – it’s a really cool sport. As a sports movie, it feels more like the skateboard/snowboard/bicycle-stunt team self-promotional videos I grew up with. With the best parts being the hits and the falls. I do have a soft spot for them – got a couple in the Netflix queue right now. I felt the passion from the players and the coaches…I didn’t feel it from the film makers. At one point, I thought the movie was over, popped the DVD out of the player and put it in the return envelope. According to Jen, I was a couple scenes early. Whups.
Then, tonight we watched Cronenberg’s A History of Violence. Jen’s been anxiously awaiting this one – I got interested via Elvis Mitchell’s conversation w/ David Cronenberg. In true Cronenberg fashion – the movie asks good questions about identity (I think the answers given by the wife and son were wrong). Again, like Murderball, good hits and falls. Some of the best fight scenes I’ve seen since Buffy left the airwaves. Unlike Murderball, I was expecting one more scene to wrap thing up more neatly – and glad I didn’t get it.