Message 292

Liz stayed in San Francisco last night with her doctor friend Andrea from Seattle, so last night after the Friday night PBS shows were over I watched the second disk of Kingdom of Heaven, Director's Cut. Even though it had a cast with a lot of stars, and was directed by Ridley Scott (who directed Gladiator), I give it only three stars. This film was originally released as The Crusades in a version that had cut out a lot of the story and left mostly the battle scenes, so this version restores it to its original version that is over three hours long. Even though it is a very ambitious concept, it remains a complex and convoluted story with characters with motives that are hard to understand and relationships that are unclear. After watching several hours of commentary in addition to the film, I decided to only give it three stars because we should not have to work that hard to appreciate a movie.

I am waiting for a call from Helen and Jim for a call to meet them at Starbucks.