Myssi's Movie Mondays

Welcome back to Movie Mondays.

This weekend I saw lots of movies. I think I was making up for not watching movies or watching movies that were not memorable.

First up, is one that I had already seen before, except I didn’t remember until it was nearly over. Then I couldn’t remember if I had seen it from the start or if I had just caught the ending. Regardless, Stefanie Powers and Margot Kidder star in this 1999 movie, Someone is Watching. I think I was interested in watching this movie just because of Margot Kidder. This was a few years after her breakdown, so it was nice to see that she was still working, even if it was a made for TV movie.

OK, now on to the movie. SP and her son move into a house where a murder took place a year before. Immediately, someone is stalking SP. SP is already edgy because she had confronted a thief in their old house a few months before. Her son starts hearing noises in his closet, but she doesn’t believe him. The weird noises around the house freak him out, but pretty soon he’s made friends with “B.J.” Lois Lane is the eccentric neighbor who doesn’t know the house’s history. She is also freaked by the noises, but nobody sees anything. Now the part of the mysterious friend in the closet and weird noises in the attic scared me a bit because it reminded me of The Exorcist. Which isn’t fair, but I was spooked, especially because I was home alone.

Recommendations? Despite watching it twice and not remembering about it, I think I would. It’s fun and creepy and it’s nice to see mature women working, even if they play the victims.

The Other Woman seemed interesting because the TV description said that a young woman tells another woman that she’s going to marry her husband. I thought, “OK. That takes balls.” Turns out the married woman used to also be the other woman who stole her husband from another woman. They should have called it The Other Woman: When You Owe Karma. Oops, that might have given away the big twist.

Recommendations? To my friends who don’t mind Jason Priestly—another actor I’m glad to seems to find work.

One group of actors who I hope find work in other fields is the group from Dr. Chopper. I read the summary on the TV grid and thought it sounded like one of those classic silly horror movies about taking body parts to build or sustain bodies. (One of the movies I remember watching over and over again with delight on Saturday afternoon TV is The Brain That Wouldn’t Die. Sense a trend?) I started watching it and immediately there were fake boobies on the screen. This is when I got up to put a load of laundry in the washer and a load in the dryer. Then I threw out the kitchen trash and sorted newspapers and magazines for recycling. I was going to turn it off, but I got distracted. When I remembered the TV was on, the movie was over (not very long).

Recommendations? I couldn’t recommend this movie to my biggest enemy. It’s awful.

Dan’l and I saw Get Smart this weekend. Bad guys want to bomb L.A. where President James Caan will be listening to “Ode to Joy,” surprisingly not around Christmas. Full disclosure: Get Smart was one of my favorite shows when I was little latchkey child so I was going to force myself to like the movie, regardless. The one thing I remember from the show was that Max wasn't really smart. This Max is pretty smart and moves like Benny Ninja. It helps that Alan Arkin plays the Chief with the same easy-going attitude that he displayed when he played the captain in So I Married an Axe Murderer. Except in this movie AA kicks the VP’s ass. Go AA! General Zod (another actor from Superman), Terence Stamp, was also in this movie. He wasn’t in that much, but he has a pleasant voice and I can’t help but picture him as Bernadette in every movie he’s done since Priscilla. That always makes me laugh.

Recommendations? If you’re a fan of Steve Carrell, then yes, I recommend it. If you want to protest against the Love Guru, then yes, go see Get Smart. Otherwise, it’s OK to wait for the DVD.