"Knowing" an Interesting Tale With an Unsuspected Ending

"Knowing" starring Nicholas Cage made it to dvd this week and it is probably one of his best films ever.
Sadly, the biggest detractor from this film is its name and marketing. The film starts with a young girl named Lucinda (great name!) who is part of a class project to commemorate the opening of a new school. The class creates a time capsule and class members are encouraged to draw a picture representing what they think the world will be like in 50 years.
Lucinda spends her drawing time creating a page full of numbers which later proved to be a list of the dates and numbers of people who die in major disasters across the world over the next fifty years.
Calen (Nicholas Cage's character's son) receives Lucinda's creation at the opening of the time capsule and Cage's character Tom, an astrophysicist, becomes fascinated with the numbers and interprets their meaning. A series of small disasters confirm his interpretation of the document and lead to the discovery of Lucinda's descendants and the bigger plot.
The Biblical references in the movie were a bit unexpected, as the investigation team finds that Lucinda had become obsessed with a drawing of the prophet Ezekial receiving his prophecies from God. The movie also doubles as a thriller with Tom trying to protect his son from the disasters and the "whispering people" who appeared to both Caleb and Lucinda.
If you can get past Nicholas Cage's lack of ability to actually emote anything (even as simple as fatherly love), this is a very good movie. It pays attention to history and Biblical teachings without being preachy. The ending is unexpected and yet foreshadowed earlier in the movie.
"Knowing" is a great movie that could have been a much bigger hit if it had been marketed right.

TV on DVD: Watching Lost...

As Netflix subscribers and with a movie collection that boasts more than 600 titles, we watch a lot of movies around our house. But this weekend, and when the movie supply is low, the answer to entertainment is TV on DVD.
Most of the time, we prefer to buy shows that have run their course because of the frustration of watching everything released so far and then have to stop and wait for the show to catch up with some new episodes. It's one of the reasons we don't watch network television, or well any television that isn't pre-recorded. We're far too impatient.
Among our favorite television shows on DVD are Jericho and Jeremiah. We've watched Dead Like Me, House (most of the first four seasons), Eureka, Psych, Angel and Buffy. We enjoyed the first two seasons of Heroes and will start Season 3 now that we have finished with Lost. Firefly is on the agenda as is Supernatural.
But since March when we haven't been watching a movie, the entertainment of choice was Lost. I have a close friend who loves the show and bans her children from the room to watch it during the season. They're old enough that this isn't really cruel, just much needed mommy time.
I had heard her talk about the show from the beginning and while it was intriguing, I wasn't willing to wait breathelessly for each episode. Now, having watched the first four seasons, I'm glad I didn't get the addiction earlier.
I loved Lost. Sawyer and Sayid are my favorite characters, but there are so many other really good characterizations on the show that I am often impressed with the writers' abilities. Sometimes, I am disappointed too. I think after the first season the character of John Locke floundered a bit too much. I miss Charlie and love Desmond. I want to start watching Season 5 now since we finished Season 4 last night and I certainly don't want to wait until next May to see the series conclusion.
But, if you are like we were and have skipped the Lost addiction, it is well worth the time to watch the series from the beginning. If you start now, you might be caught up by the time the final season starts in the fall.