My Food Chain Gang

It took two nights, but we finally made it through the sci-fi 80′s thriller, The Abyss.  What is with me and all the science fiction lately?  Not usually my cup of tea; I guess I’ve just been enjoying a change of scenery.  One reason for wanting to watch the Abyss is that I was very impressed by director / writer James Cameron’s latest movie, Avatar.  I enjoyed the movie in a little theater with old fashioned sound equipment, and I also got to catch  it at a larger theater with awesome sound and in 3D – I REALLY enjoyed it!  That doesn’t mean I’m a James Cameron fan, however, and you couldn’t pay me to sit through Titanic, whose concept I always thought sold out the disaster itself.  I mean, for characters in the movie, there were over 2200 real Titanic passengers from which to choose – why spend millions of dollars to bring to life fictionalized accounts of such a horrible tragedy?

But back to The Abyss, another James Cameron water movie…  Overall, this winner of the 1990 Oscar for visual effects was enjoyable, but I don’t even  know if I can say this is a watch-again-er for me.  Reading the trivia on imdb.com about how the movie was filmed was almost more interesting than the movie itself, which tells the story of a group of oil workers who are hired to go on a dive search for a missing nuclear sub.  Enter some Navy SEALS and a mysterious alien species,  and you have enough action for a 138 minute movie.  All of the diving and talk of the oceanic pressure kinda got to me after awhile; I don’t think scuba diving is something I’m ever interested in doing.  But I enjoyed the story and especially the visual effects, and without risking spoiling anything, let’s just say that in typical 80′s fashion, the plot was predictable.  If you do happen to check this one out, or if it happens to be one of your old favorites, I highly recommend reading the trivia section on imdb.com to further your enjoyment.

Saw the movie Gone Baby Gone the other night…  Had a free rental at the video store; every once in awhile they call and give us one…  but I hate standing there forever trying to choose a good movie!  So we had Saw IV in hand, and my husband’s like, you know, we really haven’t liked the last 2 Saw’s all that much, compared to the first one.  So I said yeah, and I saw Gone Baby Gone, and since I’d heard it was supposed to be good, we went with it.  Besides, it got Oscar nominated, and I always like to be in on Oscar buzz…  Not my kind of movie.  Not that it was bad, but just a lot of dialogue and violence…  not my kind of movie.  It was entertaining, and I appreciated the twists and turns without seeing them coming, though I can’t say the same for Hubby.  We like to give movies we watch our own imdb (interent movie database – cool site!) ratings, so I gave this one a 6.2.  Hubby gave it a 4. 2.  I appreciated the movie for what it was, and I can’t say much more without spoilers, so I won’t.  The bottom line is, if you like violent crime dramas with intense dialogue, this movie is for you.  I personally have trouble following movies where they talk about a bunch of characters and the audience is expected to keep them all straight, but that’s just me.  A few plot inconsistencies, but my rating was kinda high because I did appreciate the complexity of the plot, even if it was a bit difficult for me to follow at times…  so to quote one of my favorite movies, That’s all I have to say about that.