Blake Schwendiman's Blog and Blook

What a weekend! I watched three movies I've never seen before and I read a book cover to cover. I'll do the book review separately later. Normally I don't have time for so much mass media, but this weekend, we had a little cold going through the family, so we didn't go out much or do the normal weekend things (like mow the lawn).

The first two movies I'm talking about are already on DVD. Of course you can get them from Netflix.com and I recommend doing that.

The first one is Eight Below. My wife did a review of it here. I thought I had a pretty good idea about this movie when I sat down to watch it. I did have the overall premise right, but I didn't have a clue about the scope of it. Eight Below is a great movie to watch with the whole family. But keep the lights low and the Kleenex handy because you're going to cry. Unless your heart is two sizes too small, you're going to cry. I cried, and I'm not even much of a dog person. 2π.

The second movie we watched at home was Without a Paddle. Somebody recommended this movie to me, but I can't remember who -- it's been a long time. Without a Paddle has been sitting in my Netflix.com queue literally for months because I kept pushing things above it. I'm sad I waited so long to see it. This movie is sort of like Stand by Me in the sense that it's a group of guys on an adventure to find something. However, this movie is about a group of 30-somethings on a quest to fulfill a promise they made to a friend when they were young. It's crude and rude as you can imagine a movie about guys being guys might be. But it's funny. And underneath all of it, there's a great message. I think this movie will appeal mostly to guys around the age of 30. Sister Snoopy wouldn't like this movie based on what she mentioned she doesn't like in a movie, so take that as a warning if you're thinking about showing this at your next multigenerational family reunion without watching it first. ;) 1.75π.

Finally, we all went to see Zoom (okay we weren't that sick). Zoom was surprisingly good. It reminded me of Sky High (which I really liked). Zoom is a family movie. That means you'll find it filled with site gags, burps and lots of corniness that appeals to little kids and to me. It's also a superhero movie, so there's lots of action that will appeal to little kids and to me. It's not scary and in the end everything turns out okay. The only surprise for me was the star power of the cast. Zoom stars Tim Allen, Courtney Cox, Chevy Chase and Rip Torn for starters. You'll see other familiar faces through the show. I loved seeing Chevy Chase doing something that reminded me a little of Fletch. Zoom is a fun family movie worth the price of admission. 1.75π.