What I Watched When I Had The Flu

Subtitle: Fever Dreams Galore!

I was incredibly lucky when I had one of the worst stomach flus I've ever had this past weekend, because my cable provider was offering the free preview weekend with all the movie channels! So I had plenty of things to watch between visits to the porcelain god. Let's take a look at what I watched (that I remember when I wasn't completely passed out):

Congo
The Mighty Ducks
Chronicles of Narnia: Voyage of the Dawn Treader
Bridesmaids
Fright Night (the remake)

Congo
I came in about half way through Congo, so I missed this classic of cinema:



It is an absolutely ridiculous movie, with the sign language talking gorilla, the evil white gorillas, and the fact that Laura Linney is in an action flick. Plus, she and everyone seemed to have and endless supply of everything, including a giant laser that she uses at the end to blow up a satellite IN SPACE! And then the survivors leave in a hot air balloon and a gorilla with no experience in the wild heads off with a family unit. In fairness, it's apparently meant to be an adventure in the vein of King Solomon's Mines book, but it's still pretty silly.
FEVER DREAM LEVEL: Oh Man, Is That Gorilla Talking? Far Out

The Mighty Ducks
I did not watch it in its entirety either, as I was pretty much clicking around to anything that would entertain me. But I couldn't resist this childhood classic, and saw the scene where Coach Bombay explains why ducks are so tough. In retrospect, the reasoning is pretty weak, but it works for the kids and I dare you not tell yell, "DUCKS FLY TOGETHER!" when you play hockey with someone.
FEVER DREAM LEVEL: Nostalgic. This Used To Be My Playground

Chronicles of Narnia: Voyage of the Dawn Treader
Wide awake for this one as I hadn't seen it, and was curious since I had seen the others and read the books. Frankly, they added a lot of unnecessary drama and action to a story that is one of the more action packed in the series. It may be that the story was too episodic for a movie because they do pretty much sail from one dangerous locale to the next, but people almost turn into gold and definitely turn into dragons along the way. They threw in a subplot with kidnapped Narnians being sacrificed to a green mist, Lucy being jealous of Susan's budding beauty, Edmund being very jealous of Caspian and by extension Peter, had the White Witch appear again, and left the one kid a dragon much longer than in the original story. While the inclusion of the White Witch and Peter and Susan added some slight cohesion to the overall film series, I was left fairly unimpressed and wished I could watch the sort of hokey but very endearing BBC versions they used to play on PBS.
FEVER DREAM LEVEL: Awake and Judgemental

Bridesmaids
Love it. Makes me laugh every time.
FEVER DREAM LEVEL: Everything is HILARIOUS!

Fright Night (remake)
Doesn't even hold a candle to the original by any stretch of the imagination, but I enjoy David Tennant's goofy, drunk Peter Vincent so much that I'm willing to give it the slightest of passes. I remember laughing my head off in the theater at it and it's still relatively fun at home. Colin Farrell brings some weird energy to his vampire that I thought was fun, but he never gets to show it off as much as he should. The movie ends up getting bogged down in the more action-y elements and creature effects, so some of the fun vampire stuff gets lost. And nothing will ever top Chris Sarandon's line reading of "Welcome to Fright Night....For Real."
FEVER DREAM LEVEL: Confused. I Wish I Was Watching The Other One
Finally, sometime around Sunday, I recovered and watched the Golden Globes, Downton Abbey, and Once Upon A Time (the last two being my usual Sunday night viewing). But it was rough going for a couple of days there, thank God I had an endless supply of movies at my disposal (yes, I have Netflix, and all that, but there were too many extra steps involved to use it on the Wii given my weakened state).

So remember kids, if you want to have weird dreams while you're unable to eat for two days, be sure to watch a ton of movies!

The Time I Accidentally Watched David Cronenberg's The Fly

The title of the post says it all really. One time, sitting at home on a rainy afternoon, I watched The Fly on the Sci Fi Channel. And even with it edited for time and content, it still grossed me right the hell out. I had heard about the movie, but had no idea what was in store. The resulting movie had me jamming a pillow over my face for about ten minutes of screen time. And the even crazier part is, I could have changed the channel. I was left alone in the house with no one to interrupt me, request a change, or ask what the hell I was watching. I was praying somebody would come home and go "Ugh, turn it to the news please." But nothing. So I stayed glued to the literal horror of watching Jeff Goldblum turn from Earth Girls Are Easy mildly good looking to Oh-My-God-Kill-It-Kill-It-Kill-It! fly creature.

I think everyone can agree that the worst part is when Jeff Goldblum demonstrates how he "eats" as a fly. If you've seen it, you KNOW you've seen it. If you haven't, maybe skip to the next scene. I'm not typically squeamish, but good God is that awful. That may have been the first point in the movie during which I stuffed my head in the couch trying to make it go away.

The second was equally as horrible and a nice bit of body horror...for the ladies. That, of course, is when Geena Davis has a nightmare about giving birth the the larva baby she may or may not be carrying (since she's not sure if she conceived with Jeff Goldblum before or after he became a hideous fly creature that must be destroyed). Again, I refuse to go into detail, but I remember some yelling from me and another dive headlong into the couch cushions.

Two hours and not enough commercial breaks later, the movie was over. I was aghast at what I had seen and that I had seen so much on basic cable. My mom came home and the first thing I said to her was, "Have you seen The Fly? The newer one?" She basically said, yes and yes it's beyond gross I don't want to talk about it, I'm trying to have a snack here. Which is also the response I get from everyone else too.

Maybe I should stop asking about it when food's around.