Movies

A Sunday at the Movies


Last weekend after dinner at BP’s, Rob and I engaged in that trailer park tradition of trolling the dvd bargain bins at our local crap peddling box store because we were too tired to make the drive to the suburbs and muster the inner reserves to deal with the Saturday nite hordes at the multiplex.

After rearranging two bins brimming with theatric cast-offs we settled on two of the $5 selections: Fever Pitch and In the Name of the King. We watched the former that night. It’s a remake of a British film starring Colin Firth that was adapted from a book of short stories by Nick Hornsby. I sorta wish we could have seen the original because this version, while cute and rom-comish, was predictable and even Drew Barrymore’s patent cuteness couldn’t spark any sort of believable chemistry with the Jimmy Fallon character. It did evoke memories of my late husband who was a professional sports team fanatic like Fallon’s character although Will lived and died for the Pittsburgh Steelers and the character in the film was a Red Sox fan. Here’s a peek at the Firth version:

One wouldn’t believe it but there is an upside to involvement with a lunatic pro-ball follower;  they are easy to buy presents for and a girl is always guaranteed time to do things her boyfriend/husband would have ruined with his petulance. In my case it was Sunday afternoons from September through December when I could wander bookstores or window shop or just curl up with a good book. Will always encouraged me to go out with girlfriends and couldn’t understand my preferring time off on my own, but he was almost incapable of being left to his own devices – something Dee has inherited, and Rob and I have worked hard to eradicate. My job plunked me in the thick of crowds of children and daily collaboration with other adults. I cherished any social decompression I could get and I learned to be alone in crowds or in public in order to facilitate recharging.

Last night we watched the second film, In the Name of the King, which turned out to be based on a video game. It was awful. How awful? Burt Reynolds was the King in question – ’nuff said.

I am not certain why video games need to be made less passive as entertainment by turning them into movies in the same way I am puzzled by the need to ruin perfectly good novels by filming them. There were a few interesting elements which a better writer (there were three listed in the credits – never a good sign), less cheesy CGI and better casting could have made more of, but the film was doomed from the opening.

I guessed most of the plot turns well before they happened and when Rob noted,

“This is just a bad knock-off of Lord of the Rings.”

I had to point out that “Everything is an inferior knock of Tolkien.” Which is why it was so easy to predict events well before they happened. It is curious though because there are certain elements that always show up and yet don’t make much sense:

1) The enemy army is always made up of subhumans.

2) The hero is fatherless but has male role models aplenty which makes one wonder – why not just give the kid a dad?

3) Women are mostly absent.

4) Power derived from ruling people/countries is less corrupting than the ability to work magic.

In the Name of the King might be a video game of worth (though I question the idea that video games are worthy of any amount of time), but it sucked as a movie. But as always, decide for yourself.

The Proposal


The mom-unit offered to babysit.

“Why don’t you guys go out for dinner and a movie?”

My sister, DNOS, is the happy recipient of many an opportunity to hand off parenting to our mother. Before her, BabySis regularly abused the whole grandparent baby-sitting thing. But I have never lived near enough to avail myself. Even when I was single and getting back to the hometown more often, I usually ended up sitting for the kids while siblings went out.

So we naturally jumped on the opportunity to get out.

“We are going to be thoroughly spoiled with couple time this summer,” I said at dinner. “What will we do if we end up overseas next year?”

“There are nannies,” he said.

But it’s an issue for the future. This week, I have live-in help.

The movie we saw after a wonderfully child-free meal in the lounge at BP was Sandra Bullock’s The Proposal.

“It was her first nude scene ever,” I commented after. “She looked good for her age.”

“How old is she?”

“She’s my age or a bit younger,” I said.

“You know,” Rob replied,”I really wish you would quit saying someone was your age when I am only two years older. It should be ‘she is our age’. I’m feeling left out … and old.”

Which was not my intention, but one someone is a hair younger than I am he/she is four or five years younger than Rob and in some instances that really stretches the idea of “peers”. Generations gap every five years after all. But I conceded the point and made a mental note to self.

“You look good for your age too,” he went on to say.

“But I have that tummy pooch and she doesn’t.”

“Why, I wonder?”

“Having babies ruins the body.”

“You are hardly ruined,” he said and didn’t roll his eyes despite the fact that he wishes I could look through his eyes to see me sometimes.

The movie itself is timeless romcom that goes back to Tracey and Hepburn. A man and an independent, strong-willed and utterly capable woman who are initially annoyed, irritated and dismissive of each other eventually fall in love – usually because the woman allows the man to see her softer side … which in no way diminishes her, but allows her to be fully herself.

Critics thought the first half was good and the second half (the softening, revealing and falling in love half) to be trite and done already.

And what’s wrong with that?

I guess a feminist would agree that Margaret (Bullock) should not have to be soft and fluffy as a bunny in order to win a man. Although, I don’t know how else one would “win” an man because who wants to be with someone who doesn’t need them? I am put off by men who don’t seem to have anything but hard edges and expectations that no normal person could possibly fulfill, so why would a man be any different?

