Graham Davies and Catherine Millar

Netflix, the online DVD rental service, looks like a complete winner on paper and has gained popularity in the last few years. The disks arrive is small red envelopes and can be kept for as long as required or returned the next day with no monthly maximum on most plans. With free shipping it makes sense to turn those babies around and maximize your disks per dollar. Recently we've been getting a little behind and so I decided to cancel - or at least put the account on hold. Despite sending most disks back the next day the stats are quite suprising. We signed up almost two years ago and rented 222 movies at a total cost of $457.54 or $2.06 per disk. I hate to think how much it would work out as if you casually kept them for days at a time. For my own posterity, here is the list of rented films - nearly all were worth watching - but a few of my hidden gems are highlighted.

Definition:
Don't be fooled by the childish animation or the presence of Tom Hanks - this movie is deep dude - like oh my god. It explores the boundary region in a child's life when they begin to realize that not everything they have been told is true and that their imaginary world is just that: imaginary. Before the Santa Collapse Event children believe without question (one might call this faith) that Harry Potter is a documentary, that antique wardrobes opened in the correct manner lead to Narnia and that it is only a matter of time before you aquire your special powers. The SCE symbolizes the collapse of this world that occurs with age, peer pressue, some basic schooling, logical thought or just drunken uncles.
The small boy is torn between two options: one might call them the 'red pill' (Santa/god) and the 'blue pill' (no Santa/physics). The train in the film is effectively his last ride in the world of imagination - and the last time a magical train really could appear at your window. Tom Hank's character tries to tempt him to carry on believing and stay in the child's world. He tests his commitment to end the dream and warns him of the consequences. Other children on the train are clearly not mentally prepared for the transition and to some extent he must pretend to believe to protect their feelings and not reveal his emancipation. A ghost on the roof of the train pleads for his belief using sympathy and mysticism as a weapon but he dies horribly and with him go the tooth fairy, magic, little pointy-eared goblins, god, superheros, fairytales, Knight Riders' car, tarot cards, astrology and The A-Team. If you manage to make it to the end of the film you'll see that the boy opts for a third way - pretending to believe.

Reference:
The Polar Express

URL:
http://www.imdb.com/title/tt0338348/

Image: