What I Watched, What You Watched: Installment #40

	QUICK THOUGHTS: I interviewed Russell Brand this past Friday and in preparation I watched the original Arthur (for the first time in I don’t know how long) seeing how he is set to remake the film with Helen Mirren stepping in for John Gielgud, who won an Oscar for his performance as Arthur’s butler Hobson. As for my opinion on the film, when Moore is pulling the drunk act (which is a large portion of this film) it gets increasingly annoying and has me curious as to how Brand is going to adapt to the character. I can’t imagine he’ll play it as over the top… or at least I hope not. A lot of Arthur‘s comedy is derived from pratfalls and stupidity rather than wit and quality writing. However, the heart of the story remains and Gielgud kills it, especially with a fantastic final commentary on death. I didn’t get a chance to talk to Brand much about the remake due to time constraints, but he did give me a good Mirren quote so look for that toward the end of May, prior to the release of Brand’s new movie Get Him to the Greek.

	QUICK THOUGHTS: I was watched about 30 minutes or so of Thief on MGM HD and got a hankering for Collateral on Blu-ray instead. I didn’t have enough time for both so the decision had to be made. However, I did hear from an anonymous source when I recommended others tune in to watch Thief that Criterion may be taking a look at the early Michael Mann film. It’s always weird to me when a film is in HD on television and not available on Blu-ray. It looked fantastic so perhaps they’ve already cleaned it up and have it ready for HD home video. Let’s hope.

There you have it. Now share your weekly recaps and weigh in with any thoughts you may have on the films I saw. And remember to connect with my Netflix queue by clicking here, I have already added several titles from those that have already linked up.