Having three crumb crunchers and lacking the desire to spend obscene sums of money on date nights, the Forrests on occasion make their way to the video story. While I find Steven Seagal to be the pinnacle of acting and the Die Hard series to be the finest exhibitions of cinematic excellence, Mrs. Forrest does not and hence I’m relegated to searching the middle ground.
Open Season was a regrettable expenditure of good dollars. While not unbearably awful, it was more akin to a half hour of Bugs Bunny. There was a little slapstick but no real plot line. It wasn’t as bad as Southpark the Movie.
Benito: The Rise and Fall of Mussolini (IMDB)was a surprising find. It is 5 hours long, and if I watch it again, I will opt for English subtitles and Italian audio. The English dubbing wasn’t that good. Having said that, Antonia Banderas offers a very compelling portrayal. The film covers the period from Mussolini’s early twenties until the middle of World War I. I was anticipating the fall to encompass his loss of power at the end of WWII, and so I was slightly disappointed in that regard. The cityscapes, clothing, music, and other cinematic qualities are outstanding. I really like how the movie focused on his early life and in particular his anti-Catholicism. Early in the film he is shown publicly debating a Catholic priest, and he challenges God to strike him dead on the spot and offers his life as proof of God’s non-existence. The anti-Catholicism manifests itself a number of times in the film.
Don’t fret, this probably won’t be a regular feature.
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