The return of the full weekend o’ fun…
Anyway, it started on Friday night with a trip to The Getty for “Off the 405”, a very cool thing they do through the summer on Fridays. Usually they get a good DJ or a band and they let them go at it in the courtyard, plus they have a cash bar and a great view. We had a drink, a couple of walking dances, a look at this giant stomach looking thing that played music in the main entrance, a quick bite, and then moved on to our next adventure.
Hidden in North Hollywood is this odd little theater/museum that I really need to find out more about. We went there for a double feature of ridiculously kitschy scary movies… although we only made it through one, the original House on Haunted Hill, before we gave in to exhaustion.
When we got home, we started watching Danger: Diabolik, a real cheese classic… I had thought I had never seen it before, but it felt oddly familiar. Turns out, it was the last movie they gave the MST3K treatment to before it went off the air. I sacked out early, so we would end up watching all of this over the next three nights.
The next morning, we lounged around for a bit before running some errands, then heading over to the DGA theater for a couple of movies. The first, Meet The Robinsons, was very good… the animation was a little sub par for a Pixar, but this was really Disney Animation, and I think the first since Lassiter took over the show over there, so I’ll let it go… especially since the story was very well done, and very funny. The best cartoons are those that appeal that all that have to watch them, kids and grown ups alike, and this one does. Plus, I welled up a like a baby at the end of it because, it had a great happy ending, and they pulled out an old Walt quote that kind of got to me.
Between flicks, Rachel ran over to a friend of hers birthday dinner, so I dined alone and worked my way through the paperback and I keep in the car for just such occasions, The Last Templar… decent research, not a bad story, not bad for $10 at the airport. While I was sitting at the IHOP, a group of women in the booth on the other side of the wall decide to play Q&A with me… or at least one of them did, and I think it was really for a friend of hers… either way, I wasn’t really into the game… the book was more entertaining.
The second movie was The TV Set… funny on its own, and probably even funnier if I were in the business, but a good watch just the same. The funny thing to me was watching all these TV execs sweat the ability to sell these programs to advertisers, when in fact, what we always want is just good old quality programming… this isn’t the Pepsodent Hour anymore, people… quit producing crap and we’ll buy more, easy.
On Sunday, I made Rachel breakfast and then hid myself in the other room while she put the finishing touches on a play she is writing for the Edinburgh Festival this summer… she even read it to me at one point and I helped a little on the end, kind of fun.
After that, we ran over to The Vista to see Grindhouse in all its glory. Overall, a really fun flick… Planet Terror, Rodriguez’ contribution was the better of the two, in story and keeping with the Grindhouse theme. Terrintino’s Death Proof was a little disappointing until they got to the car chases, then it made up for the hefty chatter that I usually really like in his movies, but was just not working this time around, and it really didn’t fit with the theme… it needed to be a little cheesier to work with everything else that was going on. Good to see Kurt Russell working, through… need to watch Big Trouble in Little China or The Thing again sometime soon here.
We then ate at the Mexican food restaurant around the corner from the theater (DAMN powerful margaritas, folks), then went home to finish off Diabolik.
I need to run, getting bought lunch by a vendor today at Spago (not a favorite of mine over there, but hey, it’s free)… glad I packed a nice shirt!
J.
Hidden in North Hollywood is this odd little theater/museum that I really need to find out more about. We went there for a double feature of ridiculously kitschy scary movies… although we only made it through one, the original House on Haunted Hill, before we gave in to exhaustion.
When we got home, we started watching Danger: Diabolik, a real cheese classic… I had thought I had never seen it before, but it felt oddly familiar. Turns out, it was the last movie they gave the MST3K treatment to before it went off the air. I sacked out early, so we would end up watching all of this over the next three nights.
The next morning, we lounged around for a bit before running some errands, then heading over to the DGA theater for a couple of movies. The first, Meet The Robinsons, was very good… the animation was a little sub par for a Pixar, but this was really Disney Animation, and I think the first since Lassiter took over the show over there, so I’ll let it go… especially since the story was very well done, and very funny. The best cartoons are those that appeal that all that have to watch them, kids and grown ups alike, and this one does. Plus, I welled up a like a baby at the end of it because, it had a great happy ending, and they pulled out an old Walt quote that kind of got to me.
Between flicks, Rachel ran over to a friend of hers birthday dinner, so I dined alone and worked my way through the paperback and I keep in the car for just such occasions, The Last Templar… decent research, not a bad story, not bad for $10 at the airport. While I was sitting at the IHOP, a group of women in the booth on the other side of the wall decide to play Q&A with me… or at least one of them did, and I think it was really for a friend of hers… either way, I wasn’t really into the game… the book was more entertaining.
The second movie was The TV Set… funny on its own, and probably even funnier if I were in the business, but a good watch just the same. The funny thing to me was watching all these TV execs sweat the ability to sell these programs to advertisers, when in fact, what we always want is just good old quality programming… this isn’t the Pepsodent Hour anymore, people… quit producing crap and we’ll buy more, easy.
On Sunday, I made Rachel breakfast and then hid myself in the other room while she put the finishing touches on a play she is writing for the Edinburgh Festival this summer… she even read it to me at one point and I helped a little on the end, kind of fun.
After that, we ran over to The Vista to see Grindhouse in all its glory. Overall, a really fun flick… Planet Terror, Rodriguez’ contribution was the better of the two, in story and keeping with the Grindhouse theme. Terrintino’s Death Proof was a little disappointing until they got to the car chases, then it made up for the hefty chatter that I usually really like in his movies, but was just not working this time around, and it really didn’t fit with the theme… it needed to be a little cheesier to work with everything else that was going on. Good to see Kurt Russell working, through… need to watch Big Trouble in Little China or The Thing again sometime soon here.
We then ate at the Mexican food restaurant around the corner from the theater (DAMN powerful margaritas, folks), then went home to finish off Diabolik.
I need to run, getting bought lunch by a vendor today at Spago (not a favorite of mine over there, but hey, it’s free)… glad I packed a nice shirt!
J.