If you are in a rental store and find yourself looking at a movie called Centurion and wondering if you should rent it, put it down and walk away.

I don’t know if it’s appropriate to call it a slasher movie since it’s not horror.  I’m thinking ‘gusher’ might work, though.  There is a lot of fake blood sloshed around the set.

Centurion is yet another movie about the glorious Romans trying to suppress the evil Picts (Northern Britons).  The Picts are described as lacking honor because they don’t fight like Romans.  Well, if they Romans hadn’t showed up in their homeland and tried to rule them, they probably wouldn’t have fought at all.  So there’s that.

The movie is perhaps even a grade C movie.  The plot is terrible, but that’s not even as bad as the psuedo-philosophical existential moments.

I saw Whale Rider when it first came out, but I just watched it again.  And I enjoyed it again.

It’s an interesting look at Maori culture, through the eyes of a young girl, Pai.  Her grandfather often takes her for granted because he wants a grandson to carry on the family line.

The movie could have easily focused too much on this and become another movie about a young person proving him or herself.  However, the full of people trying to find their place in their world.  The scenery and the whales don’t hurt either.

Whale Rider is a good, family-friendly movie.  And Keisha Castle-Hughes turns out an excellent performance as Pai.

Since Amadeus is such a dark movie, I decided to watch something a little more uplifting.  I happened to have Secretariat at hand, so I watched that.

I think I enjoyed it more the second time than the first.  It’s a thoroughly enjoyable movie, and one that’s definitely family friendly.  In fact, I think everyone should watch it at least once!

After all, Secretariat is considered by many to be the greatest race horse that ever lived.  I don’t know if I’d go that far, but he was amazing.  And most of his records are unbroken today.  So there is that.

This past week was a busy one.  I was in two concerts, for one thing.  However, I did find the time to watch Amadeus for the second time.  I forgot how depressing that movie is.

I love the movie for its brilliant use of Mozart’s music, but once it makes that dark turn I find it hard to watch.  It is true that Mozart was a genius who may not have been appreciated as much as he deserved until after his death.  It is true that he died a pauper, but that may have been more to do with his spending more than he earned than anything else.  I’m not sure how accurate the rest of the movie is, but it’s worth watching.  Once, anyway.