I’m flat-out itchy (in a completely safe and non-creepy way) to watch the latest Underworld movie, Underworld: Awakening, because
- Kate Beckinsale, duh,
- Kate Beckinsale in shiny black pleather, ooo!,
- I loves me some vampire/werewolf shenanigans, and
- Historically, my taste in motion pictures is entirely questionable
I wrestled with the idea of plunking down the $5.99 and pay-per-viewing it this past weekend. But, even with my thumb finger poised over the “Select” key on my remote, that annoyingly self-righteous, cheap-bastard voice that I usually keep stuffed in the dark, cobwebby recesses of my mind-void refused to stop muttering about my Netflix queue. 
Because Underworld: Awakening is sitting, all shiny and tempting, at the very top of it.
Why drop the cash when I very easily could just receive it in the mail from a service I already pay for.
In other words, even though I have the patience of a toddler eyeing the cake on his/her birthday, skinflintiness (shut up, it is so a word) apparently takes precedence.
So I clicked the safety on for my pay-per-view ordering thumb and chose Option B: Curmudgeonly Tightwad Views One of the Netflix DVDs Already In Hand.
I had Apocalypse Now and The Rum Diary. Yes, I have the two-at-a-time subscription. Because sometimes Life demands options.
My selection process Saturday night was pretty simple: I asked myself if I was feeling particularly depressive.
I wasn’t. The Rum Diary it was.
Without further adieu, then,
The Rum Diary – I liked this movie more than I expected to, honestly. As a Hunter S. Thompson fan, I expected that I would like it, at least somewhat, but didn’t figure I’d be on it like a fanboy on a replica light saber. While I still didn’t go geek-gasm over it, I enjoyed it more than Fear and Loathing in Las Vegas*. Not only is it entertaining, the movie provides some insight into Thompson before he became Hunter S. Thompson. For me, it was comforting to see he once had the same questions and self-doubts all of us writers seem to have.
So, you know, check it out. Or don’t. Whatever.
The truly important thing to take away from this is that I sent a DVD back to Netflix today.
Wish me lucking getting the top movie in my queue.
Mmmmm…vampire movies.
Pud’n
*I’m referring strictly to the film version here. I wasn’t gaga over Fear and Loathing the movie simply because it wasn’t the book. Usually I have no problem separating the film and written versions of something and treating them individually, but this case, I just couldn’t do it.
Puddintopia 