Anyhow...
Went with a friend to the new Batman flick yesterday. The three-word film review?
Go. See. It.
Just, uh, leave the kids at home. It's a pretty grim movie, like Frank James said, and not just visually. Then again, that seems to be the trend. We got to the movie theater Just In Time, which means that we had to sit through only half an eternity of animated popcorn tubs flying into Death Star-sized trash cans and finger-wagging announcements about cellphones (which the boorish audience probably didn't have time to sound out anyway, judging by the evidence,) before the eleventeen trailers of coming attractions started up.
My movie companion pointed out that every single coming attraction was seriously short on romantic comedy, puppies, or rainbows; it was all SWAT teams, global conspiracies, alien invasions, and grim death. Hollywood's in an apocalyptic mood of late.
Maybe when their messiah gets elected they'll cheer up and we'll have some whistle-while-you-work musicals with show tunes like "A Boy And His Hybrid Tractor" or "The Hills By The Seaside From Where The Wind Turbine Farm Can Be Seen" to keep us happy on the collective farms...
EDIT: Link added after Charles at Dustbury demonstrated Epic Win of a Rogers & Hammerstein nature this morning.
You're up to? I had to get some handouts printed for class, & get ready for the newbe instructors so it's sunday & I'm up at 4:30
ReplyDeleteYeah, I'm beginning to think this whole "being awake" thing isn't all it's cracked up to be. It's all dark and stuff outside. I may set the alarm and give it another try in a couple of hours.
ReplyDeleteTam, I work odd weekend hours at the local two-screen theater. Not many hours, but the job comes with free movies and lots of popcorn.
ReplyDeleteChecking theaters yesterday, I noticed the audience for 'Step Brothers' watching, looking almost grim. They later came out claiming what a funny movie it is.
The other theater was showing 'Mamma Mia'. Pierce Brosnan is *lame* as a singer, this is a musical, and at any time I check theaters the scene usually looks .. lame. I enjoyed it a lot when I watched it. And the audience .. that was awesome. People were alert, relaxed, and smiling. Happy people. This movie is a vehicle to inundate one's self in ABBA songs, dug from the debris of Disco days. And it feels good.
I watched Journey to the Center of the Earth in 3D the other day. Jules Verne-ian, the story line is kind of lame, and I think the 3D stuff overcame production sense in a few places. But the story is clean, no nudity, and pretty feel-good. The only bad guys are a greedy college administrator and a dinosaur. "Haven't you ever seen a dinosaur before?" "Not with the skin on!" (spoken at a run, said dinosaur loping behind, eyeing its escaping lunch).
The recent Ironman movie was pretty good. Shooter was really good. Hellboy 2 is good.
There is a formula for trailers. Some trailers the movie distributor supplies or requires. Some the theater company chooses. But a dark adventure film like Dark Knight is going to get dark trailers, horror stuff, any vestige of tie-in to common threads about why the audience came to see the movie, to promote other movies that might catch someone's interest.
You would have been surprised if they tried to promote a happy, ABBA revival musical with singing and dancing to an audience geared up for the diabolical Joker.
You would have been shocked if a trailer for something like Toy Story 3 or Antz 2 or Fly Me To The Moon or Space Chimps were tacked onto Dark Knight.
Anyway, how was the popcorn? We pop ours with Orville Redenbacher kernels, Flavacol butter-flavored popping salt, and colored coconut oil. When I make it, I use a light hand on the salt. I keep telling the manager to sit on the macho guys that want four times the salt on their popcorn. They get the odd macho guy coming through that dumps more salt on their popcorn and exclaims "Great salt". Me, with my light hand, gets a good repeat crowd during the weekend hours I have been working.
Salt makes one a "macho guy"? Not sure I'd combine such wording along with praise for ABBA...
ReplyDeleteA friend of mine described one of the trailers in front of the Batman film thusly: "The Mummy: This Time It's In China".
ReplyDeleteI lol'd.
If anyone with half a brain ever sincerely suggests a hybrid tractor is a good idea you will know Mr. or Ms. Half-of-a-Brain has bugs in the software as well as being several registers short of a full CPU.
ReplyDeleteHybrid tractor -- isn't that called a mule?
ReplyDeleteI went and saw Dark Knight at a local IMAX screen last Wednesday, and it was totally worth the thirteen bucks. You really feel like you're in the bank while it's being robbed, complete sensory envelopment. Amazingly, I got there fifteen minutes early, and got a decent seat. And, because it's IMAX, they don't show anything except the movie. No previews, no kiddie stuff, no cell phone warnings. At 4:40 on the dot, the lights go down, and it starts up.
ReplyDeleteBTW, the best scene ever: Joker and a pencil. Period.