Movies and DVDs

Donna and I were at the mall in SM Clark the other day and I noticed a group of people crowding around a kiosk. Curious, I checked it out. There was a sale on DVD movies. I noticed the movie Black Snake Moan with Samuel Jackson and Christina Ricci on the P100 row. I asked the sales clerk if they're pirated copies. She said, "No sir, these are originals." I roughly calculated it to around a couple of bucks so I bought it.

I got home and I was going to watch it but my player gave me an error message saying "the DVD has a different zone" or something to that effect. I mentioned this to Ruston when we were at Rona's barrio fiesta the other day and he said most likely it was a pirated copy and I may be able to play it on my PC DVD. So I tried that but I got another message saying "format not recognized" or something. Don't you hate when this happens?

Since I have a craving for a movie, while I was waiting for the van to be oil changed yesterday, I went and watched Iron Man. Cool special effects. It's good to watch Gwyneth Paltrow again. Jeff Bridges was a surprisingly good, bald, bad guy. By the way, did I tell you Eph took me to watch The Forbidden Kingdom at Downtown Disney? For the first time, Jet Li and Jackie Chan acted together in a movie and they're pretty good. I liked it.

I've also seen Sherry Baby with Maggie Gyllenhaal in my home theater as well as Almodovar's Volver with Penelope Cruz, a Spanish movie with English subtitles. Pedro Almodovar is to Spain as Akira Kurosawa is to Japan. I've seen his movies with a virtual unknown named Antonio Banderas. I thought Maggie Gyllenhaal deserved an award for her portrayal of an ex convict trying to win her young daughter back in Sherry Baby, a really intense adult drama.