Movie Monday

I know it's Movie Monday, but I have something to get off of my chest first. I have strawberry envy. My neighbor Suresh and I were both outside yesterday (along with almost everyone in the neighborhood) and he invited me over to look at his strawberry patch. It looks fabulous!

He started with four plants last year, one died, but the rest multiplied like the bunnies in my back yard! And, speaking of bunnies, they haven't nibbled on these robust looking strawberry plants at all. They must be too full from decimating my blueberry bushes.

But, thanks to a tip from another Mary, I have purchased the "liquid fence" which is guaranteed to deter rabbits and deer. Not a big deer problem in my subdivision, but I'm hoping it will protect my baby blueberry bushes so they will live to grow a little larger. I'm starting to think maybe I should have planted strawberries instead.

Okay, now that you've had the gardening update ... on to Movie Monday.

I hate to review this movie, because I thought I'd like it much more than I did. I'd never seen Butch Cassidy and the Sundance Kid before, and it was rated PG, so I thought: Family Movie Night. Rick actually got up and went to bed before it was over.

It's a cowboy/bank robber movie starring Paul Newman and Robert Redford. I have to say I never understood what all the fuss was about when it came to these two actors, but I do "get it" after seeing this movie. They have individual charisma and a great dynamic working together.

And the opening scene was a beautifully filmed attention-grabber, setting up the Sundance Kid as the guy who actually lives up to his legendary reputation with a gun. I wanted to go back and watch it again before we went on to the rest of the movie, but Rick nixed that idea.

Maybe I was expecting too much from a movie made in 1969. But, what was up with those weird photo montages? There was a set-up for a love triangle, which would have added some conflict, but that never really panned out. And character arc? What character arc? I didn't detect any change or progression in the characters throughout the entire movie.

Now, is it just me (and Rick) who didn't like this movie? Apparently so. Joey said a couple of times, "Now that's kind of funny," and seemed to enjoy most of it. According to IMDb, the movie won four Oscars and 17 other awards. Maybe it was the bike abuse that soured me on the whole thing. Paul Newman abandons a perfectly good bike in a puddle at one point, which is really just completely uncalled for.

For a cowboy/outlaw movie, it did have some interesting musical choices, including Burt Bacharach's "Raindrops Keep Fallin' on My Head." I never in a million years would have thought that song was used in a western. Shows what I know.

So, my opinion is that this buddy movie is a bit slow in places, with no real story other than two guys who like to rob banks, and then rob banks basically until the end of the movie. There is witty banter, a Burt Bacharach classic, and some beautiful scenery, so give it a try if you want. But I do not recommend it. There, I said it.