The obligatory post-Oscar movie post
Filed Under Movies
Didn’t watch the Oscars. Somehow survived.
Did watch Spiderwick. As a matinée, with kids in the audience, which is the best way to watch a movie for kids. (Still no competition with the Shrek experience, when an adorable little girl sitting in front of us turned to her mother and whispered: “I know Shrek’s not real. It’s a costume.” But it was fun to hear the occasional aside clarifying some plot point from the books, or narrating what happened on screen.)
The New York Times has a cool infographic of box office receipts from the past 20-plus years. It’s a fun way to waste some of your valuable web surfing time.
Cloverfield comments
Filed Under Movies
We saw Cloverfield in Vermont, which was the perfect venue because the theater near Mount Snow has eensy screens. Thus I was able to watch the movie without fear of motion sickness.
(As if we needed more proof that CNN is no longer a good source for news, did we really need an article telling us that bouncy jouncy movies might induce sickness? We all saw The Blair Witch Project and Saving Private Ryan; we know how this works.)
I enjoyed the movie. Character-wise, they sold the inciting irrational act of running toward the monster, there wasn’t hideous protagonist stupidity, and they stuck to the chosen single-camera schtick. Thus I have some quibbles (including the impressive fortitude saves by characters running around in heels or recently impaled) but am basically happy, even though we got to see a lot of the monster and the Central Park quotes were irksome.
But Jim Macdonald’s comments are much more entertaining than mine.
Mixed Zen
Filed Under Life, Movies, Games
In the mall yesterday, Larry and I went to a store that sold garden accoutrements. They sold polished stones, priced by the pound and labeled “Mixed Zen.” We were amused.
Before encountering the Mixed Zen, we saw a Stardust matinee, because Neil Gaiman told us to (but not on Friday, because Neil Gaiman’s not the boss of us). It was quite charming (though there’s always something a little bit off about De Niro doing comedy, whether here or Analyze This or Frankenstein), and everybody involved seemed to be having a really great time. (And at no time did I think of the half hour of Layer Cake I sat through.) I read the book shortly after it came out, and had essentially forgotten everything that happened in the faerie realm. (Which is, upon reflection, appropriate.) I’ve flipped through the book over the last couple days, but while watching I wasn’t in a good position to critique accuracy, and instead just watched the movie as a movie. Most of the changes I did recognize as departures (primarily Victoria’s characterization and what happens after happily ever after) were reasonable adaptation casualties, ultimately good to neutral.
Later in the evening, we went to a free concert at the park, which was fun and had a turn out of a few dozen. The venue in question is a gazebo, so I thought that was a pretty respectable audience for a short concert series that doesn’t get a lot of promotion, as far as I know.
And after that, I was briefly (for about two hours) addicted to Gimme Friction Baby, thanks to my loving husband. I’ve gotten up to 14 balls. I don’t know if I’ll play it again. My game addictions have a way of burning themselves out pretty quickly. (Witness Okami, which I played for six or eight hours straight a couple of times, but haven’t bothered with since.)
In which Our Heroine muses how it is infinitely more frustrating to see a near miss than complete schlock
Filed Under Movies
The near miss in question is Sunshine, which Larry and I saw this weekend. The movie was notable for being a science fiction movie I hadn’t heard about before it entered theaters.
(Okay, that’s not exactly true. I seem to recall having seen the title, and on at least one occasion wondered if somebody had optioned the Robin McKinley book. I think I also knew the title was associated with Danny Boyle, but I’m not sure if I knew it was SF. In short, I am lazy and haphazard when it comes to keeping track of upcoming films. And, in the spirit of being haphazard, congratulations Cullen and Kevin.)
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Blobfest!
Saturday we went to Blobfest. Friday evening there was a reenactment of the evacuation from the theater—we didn’t go to that, but might in the future. We skipped or quickly glanced at Saturday’s other non-movie activities: a costume contest, a small street festival, guests, etc. We’ve been to enough SF conventions that we were a bit underwhelmed by the offerings, though if I was a serious B-movie buff I expect I’d have enjoyed the panels and whatnot.
I’d never actually seen The Blob before, and it wasn’t as painful as many monster movies of the era (where pain is defined as extreme boredom, lacking the intervention of Joel, Mike, or the bots). But it was definitely amusing to watch it in the Colonial Theater; it’s certainly the venue I’ll choose when it’s time for my kids to watch the movie.
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Non-review round-up
Filed Under Books, Movies, Comics, TV, Anime
I used to try to write reviews regularly. I hated it. Nonfiction takes forever, even when it’s a review rather than criticism. (Yes, there’s a difference. No, I’ve never written anything I consider to be criticism.) But a quick opinion, and maybe a random tangent? I can manage that. Welcome to Web 2.0.
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Not actually a post about Ratatouille
Filed Under Movies
Though it is indeed a fun movie, which we saw primarily on the strength of the Fresh Air interview with Brad Bird and Patton Oswalt, secondarily on having enjoyed The Incredibles. The audience was the sort of mix you expect at a Pixar movie—cute kids, teenaged packs, parent- and grandparent-aged adults (only some with kids in tow)—but to get into the theater we had to wade through a crowd largely made up of teenagers. Big crowds are not particularly usual at our local movie theater, and when asked the staff said most of the crowd was there to see Die Hard.
Fair enough. I’ll probably see it at some point, too. (Because yes, I do find it adequately entertaining to watch millions of dollars worth of stuff getting blown up for my amusement, or an equal number of programming manhours on display.) But before our movie started, I did the math and realized that the teenagers waiting to see Bruce Willis blow stuff up hadn’t been born when the first Die Hard movie came out.
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Turns out Alexander really is mind-numbing
Filed Under Movies
Which is okay, because I only demanded it for background noise. The screaming Persians are getting a bit annoying, however, so if Gaugamela doesn’t wrap up soon I might switch to something else.