And I liked that Margaret softened. She was a lonely person without family ties or friends. I don’t think she was damaged by revealing her need to be understood and loved for herself or for missing the family she no longer had. It wasn’t like Andrew (Ryan Reynolds) didn’t grow. He had a horrendous relationship with his father and came away changed by what he learned about Margaret’s loss of her parents.

Which brings me to this …

“Hey,” Rob said on the drive home, “we finally saw a film without the slightest taint of widowhood.”

“Yeah,” I said, “although there was that dead parents and memorial tattoo thing.”

“Oh …right.”

Doves. The tattoo was doves.

I laughed throughout the film. Not something one can say about many comedies these days, and Betty White was a hoot and a half. One of my favorite actresses, she has excellent comedic timing.

The film rates a “see it” in my opinion.

Red-Shirted: Musings on Star Trek


There’s a scene in the new Star Trek movie that has Kirk and Sulu space-jumping from a shuttle onto a drilling platform in an attempt to disable it and save the planet Vulcan. Jumping along with them is a crew member named Olson. Because there are several characters who crop up with names from the old series, Rob wondered who Olson was.

“He’s wearing red, honey,” I whispered, “so it doesn’t matter.”

Aficionados of the original television show can attest to the fact that unidentified crew members wearing red shirts were regularly sacrificed to the harsh realities of space travel in the place of established characters like Kirk and Sulu. Red shirting equaled dead.

It’s interesting how we come to associate certain conditions with predictable outcomes.

We were sitting in a packed theatre in The Park after having braved an overcrowded lobby for tickets and popcorn. Rob and I divided and conquered to achieve our ends as quickly as possible. He hopped into the ticket line and I got in the shortest of the concession lines, which meant nothing. Length of queue is no indication that the person running the till is fast or slow. Canadians just don’t get the whole “service” idea and incompetent workers are aided by the overall Canadian “too polite to complain” thing.

I won. It took twenty minutes for me to achieve Nirvana/service while Rob had only made the middle of his line. As I waited, I noticed that many others used our strategy and the number of people in front of me changed frequently. The young man behind the counter had a deer in the headlight expression but it didn’t keep him from functioning at a level one doesn’t often see – efficient – and this aura of knowing what the fuck he was doing had attracted him some assistance in the form of a more frightened looking young man who scurried around behind him helping to fill orders.

There were a number of families, who I will assume were there to see UP but since Drag Me To Hell seemed to be the movie most people were nattering about, I can’t be sure. One couple nitpicked at the Competent Worker while their two little boys hung on the counter and licked the ice in the container next to the soda dispenser. It should go without saying that we had bottled water for our beverage.

We found seats easily. Annoyed the woman seating on the end as we took turns visiting the washroom before the show began. And I will note here that there were far too many tinkled on toilet seat lids for my liking in the washroom and if toilet seats are great germ transmitters (they are not sinks and door handles are) in public restrooms, it is the fault of idiotic women dangling their bums about toilet seats.

Despite the lack of seating by preview time, Rob and I selfishly maintained a barrier of a vacant seat on either side of us. I really prefer not to literally rub elbows. There was one woman to our left who texted until the film began and some geezers behind us who had to comment on every little homage to the original series the movie paid (I know that Rob and I are old too but we were not teens or even preteens when the show originally aired. In fact, I was in pre-school and didn’t see it until it began its run in syndication when I was about 11.) These minor things aside, it was an enjoyable  outing .

One thing horrified me as we were leaving – the last ones because we watched nearly all the credits – was the fact that no one took their garbage out with them. I looked up and saw that nearly every seat had an abandoned soda cup. Popcorn bags carpeted the floor or were left perched on seats. And there we were, toting our empty bags and water bottles out.

Not that there was a trash can to put things in. The one at the exit was overflowing, but c’mon –  raised in a barn much?

Oh, the movie? The stereo-type thing cropped up in the form of death and widowhood – again. When Kirk’s father dies just seconds after his birth and he and his wife are saying their goodbyes – I was on the verge of tears. But I found the melodrama a bit hackneyed and unrealistic. Death is not normally so poetic and purposeful. George Kirk dies by choice to save his crew, wife and newborn son. If only we all could have such a meaningful end.

Kirk’s “poor me my dad is dead” rebellion rated an eye-roll even though I completely agreed with another character’s dismissal of his behavior as a waste of time that should be put to better use. And Spock’s dramatic break over his mother’s death played into the idea that grief renders people incapable grated a bit. Probably it was the link to temporary insanity. I still don’t believe that the grieving are hothouse vegetation who can’t think clearly enough to take care of business and think about the future. Grief can be allowed a debilitating mis-step here and there, and some people let it swamp them, but most people carry on more or less without any need to abdicate. Grief is not a mental illness. It’s not a breakdown. It’s normal. One deals.

The alternate timeline thing was brilliant though scientifically flawed. I liked Spock and Uhura together. I loved Scotty and Kirk was better than expected although I am not entirely convinced he will grow up to be William Shatner someday.

The best thing about the movie was talking Trek with Rob afterwards. There is nothing like snuggling up and musing on the geekier gulity pleasures in life with one’s life-mate.