James was working late tonight and I knew that i'd be lucky to see him before midnight. The lack of hubby in my bed and the fact that the "peanut" likes to wake up around 11 every night to practice planting his heels in my ribs, combined to make the perfect night for a chick flick. After allowing the kiddos to pick out the veggie tales rental of their choice, I searched the drama section for something good.
I came across "Howards End," an Academy award winning film starring Emma Thompson and Anthony Hopkins. Not a bad cast, I thought. The film was even rated PG, so I thought for sure I'd be safe from vulgar content and obscene language.
I bathed the little ones, put them to bed, sat down with my bowl of Bryers Rocky Road, and put in my DVD. Two hours later, I am wondering how a movie could have such a lack of plot. The whole thing was so lame! The movie starts out with a sweet love interest and a short-lived engagement of a young woman named Helen to a handsome aristocratic gentleman by the name of Paul. The day after his proposal, Paul realizes that it's not a good match and that the timing is all wrong because he's headed off to Nigeria. Paul is neither seen, nor heard from again until the final scene in the film. The best looking guy in the whole film and he's only on screen for 45 seconds.
Then a dying woman, Paul's mother, Mrs. Wilcox, scribbles her last wish -- that her beautiful country cottage known as Howard's End be left to her dear friend Margaret. The note written in pencil is delivered by the nurse to the woman's husband. The family has many large properties in their possession, but all the children are appalled that Howard's End would be given to someone outside the family. So, they burn the note and never tell Margaret.
Eventually, Margaret marries the widower Mr. Wilcox. She discovers he had an affair during his first marriage. Margaret's sister then has an affair and the two sisters end up living in and inheriting the cottage.
There were many beautiful bits of cinematography. where characters walked through beautiful fields of flowers and heavenly gardens. But there was no purpose to this movie. It was 2 hours of quality quiet time wasted. I am almost embarrassed to have written so much about it. But, I needed to vent. The little one is diligently working on bruising my ribs and James isn't in bed yet. If any of you dear friends or family have some GOOD suggestions for possible rentals in the future, I welcome your advise.
A few good rentals in my opinion: Amazing Grace, One Night With the King, Walking Ned Divine, Return to Me
5 comments:
I also HATED Howard's End, which was made worse by the fact that I wanted to love it. Emma Thompson, right?? I wish I had a good recommendation, but I haven't seen anything awesome in a while. When all else fails, just hit the classics.
Stardust is really good, I even posted on my blog about it. Stay away from: Juno - I watched this one night when Jeff was working and was so so sad that I had wasted MY time!
luvs, aby
PS - try being without the hubby in bed every few days for either 4 or 5 nights at a time. No fun.
Eran and I watched "National Treasure 2" last night. That was pretty good. My sister also said that "Martian Child" is also good. Other than that, I haven't watched very many movies in the past year or so.
Hey, I was going to suggest One Night with the King. We were so pleasantly surprised with that movie when we rented it (about 1 1/2 years ago). I thought for sure it would be lame because it was PG-13, but it was really good!
Have you seen the one about Beatrix Potter with Renee Zelwegger as the lead? I don't remember if it's PG or PG-13, but I mostly enjoyed it. I thoroughly enjoyed it all the way to the end, and then the end was... well, you'll have to see it. It was awesome all the way through the show. I'll just say that.
oops, I meant to say about One Night with the King that I thought it for sure would be lame because it was
PG
not PG-13.
oops.
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