Our Netflix queue is in a strange place where we’re receiving DVDs neither of us can remember requesting. The mystery movie Greenfingers I nearly sent back, but I actually enjoyed it quite a bit - mostly due to a somber performance by Clive Owen.

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Maybe we’ve hit a point where romantic comedies have matched up just about every possible odd couple to where the darker corners of the Internet are now fair game - and it certainly helps for the setting to be small-town, middle America with bread as white as the perpetually falling snow.

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This film is pretty amazing in terms on animation, and somewhat makes up for an odd, lacking feeling in both plot and music. I have to give Burton credit for making death and creepy characters children’s fare, but this particular outing feels a bit like a repeat of previous dusty stuff.

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This British trifle was released in the UK as Plots With A View, and would be rather disappointing in the theater, but as a rental it’s just about right. There’s enough humor and silliness but not so much that when I got up to find another snack, I was in danger of missing much.

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I must say, watching a movie that I found hilarious as a teenager is a guilty pleasure (obviously, since I’ve done it repeatedly). 1985’s Weird Science has many of the charms and excesses of that period, more so as it’s directed by John Hughes, creator of several quintessential 80s teen flicks like The Breakfast Club, Ferris Bueller’s Day Off, and Pretty And Pink. In comparison with these, Weird Science is certainly the worst, but I didn’t find it half bad.

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I saw Time After Time as a kid and it was entertaining to revisit today. I have faded memories of the time machine special effects and H.G. Welles not understanding McDonalds. Now an adult, I paid more attention to the retro-romantic scenery of San Francisco, the coldly sadistic villain Jack the Ripper, and Mary Steenburgen’s odd yet endearing performance.

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I’m glad I waited to rent Blades Of Glory. While I laughed at some parts, I was mostly uninvolved, and here’s also an odd, mocking homo-eroticism that I didn’t find as funny as the makers obviously did.

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After watching Diamond Head, I decided to check out Blue Hawaii, which provides a similar enjoyable look at retro fifties Hawaii. It’s an Elvis-in-Paraside flick, of which The King made several (Girls, Girls, Girls!, Paradise Hawaiian Style, and I suppose the TV special Aloha From Hawaii also counts).

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A particular subset of action movies embody a specific modern fantasy - Mr. Hero, suburban male, successful in every way (McMansion, loving wife, kids, upper middle class job) suddenly finds himself in a situation where everything is not as it seems. Mr. Hero’s home life is threatened by some grand conspiracy involving politics, evil corporations, and mean, ugly people. Eventually, the complicated plot is reduced to situations where the solutions are thankfully simplistic and caveman-primal: guns, driving cars really fast, and punching people. Mr. Hero rises to the occasion and kicks some serious ass.

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I saw Dune upon its debut in the early eighties, after having read the Frank Herbert book. The biggest complaint at that time was the film made little sense if one hadn’t read the novel; a sentiment I totally agree with. Dune is an epic, complex world, featuring several factions from different planets fighting over a mysterious spice on the desert planet Arrakis. Mix in prophetic religion, mysticism, truly warped imagery, and gigantic alien worms, and it’s confusing to the initiated. Watching the film version with no previous familiarity almost certainly leads to a gigantic “WTF?”

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