For a cold or flu, Pamville doctors recommend lots of food, plenty of reading and as many movies as you can cram in between books.

Pretty much what I recommend doing any day of the week, but illness gives me a good excuse to partake in the behavior guilt-free. Illness is not all bad. It’s a wonder that I ever wash my hands after being out in public.

The food is coming in endless supplies, though I didn’t purchase enough chocolate and definitely should’ve gotten chips or a chip-like products such as my fave Cheetos. Still, I’ve eaten like a bird every day for almost a week — which is to say that I’ve eaten at least half my body weight daily. So I’m good there.

I’ve read the first five chapters of a mystery novel from a friend in Nebraska. Kudos to her for making me want to choke the next chapter out of her. And I read “Green Mile” by Stephen King. I hate the guy. Really. It’s all jealousy-fueled. I know. Don’t care. All envy aside, I am impressed with how closely the movie followed the story. Oh, wait, no that just made the envy worse. Sorry, Steve, u sux.

The DVD fare from the Redbox dispenser was a little slim, so we ended up with a couple movies we were interested in seeing, but not necessarily dying to get when first released: “Inglourious Basterds” directed by Quentin Tarantino and “Night at the Museum: Battle of the Smithsonian” directed by Shawn Levy.

For me, watching Tarantino films is generally akin to watching an operation — the experience is interesting and moving in a way that is somehow both intellectual and visceral, but I wouldn’t want to watch them on a daily basis. We’ve bought several of Tarantino movies, so I can say from experience that I consider the $1 rental fee for “Basterds” over-priced and plan to make a special trip to town today to give it back to Redbox. I would rather pay the oil companies for gas wasted on the extra trip to town than spend one more dollar keeping this movie another night.

It was that bad.

It was, you might say, a movie-failure trifecta of stupid, boring and artistic hodgepodge. Only good performances from quality actors saved if from being a superfecta.

Thus, it’ll probably sweep the Oscars — the last movie that turned me off this much was “Titanic.” So there ya go.

“Museum,” on the other hand, was a nice romp. Yes, I know. It’s not fair that I call “Basterds” stupid for its inaccuracies and then forgive “Museum” for its factual transgressions. I can only justify my opinion by saying that “Museum” just didn’t have that odor of pretentiousness that magnifies negativity. As a bonus, all the extra features made everyone look like they had a lot of fun filming this movie together. I would own it and re-watch it.

I’d write more about it, but John just proposed the greatest theory that I am anxious to prove out: Ridding ourselves of the Tarantino movie with an extra trip to town wouldn’t feel like a waste of gas if we purchased ice cream while at the store.

My man is brilliant at: pam(at)viewfromthenorth40(dot)com