This past weekend I watched a couple of movies. I’d never seen Monty Python’s Holy Grail, and That One insisted it was a must see, so we watched it. Umm, I’ll say that it was pleasant to sit with him and watch a movie he enjoyed. How about that for politically correct? I mean, it was ok, but I don’t feel like it made my life complete or anything. Not like, say, when I made him watch Time Traveler’s Wife with me, yk? It was ok, but I won’t be looking at prevera review to erase new laugh lines.

Then we watched Apocalypto. This one movie was like watching two different movies for me. It’s about the ancient Mayan civilization, and it portrays that civilization with gruesome accuracy. I spent a good bit of the first half of the movie averting my eyes. There was a LOT of violence and gruesomeness, and while I understand that it was historically accurate, it is one thing to read about something in black and white and quite another to see it acted out in full color with bloody special effects. My motto is that you can’t unsee a thing, and so I avoided seeing that which I knew would bother me later. I’m told by Micheal that That One and I had matching looks of distaste on our faces during the first part, so I guess that’s comforting. I don’t think I’d much like to know a man who could revel in that. Just sayin’

Now then, the second part of the movie was awesome. The switch from group violence to one man’s desperate struggle for survival was what made it seem like two different movies. As much as I found the first part distasteful, I enjoyed the second part. Watching one man outwit and destroy a band of 10 men one by one changed the movie into a mental game, and I was swept up in it as he fought to live. It was still quite gory, but the overwhelming oppressiveness was gone, replaced by pure action adventure. The special effects remained awesome, and I was able to watch every bit of it. They did a great job depicting arterial spray from a head wound. In the end, of course, he……..never mind, not gonna tell ya, but it reminded me very much of the Bourne movies, which I thoroughly enjoyed. Does that show my penchant for mental violence as opposed to physical? Probably so.

The movie is still very much on my mind and not in a bad way. Mel Gibson did a great job with it, and even though I chose not to look at parts of it, I think I came away with pretty much the lessons he meant to teach in it. Fear will destroy you from the inside out. Conquering your fear will free you in the same direction.