Love, elusive Love. And a few movies
Jul. 21st, 2008 08:12 pm![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
grrgoylOur neighbors continue to quarrel; not just the screechers behind us (whose hate-making reached such heights of violence, including throwing things against the wall, that my Kitten Mitten had the Airplane Ears of Alarm in our own bedroom), but Reggie -- who Tery observed begging his slag of the week to come back inside, before chucking a beer bottle at her head (he missed, but he's a real class act, that one), at 1:00 in the morning, natch; and our other neighbor kitty-corner from us has enlisted us for an unspecified engagement to watch out for strange visitors, of both sexes, to confirm or deny what her boyfriend gets up to in her absence.
Ahhh, Love. So elusive. 'Tis a pity not everyone can be as lucky as Tery and me.
~*~
The sensational![[livejournal.com profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/external/lj-userinfo.gif)
dopshoppe and I were hoping to catch a movie together this weekend. Absolutely positively NOT The Dark Knight; no, you wouldn't catch me anywhere near a showing of that, not this weekend at least. We had decided instead on Journey to the Center of the Earth in 3D, which looked like a guaranteed good time. The only problem was evidently only two theaters in the whole Denver area had it actually IN 3D, and they were both nowhere near either of us.
I pushed for the one that seemed simplest to get to, i.e. not downtown, but rather farther north but right off the highway. Stupidly neither of us bothered to check a local event calendar, or we would have seen that this weekend was the "Mile High Music Festival," some sort of Woodstockian gala, which was staggeringly popular if the ridiculous amount of traffic was any indication.
I knew we were in trouble when I sat for ten minutes just waiting to exit the highway -- and beyond that another fifteen minutes just to get to the theater that sat half a mile off the exit. Yeah, it wasn't fun, least of all in a car without AC.
But I got there, only ten minutes later than I planned. Alicia sadly wasn't as fortunate. She selflessly encouraged me to go into the movie and just save her a seat, which seemed like a sound plan when we both thought she was only fifteen minutes behind me or so. But ultimately, it turned out she was much, much further behind than that. Her car had started overheating from running the AC while sitting idle in traffic, and was now stalling intermittently on her. I felt kind of selfish, staying in the lovely air-conditioned theater while she was struggling somewhere out there in traffic, and I wished I hadn't bought a ticket already and waited for a later showing. Ah well, hindsight and all that.
I watched the rest of the movie and called to make sure she wasn't in a life-threatening situation. With any luck (and hopefully more favorable conditions) she will be joining me, Ryan and his boyfriend John for an IMAX showing of TDK. I almost feel bad enough to pay for her ticket after her horrible, horrible experience (she finally crawled home about two hours after I did. Poor, poor Alicia).
But anyway, the movie, Journey to the Center of the Earth...in 3D!!!! I won't go into too much detail, but there may be some small spoilers.
Definitely a film for the family. There were many children at my showing and, ironically, in a situation where I would have been phenomenally tolerant of distractions given how abominably I was acting trying to carry on a text message conversation with Alicia (I eventually went out into the lobby), my fellow audience was extremely well behaved.
The 3D was awesome, though led me to wonder how silly the moments that were obviously included solely to take advantage of the format looked in the non-3D version -- for example Seth Meyers' long measuring tape shooting towards the camera. No reason for it, other than it looked really cool in 3D.
It also made me wonder how many sexy/geeky professors are hiding out there, aside from Indiana Jones and Brendan Frasier. Because for a "geek," he was pretty amazingly buff.
Simple story (fortunately, since I missed the first five minutes) -- Brendan Frasier is left with his nephew, who he's supposed to take to Canada (?). Nephew is big into P2P games and acting really, really bored by the grown-ups. Brendan has been trying to solve the mysterious disappearance of his brother, which is tied in somehow with the Jules Verne book the movie is named after. Nephew helps him make a breakthrough, that brings them to Iceland where they meet a lovely mountain guide. They fall into the center of the earth. Crazy 3D adventure ensues. By the end of the movie, Brendan and nephew have bonded, nephew has forgotten to act jaded, and sees there's more to life than videogames. Awwwww.
A couple of things -- in the beginning Brendan is given a box of his brother's belongings, that he begins pulling out and showing nephew. Pretty standard stuff, until he gets to an antique 3D viewer and says, "I have no idea what this is." Neither did anyone in the theater, judging from the complete lack of a reaction. I DO love feeling intellectually superior.
There are some flaws in the movie. For instance when they stumble upon a cache of priceless gem stones, all polished, shiny, and easily recognizable, which is of course exactly how they appear in their native setting. Or when they stumble upon a cairn of stones, presumably the grave of Brendan's brother/nephew's father -- they share a touching moment of grief, neither of them stopping to wonder who on earth buried him if he was alone down there.
But it's very easy to overlook and forgive these details when the movie kicks into high gear. I particularly loved the sequence of nephew trying to cross a field of stones floating in a magnetic field. I was actually holding my breath in excitement. Haven't done THAT in awhile during a movie.
I'll bet it's entertaining enough in 2D, but when you throw in the 3D, WOW. What a ride. Would've been better with a friend, but sometimes life doesn't work out the way you want.
~*~
Finally, VERY quickly, we rented Vantage Point, about the five or six different points of view of an apparent presidential assasination. Pretty cleverly put together, once you get past the very tedious replaying of the same introductory footage for each viewpoint. The only time the movie started to really veer into science fiction for me was when the terrorist coordinated the entire attack, apparently from his cell phone. He sets off remote control guns and even detonates a bomb with it, a huge flashing "detonate" icon appearing that he can tap with his stylus. Does that come on the new 3G iPhone? It's probably a patch you can download from iTunes. Tery joked that she can barely figure out how to set the alarm clock on her phone (a tiny exaggeration).
