Four DVDs

A week or two ago, I went to the local standaard boekhandel to use the gift certificate that my mother had bought me for my birthday (which was in may).

For the €50 of that certificate, I bought me the Dutch version of 1984, plus 4 DVD boxes: one with Hitchcock's Psycho, one containing Superman Returns, another one of Dances with wolves, and a final box containing David Lynch's masterpiece Mulholland Drive.

Not a bad deal, I must say; especially as the latter two boxes were on a "buy one, get one free" promotion, where those boxes each had a second DVD with a different movie. For Dances with wolves, I forgot which one it is; but for Mulholland Drive, that was The Singing Detective. Now if anyone ever tells me that €20 for a DVD with a single movie is a reasonable price, then, well, hah.

Anyway. I hadn't seen Psycho before; but in a past life where I did drama school, we had some classes about this movie. As a result, some of its secrets were spoiled, and I didn't enjoy it as much as I probably would have had I not had this knowledge beforehand. Still, it was an enjoyable experience. If you've never seen this movie, shame on you! Go to the local video store, and rent it. Preferably in its original black & white form, not the 1998 remake.

Dances with wolves is a pretty interesting movie, too. Of course, as I'd seen part of it before, I already knew that.

Superman Returns is not bad, as a no-brainer entertainment movie. It's nothing beyond that, however.

Finally, Mulholland Drive is strange. Back in 2001, when the movie first came out, I went to see it at the local movie theatre; it is one of those complex movies which, once you've finished seeing it, will still leave you puzzled until you see it a few more times. Few other movies ever manage to do that to me (I think the only other one is Pulp Fiction). At the time, I planned to watch the movie again as soon as possible, but for various reasons that didn't happen; and now, after six years, I had almost completely forgotten the plot. Which is good, really—I enjoyed it much more. And I think I got it, this time; rather than trying to find the logic in the plot, I just went with the flow, which helps a lot.

The other two I still have to see. But hey, there's still time, right?

Oh, and 1984? It's nice how you want to scream and yell when the system completely takes over Winston's mind. An interesting book.