Little stack of DVDs

We have been getting a lot of movies from the library lately, including these:

I really liked this movie, “Big Fan,” starring Patton Oswalt. The main character is a huge NY Giants football fan with a dead end job and still lives with his mother even though he’s nearly middle-aged. Even though I'm not a sports fan, but as a moderate fangirl I kind of understood where the character was coming from (although I have been more fickle in my devotions). I think that big fans of different things have more in common with each other than big fans and much lesser fans of the same thing because of the level of devotion you find in the big fans. (having a lot in common does not mean they will have anything to talk about though... not sayin' that).

Back to the movie hero... his dilemma begins when he is beaten up by his idol… his favorite player, and I won’t spoil it any more than that, but I will spoil something that was revealed in the special features in an interview with Ain’t It Cool News’ Capone: Patton Oswalt is Neill Cumpston. If you read AICN, you know the writing style of lots of the reviews and member comments – and Neill Cumpston wrote brilliant satirical AICN reviews that spoofed them perfectly. I am sorry that Patton was outed as Neill. Here are a few samples of his reviews (think grown man with a teenaged maturity level, and there are no reviews of non-action-oriented movies because Neill wouldn't go to something like that):

Matrix Reloaded
Grindhouse
Sin City
300
Batman Begins
more Neill

If you want to read some of Patton's writings as himself, which are even better, go here.

Another recent DVD brought home from the library is Taking Woodstock. I know that a lot of people found this to be charming and cute and funny and touching, but it really didn't do much for me. I really thought I would have liked it more, since it was directed by Ang Lee who also directed Brokeback Mountain. In the extras he says how funny these characters are. I guess the potential was there, but for me it was unfulfilled. The story of how Woodstock happened is fairly interesting, and I wouldn't mind reading Elliot Tiber's book (that this is based on), but if you don't want to do that, here is a long essay on the subject by Tiber (long but shorter than a book) which covers a lot of what you'll see in this movie.

Anvil! The Story of Anvil is a documentary about a metal band and all their ups and downs, their past fame, how they've coped after decline, jobs, family issues, tour disasters/successes, the struggle to make a new record, etc. You might think you are watching another version of This is Spinal Tap, but this is a real band, and the story is not fiction. This is really worth seeing even if you aren't into metal music (and I'm not).