We had a free weekend of the STARZ channels on DishTV this past weekend. I actually managed to watch 4 movies - which for me is practically unheard of in a month, much less a weekend. Unfortunately, these channels are apparently prohibited from actually show any good movies.

Invincible (Mark Wahlberg, Greg Kinnear, Elizabeth Banks)
This is a movie you’ve seen many times - the sports movie about a person or team who triumphs despite seemingly insurmountable odds. In fact, this is a professional football version of Rudy, which was in a college football setting. I enjoyed it for what it was, and for reasons I simply cannot explain, I’ve always liked Wahlberg in the movies in which I’ve seen him star. Still, if you’ve seen The Rookie, Remember The Titans, the aforementioned Rudy or countless others, you’ve already seen this movie.

The Visitation (Martin Donovan, Kelly Lynch, Edward Furlong)
I read Frank Peretti’s novel of the same name a few years back. Here’s enough to make you want to stay away from it - Randy Travis plays the part of a preacher who casts out demons. There you go. If you’ve seen any movies that would fall under the “Christian” genre (think Left Behind with Kirk Cameron), then you have an idea of what you’ll find here.

Preface to next two movies:
If there’s one thing all movies starring post-80’s SNL alums share in common, it’s probably this - they all suck. Some of the original cast have put out some good movies, and at least a couple from the 80’s (Murphy and Crystal come to mind) put out some decent stuff occasionally. I also enjoyed Wayne’s World and Austin Powers from Michael Myers (although not the sequels so much.) Other than that, I can’t think of much to get excited about. So, with that in mind…

Talladega Nights: The Ballad of Ricky Bobby (Will Ferrell, John C. Reilly, Leslie Bibb)
Will Ferrell can be funny, even hilarious at times, but, like most SNL alum’s, usually for only short periods of time. There are a lot of people, it seems, that worship Ferrell. I’ve seen several of his movies now, and they’re just not good. Anchorman I actually laughed at more than any others, but even it wasn’t partiularly good. This one was just horrible. I must admit that I skipped through several chunks of it just to make it end faster, but I find it difficult to believe I missed anything that would have changed my mind.

Click (Adam Sandler, Kate Beckinsale, Christopher Walken)
Again, like Farrell, I think Sandler can be hilarious, but outside of Happy Gilmore, I’ve never watched one of his movies and felt that I had not wasted my time. This movie had some humorous moments, what with the being able to stop time or fast forward past boring events. The presence of Kate Beckinsale certainly helped as well, regardless of content. And, it actually had a pretty good message - don’t waste your life on things that don’t matter while neglecting those that do. Still, there are other movies with the same message that are much better.

I also have Will Smith’s The Pursuit of Happyness recorded, and will probably watch it within the next week or so. I also still have Bury My Heart At Wounded Knee from our free HBO weekend a couple of weeks back, and I look forward to that. I have Dee Brown’s book but have never read it. I figure I’ll go ahead watch the movie first, because I’ll still want to read the book anyway (and who knows when I’ll get to it.)

Let me just add this - I don’t understand the premium movie channels. We’ve had three weekends in a row of free previews (HBO, Cinemax, STARZ) and there’s been almost nothing on that I was interested in. I knew the ones above would probably not be worth the time, but watched them anyway because I had some time. I can’t imagine paying for this stuff, though. I’d love to have HBO for the 3 months that “Curb Your Enthusiasm” is on, but that’s about it.