A Hidden Gem

One of the best parts about having Verizon Fios is that they are constantly willing to offer you something for free. Every time you call with any kind of complaint or question they make it up to you by giving you three free months of HBO and Cinemax. No joke: one time they actually offered my family three free months of HBO and Cinemax when we were calling to say we didn't want to extend the HBO and Cinemax beyond the free three months. It's almost like they're a drug deal who remains convinced that the next hit will be the one that finally gets us addicted. Now, even though HBO is the lead dog in the offer due to all the award-winning shows they have on the network, I'm finding that I enjoy the Cinemax channels more. Because while HBO might have the newer movies, they just show the same four movies on a rotation. By contrast Cinemax shows a bunch of different, random movies for a day or two and then they are gone.

A prime example of this happened at the end of last week when they started showing the very extremely under-rated movie, "The Peacemaker". For those of you who have never seen it, "The Peacemaker" stars George Clooney and Nicole Kidman (who they made a brunette so you'll take her more seriously) as a soldier and scientist duo who have to stop a maniac from detonating a nuclear bomb in New York City. It is everything a late-90s action movie should be, right down to the big explosions and wise-cracking one-liners in the heat of a gunfight. It also shows just how important actors are to a movie. If this wasn't Clooney and Kidman I'm pretty sure this movie would be terrible, but because they seemed to actually want this movie to be good and they are both good actors the finished product is spectacular. I love this film.

Now, here's the weird thing: I actually own a copy of it and yet I haven't watched it in years. At any point I could have stood up, walked less than four feet (given my wingspan I probably wouldn't even have to walk - I could lean and pick it out) and put this movie in my DVD player. I have noticed that this is a very common thing with me - I love a movie, buy a copy of it, watch it incessantly for a couple weeks and then put it on my shelf, at which point I almost forget it is there, then get mad when it is on TV and I have missed my favorite part by a few minutes or the best scene is heavily edited for TV. However, rather than putting the DVD in to watch that part, I would rather stay mad. You would think the whole point of buying a copy of a movie was so that I could watch it whenever I wanted, but I never do.

I do this with music as well. I'll buy a song on iTunes and pretty much put it on repeat for a week straight. But after it goes from the 'Recently Purchased' file to mixing in with the rest of my 3,000 other songs I'm just as likely to skip it next time it shows up in the rotation. I think it has to do with getting more pleasure out of things when they seem to happen on their own instead of being planned out. Either way, I'm interested to see what random action movie pops up next. Oh, and you should watch "The Peacemaker", cause it's really good.