Movie Sign / A Quiet Easter
Bryan (iturtle) and I caught a bunch of crappy movies at the local mega-plex the other day- Doomsday, 10,000 BC and the animated Horton Hears a Who.
Doomsday, a movie we held the most hope for, started out interestingly enough but turned into a bunch of crap. It's basically about a virus that breaks out in a Scotland of the future. In an attempt to contain it, future smarty-pants wall-off the whole of Scotland à la North Korea. 30 years later, an elite team of naive super bad-asses destined to get killed by the third act must journey back into the hot zone and blow crap up in some vain attempt to find plague survivors or some nonsense. If you have a chance to see this movie, just watch either Escape from New York or Escape from LA. Doomsday stole so much from those two movies (Including their title font) that it's like watching an unofficial sequel. Even the filmmaker admits his film is a train-wreck of post-apocolyptic epics (*ahem* Better films) like 28 Days Later and the Mad Max trilogy. Meh meh meh.
But lo, it got worse, to our great surprise. 10,000 BC. The film was a total waste of my time, so I won't discuss it. Don't see it. Ever. Really. You'll thank me later. What I will talk about, however, was how strange the showing we were in was. Bryan and I were first into the auditorium showing the movie so we snagged our usual back-row-middle seats. A few minutes before the movie began, a small group of people showed up, and of all the open places they could have picked to sit in this 150-seat theater, they sit right next to me. Whole empty theater; but no. To add to the irony, soon after that, another group showed up and sat right next to Bryan. It was truly bizarre and annoying. It probably should have been a foreshadowing of the nightmare we'd be in for while watching the actual movie. Blaring historical inaccuracies aside, it just wasn't a terribly original film.
Bryan and I were distressed at that point. 0 for 2. Horton was up last and, I don't know about you guys, but I'm no fan of the modern Seuss adaptations so I had no hope for this one. Strangely enough, I realized towards the end of it that I had been completely taken by the animation and the story. The whole caper was carefully crafted, clever and charming. Save for a strange out-of-place musical number at the very end, it was fantastic. Horton made up for a day of bad movies. A surprise ending!
Easter is here and today's family affair was incredibly quiet. With Val and Franko two-months into their torturous breakup with no reconciliation in sight, it was too inappropriate to have Franko over for our family Easter dinner. First holiday I can remember in twelve years when Franko wasn't at the table. It seemed just quiet and unlike a holiday. It was nice to see Val again as since this whole breakup began we've seen so little of her. By her attitude towards Franko, however, she really seems done and ready to move on to a new life. They've begun planning the separation of their finances as well as selling off their house. It's all so very strange how nothing will be the same for either of them and probably the rest of us. Them as a couple has been something I think I've always looked to as stable and rock solid and now I barely know them.
Anyway, looking ahead, it's gonna be a busy week as I continue to sell crap off on eBay to make up for a minor shortfall of cash before my big job-hunting soul-searching road trip to Boise within the next couple weeks. I don't know how long or if I'll come back, but just like Val and Franko are going through some serious life changes, so do I feel that drive to do something new and start over somehow.
Doomsday, a movie we held the most hope for, started out interestingly enough but turned into a bunch of crap. It's basically about a virus that breaks out in a Scotland of the future. In an attempt to contain it, future smarty-pants wall-off the whole of Scotland à la North Korea. 30 years later, an elite team of naive super bad-asses destined to get killed by the third act must journey back into the hot zone and blow crap up in some vain attempt to find plague survivors or some nonsense. If you have a chance to see this movie, just watch either Escape from New York or Escape from LA. Doomsday stole so much from those two movies (Including their title font) that it's like watching an unofficial sequel. Even the filmmaker admits his film is a train-wreck of post-apocolyptic epics (*ahem* Better films) like 28 Days Later and the Mad Max trilogy. Meh meh meh.
But lo, it got worse, to our great surprise. 10,000 BC. The film was a total waste of my time, so I won't discuss it. Don't see it. Ever. Really. You'll thank me later. What I will talk about, however, was how strange the showing we were in was. Bryan and I were first into the auditorium showing the movie so we snagged our usual back-row-middle seats. A few minutes before the movie began, a small group of people showed up, and of all the open places they could have picked to sit in this 150-seat theater, they sit right next to me. Whole empty theater; but no. To add to the irony, soon after that, another group showed up and sat right next to Bryan. It was truly bizarre and annoying. It probably should have been a foreshadowing of the nightmare we'd be in for while watching the actual movie. Blaring historical inaccuracies aside, it just wasn't a terribly original film.
Bryan and I were distressed at that point. 0 for 2. Horton was up last and, I don't know about you guys, but I'm no fan of the modern Seuss adaptations so I had no hope for this one. Strangely enough, I realized towards the end of it that I had been completely taken by the animation and the story. The whole caper was carefully crafted, clever and charming. Save for a strange out-of-place musical number at the very end, it was fantastic. Horton made up for a day of bad movies. A surprise ending!
Easter is here and today's family affair was incredibly quiet. With Val and Franko two-months into their torturous breakup with no reconciliation in sight, it was too inappropriate to have Franko over for our family Easter dinner. First holiday I can remember in twelve years when Franko wasn't at the table. It seemed just quiet and unlike a holiday. It was nice to see Val again as since this whole breakup began we've seen so little of her. By her attitude towards Franko, however, she really seems done and ready to move on to a new life. They've begun planning the separation of their finances as well as selling off their house. It's all so very strange how nothing will be the same for either of them and probably the rest of us. Them as a couple has been something I think I've always looked to as stable and rock solid and now I barely know them.
Anyway, looking ahead, it's gonna be a busy week as I continue to sell crap off on eBay to make up for a minor shortfall of cash before my big job-hunting soul-searching road trip to Boise within the next couple weeks. I don't know how long or if I'll come back, but just like Val and Franko are going through some serious life changes, so do I feel that drive to do something new and start over somehow.