If Only They Could Blame the Writers Strike

So I blew off Macworld and went across the street to the Metreon and caught a movie. I saw the sequel to National Treasure. I'm not sure but I think it was called National Treasure II: Unbelievable Scenarios. It wasn't a bad plot. The acting wasn't bad either. Well no the acting was actually on the not good side of things. But it was this script that just did me in. They kept running into complications like characters are supposed to. The only problem was that each character would then come up with the most elaborate and idiotic way to do everything. I keep wanting to like these movies. I love all that conspiracy bullshit and what the hell I like Nicolas Cage and Jon Voight well enough. It's just that these scripts are so utterly void of any sign of intelligent life. God, I can hardly wait for the Indiana Jones movie. Inndeeeyy!!!

Went to the Movies

Tonight after work I took the bus to the Metreon and saw The Golden Compass. Although I've been meaning to get around to it, I've never read the Dark Materials books that this movie was based on. Tonight I'm glad for that. I enjoyed the movie although it seemed hard to worry about a girl who has a compass that tells the truth, a giant bear king, a gypsy navy, an air force of witches, a shapeshifting familiar, freaking Sam Elliott and, oh yea, James Bond on her side. I mean really what the hell can't she take with an army like that? Anyway it was good but I'm sure not as deep or complex as the books. Knowing me I would have been pissed as hell if I had an opinion of the stories going in. I mean I still would like to unleash an army like the one I just described on Peter Jackson for leaving out every single one of my favorite speeches in Lord of the Rings and turning Frodo into the whiniest little bitch in the history of cinema. So yea now I'll read the books and have all the cool special effects in my head while I'm getting what they are all really about. Cool for now but I'll probably want to kill someone by the time I'm finished watching the sequel.

My Movie Collection

I have updated my public list on the imdb to reflect the current state of my movie collection. I'm rather fond of my set up with several external hard drives all plugged into my mac mini and accessible through itunes. I have all the original poster art in itunes too so it is a real pleasure to flip through all the movies. I like sorting by year to watch the history of film go by. Beginning in 1920 I only have five years where I don't have at least one movie to represent. Anyway you can use the link to the imdb in the new "Where I'm scattered on the Web" section on the right side of the page.

Weekend to Thrill at the Castro Theater

The Castro Theater is doing a Classic Bond Memorial Day Weekend. Last night John and I saw Dr. No and Goldfinger. Richard "Jaws" Kiel was there signing autographs and giving out headlocks. This was my first visit back to the Castro since moving to the city. I used to the Stanford Theater for old movies at least once a week but have cut down my theater visits in this last year. I've been priced out. $20 to take my self to the movies with popcorn and a drink (an integral part of the movie going experience for me) just seems like a harsh deal. It's all a matter of scale. $10 at the Stanford gets you two movies large popcorn and a large drink. At that price I was going around fifty times a year. Twice that (or more) for a movie in the city and I'm going about 10 times a year. Movie houses are getting less than half of what I'm willing to pay them because their price per viewing is so high. For $25 bucks Netflix sends about 30 movies a month to my house. That's just a better use of the old resources.

Anyway the movies were great. There was a live stunt show on top of the movie from The Stunt People. Actually they were pretty good. Overall a very entertaining evening. I'd never seen either on the big screen and the Castro has a very big screen. Tonight my favorite Bond, "From Russia With Love" is playing. I just might hop on muni after work. We'll see.

Ah, Women–the Cinematic Version

Thanks to Karen for this link.

"Watch Like a Pirate" Day

I had just been kidding around when I signed off with the "watch like a pirate" comment, but right before the movie started at the AMC Van Ness the entire row in front of me filled up with young people in full pirate regalia.

It was a fun movie. Better than Spiderman and much better than the second one. More sailing this time and not so much messing around with fruits.

They run ads all during the breaks which I actually don't mind. I hate waiting in a movie theater staring at a blank screen or those horrible slides for dental school. The thing I noticed was that you could do a little marketing research just by listening to how loud the crowd was during each ad. If they were making a lot of noise they weren't paying any attention. If my premise is correct then I wouldn't want to be in network television. The audience tuned out all of the tv ads. They paid more attention to General Electric telling the world how environmentally conscious they are. Of course a subject like that required (and got) superior production values.

Bottom line on Pirates of the Caribbean is a solid thumbs up. It was worth the $8.50 matinée price and I probably would have gone $10.50 and not felt too bad about it.

Choices

I just found out that Bank of America is giving away free admission to a bunch of museums throughout the month of May. I just switched to BoA a couple of months ago and am very happy with their online offerings. Their billpay site is far better than the site I had tolerated at Washington Mutual for years. So finding out that they are giving away local museum tickets should make me happy right? Well no, actually I'm a little annoyed. May has been the month that I've set up all my automated billing, which means I've been on the BoA site every couple of days and never heard a word of this. I had to get it off of the Consumerist web site.

So the choices are:

1. Staying home and messing around with my computer and websites until I go into some form of shock.
   
2. Walking down to the MoMA and getting the last two hours on BoA.
3. Wading through the crowds for some opening day Pirates of the Caribbean goodness.
   

I think I'm going to declare this "watch like a pirate day" and get out of my apartment for a while.