.jeri.

Would you be surprised if I told you that I don't blog about every movie I watch? That's right, I watch even more than I blog about. I just don't have the time to give a long review for each thing. But here's a review of things I've been watching lately.

First of all, I'm not sure if I've told all of you about (or if you've already discovered) Hulu.com. It's filled with streaming videos of movies and tv shows, from old to new, and has a pretty good selection. This past spring, I followed The Riches and New Amsterdam by watching their newest episodes each week on Hulu. Since I do a lot of data entry at work, my boss doesn't mind if I entertain myself while doing the monotonous work. I like Hulu because you can make a pop out window and shrink it to a very small size. I watch shows in a tiny box in the right-hand corner of my screen. Most of the time, I don't even look at it, but it's so nice to have some entertainment to make the hours go by quickly. I also like that the commercials are only about 10-15 seconds long.

I decided to start with the As in the TV section of Hulu, and have been wading my way through Alfred Hitchcock Presents. I'm almost done with season two. Wait a sec, I feel like I've already talked about this on my blog. Well, if I haven't, I'd like to say that Hitchcock is brilliant. His monologues in each show are wonderful, his stabs at advertisement are endless and hilarious, and the stories are all over the place. Sometimes a story can be filled with dark humor, but sometimes it is straight-out thriller material. I've enjoyed watching these a lot, although I've learned that any time a woman sees a dead body or a killer, I should turn down my volume immediately, because there are plenty of blood-curdling screams in this show.

I've also been catching up with all of my TiVoed episodes of Masterpiece (Theatre), which has been revamped this year. They just played many of Jane Austen's stories. A few were old productions by Masterpiece Theatre, but several were new, including Northinger Abbey, Mansfield Park, and Sense and Sensibility. Northinger Abbey was a little bit odd in style, but I did end up enjoying it. Mansfield Park was a little more abrupt in its ending than I expected, but it somehow packed an unexpected punch. I really liked the casting of Sense and Sensibility, and thought the attention to setting was great as well. I also watched Masterpiece's production of A Room with a View, which was very good (some good casting there as well), but ultimately I think I prefer the Merchant Ivory version starring Helena Bonham Carter. Right now I am finishing up My Boy Jack, which stars Daniel Radcliffe (Harry Potter) as Rudyard Kipling's son, who is determined to go fight in the War, despite a significant problem with his eyesight. I'm really enjoying it.

Some movies I watched without reviewing recently are The Adventures of Baron Munchausen, the first three Indiana Jones movies, and Michaelangelo Antonioni's La Notte. Munchausen was a pleasant surprise. I had heard many mixed reviews, but I loved its breadth and insanity. Believe it or not, I only saw Raiders of the Lost Ark for the first time a couple of years ago, and just in the past couple of months, I caught up with the other two original movies. Everyone told me I'd hate Temple of Doom. I only hated Kate Capshaw. I'm a fan of Jonathan Ke Quan, who played Short Round, so I was happy with it overall. The Last Crusade was surprisingly good-looking for how old it is. I might prefer that one the most out of the three. I think that because I watch a lot of old movies, this series settled in well with me, despite what some might call a camp factor. I haven't seen the new movie yet, but will catch it when it hits the cheap theater. La Notte was a hard sell for me. While I admired the structure of the film and what it was trying to accomplish, it made me feel as apathetic as its lead characters (who realize that their lives are meaningless and slowly lead themselves to break up with each other).

Besides that, Ric and I are going through Arrested Development again. I plan to start going through Twin Peaks soon as well, and when my Roku comes (yes, I ordered one - temptation was too great), I want Ric to watch the first couple seasons of 30 Rock.

That's all for now! Summer is filled with viewing opportunities, since there's no new TV shows on. I am following a couple, like So You Think You Can Dance and Morgan Spurlock's 30 Days. This week my back's been a lot of trouble, so I've been spending a lot of time on the couch watching TV. Hopefully I'll keep myself motivated to keep learning Italian and to finish reading Atlas Shrugged as well, so that my brain doesn't fry from staring at a screen all day and night!