I wanted to mention a few different movies and shows, so I figured I'd might as well group them together.
Friday night, Linda and I saw Sahara. It looked pretty good from the previews, but I wasn't sure how I'd like Matthew McConaughey as an action hero. After Brendan Fraser's horrible effort, I'd learned that Hollywood does sometimes miscast action heroes. But to my surprise, McConaughey pulled it off. Another pleasant surprise was that Steve Zahn's character wasn't the typical useless comic sidekick. He was most definately a goofball, but he was a freakin' goofball commando. And his delivery of "Hi, how ya doin'?" time after time left me laughing. I also recognised the bad guy, but couldn't put my finger on who it was until Linda pointed out that it was Lambert Wilson, A.K.A. The Merovingian.
With all that said, I've got to say that the plot was a bit cornball - searching for an old civil war ironside ship which has crossed the Atlantic and is now in middle of the Sahara desert. They succeeded in capturing the Indiana Jones vibe, although at times it seemed closer to Romancing the Stone.
Based off a Clive Cussler book, it seems that Sahara is book number eleven of twenty in Cussler's Dirk Pitt series. It seems that Sahara isn't even the first Dirk Pitt movie - 1980's Raise the Titanic starred Richard Jordan (from Logan's Run, Dune, and Hunt for Red October) as Dirk Pitt.
All in all, I've got to say that while Sahara isn't the best movie ever, while plotholes and improbabilities abound, the movie did exceed my expectations.
The other movie we saw - on Thursday night - was Without a Paddle. I've been a fan of Seth Green since Greg the Bunny, The Italian Job, and his role as Scott Evil. But I was surprised to find that I liked Matthew Lillard, who I only really remember from the Scream movies. I also liked Ethan Suplee quite a bit. (pic)
I think that part of the reason I liked Without a Paddle was that the characters grew up in the eighties - and it showed them playing as Ghostbusters and Indiana Jones - which I can relate to. I thought the writers did a decent job. While not my new favorite film, this is another one I'd recommend.
Lastly, I've got to talk about Lost. I'd heard good things about it, so I downloaded copies of most of the first season. This weekend, Linda and I watched the first dozen episodes. We're hooked.
We thought a bunch of the actors looked familiar, so I looked it up online. The cast turns out to include Matthew Fox, who I recognised from Party of Five, Harold Perrineau Jr., who was Link in the Matrix movies, and Dominic Monaghan, who played Merry the Hobbit. Good cast. Great writing too - they're established plenty of mystery. However, we're only up to episode 12, and I think episode 21 is airing this week. We've got some catching up to do.