Some of you may recall my minor skirmish with Blockbuster.com over a little movie called Charly. In early 2007, I signed up for a Blockbuster.com trial on a whim and added that movie to my Queue. It came; it was the wrong movie. Repeat four times over two Blockbuster.com free trials. In fact, the last time they sent me the wrong DVD, it was also cracked in two. It was like they were adding insult to injury. Then the free trials ended without me having seen the movie. What had once been just a passing interest had become a full-blown determination to see this movie, no matter what.
More than two years later, I finally got my chance. I reserved a copy of Charly at the Provo Library and it came in yesterday. I settled down to watch it last night, excited to finally be seeing this movie that had eluded me so cleverly for so long.
Guess what? I turned it off after a half-hour. And I want those 30 minutes of my life back. I realize that after all the fuss I went through to get my hands on a copy, there was no way it would live up to my expectations. But I didn't expect it to be so boring and yet simultaneously aggravating.
I'm sure it's a harmless, uplifting movie and could be enjoyed at the right time, with the right company, without having been built up so much as it was for me. But personally, I couldn't stand it. My main damage with the movie was that when it came to the heroine, its definition of free-spirited was my definition of annoying. I don't care if you ARE a buttoned-down, straight-laced naive Mormon young man. If a girl drives your dad's Mustang without your permission, steals your money to buy three hours' worth of ferris wheel tickets, or THROWS YOUR PALM PILOT IN A LAKE EVEN AFTER YOU EXPRESSLY ASKED HER NOT TO, causing you to lose all your stored information, that is not whimsical. That is destructive.
So I didn't like the movie so much. Oh well. At least I finally got to see (the first half-hour of) it.