On Sunday, I decided to head to my local (read, next town over) Hollywood Video and check out the new releases. They had a $1 rental special once a few years ago that worked so well, they’ve never ended it. So all rentals are $1 a DVD for 5 days. I usually pick 4. This time I did that, *and* bought 3 others.

The rentals:

• Together: a Chinese movie about a boy and his father who leave their village in order for the boy to learn the violin from a master teacher.
• Chicago: the award winning movie version of the stage musical.
• Lost in Translation: that movie that foolishly tried to compete against LotR in this year’s Oscars.
• American Wedding: the sequel to American Pie and American Pie 2.

The purchases:

• X-Men 2: the sequel to, yes, you guessed it, X-Men.
• League of Extraordinary Gentlemen (aka LXG): the prequel to LXG 2 (snerk) – loosely based upon a graphic novel that I liked.
• Coupling season 1: season 1 of the UK series, Coupling, oddly enough.

They were having a 3 for $30 sale on the purchases, which meant I ended up paying an extra penny on Coupling but saved $3 and $5 on the other two DVDs. Works for me! I may have made a mistake with LXG since it’s the only purchase I’ve yet to see. Dad tells me it was boring, but I’m sure I’ll get my $10 out of it.

As for the rentals, I’ve now watched 3 of the 4. Taking a break between Lost and Wedding to write this up. I found Together to be a heartwarming film, definitely one I would recommend. Chicago was simply fabulous and I’ll probably have to buy the DVD for it. They captured the energy of the stage play brilliantly. (Attention davisonweekly folks, I saw the stage version of Chicago with Peter Davison as Mr Cellophane. He did a nice soft shoe routine during the performance.)

I just couldn’t get to sleep last night – I guess I was still wired from the evening’s antics, so I started Lost in Translation after midnight or so (confused the heck out of Leo as he tried to figure out what I was doing on the sofa when I should be in the bed) and watched nearly an hour of it. I just finished the movie during supper. It was a fascinating look at Tokyo and I decided that Tokyo was the star of the movie and those other two were just pawns to show off Tokyo’s talents. The rest of the movie was just OK. Glad the Academy went with LotR, myself. Considerably more entertaining, I thought.

I’m sure I’ll enjoy American Wedding as the first two movies kept me entertained. If I discover otherwise, I’ll be sure to tell you.

In other news for today, I’ve officially lost 10 lbs on my Portion Control Project! More details can be found in my post to monday_gdp which I’ll write up after I finish this one.