Morbid movie nights

Over the past couple of months, every Friday is a DVD movie night for Big A and I. We alternate weeks. One week, I'll watch something of his choosing and the next week is my turn. Usually the choices come for his rather large collection of DVDs but occasionally, I'll pick one of my few chick flicks or vampire movies to watch.

Last week, when I heard that the young acter Brad Renfro had died, our choice of movies was easy since Big A only owned one movie that he was in: Apt Pupil. It was about a high school boy that learns about the holocaust in a history class and becomes fascinated with it. He traces one of Hitler's officers down to a man that lives nearby who has lived peacefully since then by changing his name (played by the always great Ian McKellan). Brad's character shows up on his doorstep, demanding to know the real story. He threatens to tell the authorities about him if he doesn't share his story, particularly what it felt like to kill all those people. As Ian's character is telling the boy about his time in Germany, both of them start getting more involved in it. Brad's character even goes so far as to buy the uniform that is similar to what the man use to wear (a humorous part in all this was when Ian's character sees the uniform and says, "Oh, I see I've been promoted"). Under the threat of having his cover blown, he puts it on and eventually through this and remembering the past in detail, he returns to the man that he was during that time. So much so that he grabs a cat and tries to stick it into the oven. Thankfully the cat was not declawed so after a bit of a tussle, it got away.

While I found Brad's character to be kind of irritating, it's a rather disturbing movie. Of all of Brad's movies that I've seen, I'd have to say this ranks kind of low. My personal favorite is the movie of his that rarely gets mentioned: The Cure.

I guess this week's movie will be something from the Heath Ledger catalog (and what a tragedy that is. Brad had many a run in with the police and drugs so anyone could have seen his demise coming although it was still sad. Heath's is an utter shock): Monster's Ball or The Patriot. Or both. Maybe this weekend will be a dead young actor double feature.


(Sidenote: Big A pointed out that things happen in threes - First Brad Renfro then Suzanne Pleshette and now Heath Ledger. My response: Suzanne Pleshette? That's more of an example of the old kids game of trying to pick out the one thing that doesn't belong in a group.)