Apart from that, not too bad. Definitely worth a rental, I think.
Next week, without fail: THE DARK KNIGHT, the last movie of "Keith Ledger" from "Bareback Mountain" (actual message posted on Tery's "Big Brother" message board). Have some people simply never heard of Google?
Ahhh, Love. So elusive. 'Tis a pity not everyone can be as lucky as Tery and me.
~*~
The sensational
dopshoppe and I were hoping to catch a movie together this weekend. Absolutely positively NOT The Dark Knight; no, you wouldn't catch me anywhere near a showing of that, not this weekend at least. We had decided instead on Journey to the Center of the Earth in 3D, which looked like a guaranteed good time. The only problem was evidently only two theaters in the whole Denver area had it actually IN 3D, and they were both nowhere near either of us.I pushed for the one that seemed simplest to get to, i.e. not downtown, but rather farther north but right off the highway. Stupidly neither of us bothered to check a local event calendar, or we would have seen that this weekend was the "Mile High Music Festival," some sort of Woodstockian gala, which was staggeringly popular if the ridiculous amount of traffic was any indication.
I knew we were in trouble when I sat for ten minutes just waiting to exit the highway -- and beyond that another fifteen minutes just to get to the theater that sat half a mile off the exit. Yeah, it wasn't fun, least of all in a car without AC.
But I got there, only ten minutes later than I planned. Alicia sadly wasn't as fortunate. She selflessly encouraged me to go into the movie and just save her a seat, which seemed like a sound plan when we both thought she was only fifteen minutes behind me or so. But ultimately, it turned out she was much, much further behind than that. Her car had started overheating from running the AC while sitting idle in traffic, and was now stalling intermittently on her. I felt kind of selfish, staying in the lovely air-conditioned theater while she was struggling somewhere out there in traffic, and I wished I hadn't bought a ticket already and waited for a later showing. Ah well, hindsight and all that.
I watched the rest of the movie and called to make sure she wasn't in a life-threatening situation. With any luck (and hopefully more favorable conditions) she will be joining me, Ryan and his boyfriend John for an IMAX showing of TDK. I almost feel bad enough to pay for her ticket after her horrible, horrible experience (she finally crawled home about two hours after I did. Poor, poor Alicia).
But anyway, the movie, Journey to the Center of the Earth...in 3D!!!! I won't go into too much detail, but there may be some small spoilers.
Definitely a film for the family. There were many children at my showing and, ironically, in a situation where I would have been phenomenally tolerant of distractions given how abominably I was acting trying to carry on a text message conversation with Alicia (I eventually went out into the lobby), my fellow audience was extremely well behaved.
The 3D was awesome, though led me to wonder how silly the moments that were obviously included solely to take advantage of the format looked in the non-3D version -- for example Seth Meyers' long measuring tape shooting towards the camera. No reason for it, other than it looked really cool in 3D.
It also made me wonder how many sexy/geeky professors are hiding out there, aside from Indiana Jones and Brendan Frasier. Because for a "geek," he was pretty amazingly buff.
Simple story (fortunately, since I missed the first five minutes) -- Brendan Frasier is left with his nephew, who he's supposed to take to Canada (?). Nephew is big into P2P games and acting really, really bored by the grown-ups. Brendan has been trying to solve the mysterious disappearance of his brother, which is tied in somehow with the Jules Verne book the movie is named after. Nephew helps him make a breakthrough, that brings them to Iceland where they meet a lovely mountain guide. They fall into the center of the earth. Crazy 3D adventure ensues. By the end of the movie, Brendan and nephew have bonded, nephew has forgotten to act jaded, and sees there's more to life than videogames. Awwwww.
A couple of things -- in the beginning Brendan is given a box of his brother's belongings, that he begins pulling out and showing nephew. Pretty standard stuff, until he gets to an antique 3D viewer and says, "I have no idea what this is." Neither did anyone in the theater, judging from the complete lack of a reaction. I DO love feeling intellectually superior.
There are some flaws in the movie. For instance when they stumble upon a cache of priceless gem stones, all polished, shiny, and easily recognizable, which is of course exactly how they appear in their native setting. Or when they stumble upon a cairn of stones, presumably the grave of Brendan's brother/nephew's father -- they share a touching moment of grief, neither of them stopping to wonder who on earth buried him if he was alone down there.
But it's very easy to overlook and forgive these details when the movie kicks into high gear. I particularly loved the sequence of nephew trying to cross a field of stones floating in a magnetic field. I was actually holding my breath in excitement. Haven't done THAT in awhile during a movie.
I'll bet it's entertaining enough in 2D, but when you throw in the 3D, WOW. What a ride. Would've been better with a friend, but sometimes life doesn't work out the way you want.
~*~
Finally, VERY quickly, we rented Vantage Point, about the five or six different points of view of an apparent presidential assasination. Pretty cleverly put together, once you get past the very tedious replaying of the same introductory footage for each viewpoint. The only time the movie started to really veer into science fiction for me was when the terrorist coordinated the entire attack, apparently from his cell phone. He sets off remote control guns and even detonates a bomb with it, a huge flashing "detonate" icon appearing that he can tap with his stylus. Does that come on the new 3G iPhone? It's probably a patch you can download from iTunes. Tery joked that she can barely figure out how to set the alarm clock on her phone (a tiny exaggeration).
Apart from that, not too bad. Definitely worth a rental, I think.
Next week, without fail: THE DARK KNIGHT, the last movie of "Keith Ledger" from "Bareback Mountain" (actual message posted on Tery's "Big Brother" message board). Have some people simply never heard of Google?
