RSS FeedOpening Weekend Movies
It is not often that I’ll go see movies on opening weekend. I usually wait until a movie has been out a week or two before I go see it in the theaters. But this weekend I sorta shot that plan in the foot. Yesterday we saw two movies, both of which were released this weekend.
In the morning we saw Vantage Point. The movie is about an assassination attempt on the US President as seen from 8 different points of view. It was pretty entertaining. I liked the way they fed revealed pieces of information bit-by-bit through each of the different view points.
In the afternoon we went back and saw Be Kind Rewind. This is a pretty silly movie about a guy (Jack Black) who becomes magnetized and erases all of the video tapes in his friends VHS video rental store. To avoid getting in trouble with the owner, they go out and re-shoot all the movies themselves. Their versions are all about 20 minutes long. Not a great movie, but I still enjoyed it.
As if that’s not enough, on Tuesday night we are heading to the Palms to see a sneak preview of the new Will Ferrell movie, Semi-Pro. Saying that a Will Ferrell movie looks silly is like pointing out that Bill Gates has a bunch of money. But, if you want proof, here’s the trailer. See, I told ya.
If that’s not enough Will Ferrell for ya, it looks like he’ll be staring in the new Land of the Lost movie coming out in summer of 2009. Sleestak’s beware!
The not-so-perfect Valentine’s date
Ahh yes, Valentine’s Day. The holiday created by Hallmark and the florist industries. The holiday that probably causes more tension between couples than any other. After everything that happened yesterday, I can certainly see why.
Our dinner reservations were set for 8:30. I checked the movie schedule and saw that Juno was playing at about 10. But, since we had Chris’ mom hanging out with the kids we didn’t want to stay out too late, so we opted to go to the movies before dinner. No problem, there was a 6:00 showing. That would leave plenty of time to see the movie and make it to dinner. Done deal!
We leave the house at about 5:40 and arrive at the theater at 6:00 straight up. Perfect! We walk up to the ticket counter and find out that the movie times listed online were wrong. The movie didn’t start at 6:00. It started at 5:25. Shit. Our options for 6:00 movies were “Jumper” and “Meet the Spartans”. Chris didn’t know what Jumper was so she wasn’t sure she’d want to see it, so we went with Meet the Spartans. Wow, that movie was bad. I was expecting it to be just sillyness, which it is… but it’s really not all that funny. There are some funny things in it, but overall, I could have skipped it.
The movie was pretty short (probably the best thing I could say about it), so we ended up having PLENTY of time to drive to dinner. Since it was so cold last night we decided to just go directly to the restaurant and have a drink in the bar while we waited for our table.
We arrived at The Tillerman at about 7:50. We checked in with the girls at the front counter and they informed us that it would probably be 8:30 before we were able to be seated. We had expected that, so it was no big deal. The bar ended being PACKED so we found seats in the reception area instead. By about 8:20 we started hearing several people complaining about their reservation time having passed already. Ours did the same. At about 9:00 we finally got seated. Our waiter brought us some drinks and gave us the rundown of the lobster specials. We both ordered steaks (Filet Mignon for Chris, Porterhouse for me) and we ordered an appetizer of Spicy Thai Calamari (which were thankfully NOT that spicy). Our appetizer arrived a few minutes later and it was cold.Then a few minutes after that they served us our salad. They serve it on a Lazy Susan with several items around the outside for you to add to your salad. I requested some ranch dressing that our waiter told us was available but wasn’t on the Lazy Susan. After 5 minutes of waiting, I went ahead and used the Bleu Cheese. Then came the main course. I am fairly certain that I have never had a steak that had so little flavor.
When I am spending $140 on dinner for two, I expect to enjoy my meal. Hell, when I spend $50 for dinner, I expect to enjoy it. The thing is, if I spent $50 and didn’t like it, it wouldn’t have stung so much. Oh well, lesson learned. I will not be returning to The Tillerman. The thing that bums me out most about the dinner isn’t the money, it’s the fact that I could have gone to several other places and spend the same (or even less) on dinner and I know Chris and I would have both enjoyed our dinner much much more.
On the bright side, I have an awesome wife. For Valentine’s day she got me a hat that she had embroidered with geeeek.com and a hat that matches our softball team colors with my number (42) on it. She also bought me Guitar Hero 3 for xBox 360 WITH the wireless guitar. She is so awesome.
Despite the crappy movie and dinner, we still had a very nice time. When you spend time with good company, what’s going on around you doesn’t always matter.
Where’s the blood?
I went and saw “There Will Be Blood” on Sunday with Ashley, Craig and Ryan. With a title like that, I’m expecting to see blood. Lots of it. By the gallon. I’ll bet I’ve seen Disney movies with more blood.
Daniel Day-Lewis is a phenomenal actor. If he doesn’t win an Oscar for this performance, I’ll be amazed. As good as he was in Gangs of New York, he’s equally as good if not better in this one. I can’t say that I loved the movie, but it was certainly worth seeing. There’s no doubt it’s a good movie, but it’s not your typical movie. It’s over 2 and a half hours long, and there is a lot of story telling and not a lot of action.
A western and a shooter
Last week Netflix delivered the next two movies from my queue. The first movie I watched was Shoot ‘em Up. I’m a big fan of Paul Giamatti and was really looking forward to seeing it. I was really bummed that I missed seeing it in theaters. After getting a chance to watch it, I’d have to say that I’m glad I didn’t pay full price for it. Yes, there were some decent action scenes, but the story line was pretty lame. Not to mention the fact that they do the one thing about shooter movies that just drives me absolutely crazy. I’ll explain.
Why is it that when the hero is being chased he can run at full speed, throw his arm back and fire off two rounds and kill both people chasing him who were both firing dozens of rounds from their automatic weapons that never even graze the hero? Even if only by accident or ricochet he should at least be nicked, right?
Ahh well, it was at least entertaining…
Next I watched 3:10 to Yuma. I had heard some good press about it and then Todd mentioned that he loved it. I’ve enjoyed some great movies on Todd’s recommendation so I figured I’d give this one a shot. Just Wow! The movie is fantastic. I can’t really say that I’m a big fan of westerns, but this movie is fantastic. The characters in the movie are more than one-dimensional stereotypes of good guys and bad guys in the old west. The bad guy is mean enough to run his crew of hired killers, but at the same time he’s cunning and charming.
I’m gonna Choke on 8/1/08
It’s been a long time coming! Chuck Palahniuk’s Choke is about to hit the big screen. OK, that’s not really news around these parts. But, the part that may be news to you is the fact that we now have a release date. August 1st, 2008. It’s still a bit away, but it’ll be here before we know it.
Chuck Palahniuk, for the 3 of you who may not know, is the author of Fight Club. Aside from Fight Club and Choke he’s written several other great books that are not your typical everyday stories and usually contain a fair share of fucked up characters. I have a hard time trying to decide which of his books is my favorite, but Choke is definitely one of them.
Choke was recently shown at the Sundance film festival and has received great reviews. Plus, here’s a short video interview with the director of Choke.
If you are unfamiliar with Choke, BUY IT NOW!
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