Mr. Movie

When I first decided to stop going to class in college, I would fill my newly free afternoons with a matinee or two. Over the course of the next year or two, this blossomed into me attempting to see every major motion picture that would reach Loews White Marsh 16 (the multiplex) or Beltway Movie 6 (the second run cheapo theatre). It didn't matter what they were. I did not discriminate. I saw them all. Practical Magic is about two witchy sisters??! I'll be there! Sphere is about a gigantic magical metallic ball? Count me in! Hard Rain. Dangerous Beauty. Hope Floats. The Borrowers. Wrongfully Accused. Check, check, check, check, check. And that was just Wednesday! Ba-dum-bump.

Anyhow, during that period, I began noting many issues that I had with the common movie-goer, and frankly, probably got a little too snobby over the whole thing. So snobby that I began writing a "Movie Theatre Etiquette" series on a short-lived money-making enterprise called Themestream. I tackled everything from arrival time to how most every concession is uncalled for. A lifelong friend, Junior, called me out on being too much of an ass over the situation, so I stopped typing it. But he couldn't stop me from feeling it.

That said, I don't go to the movies that frequently anymore, so my stance on many of previous pet peeves has been significantly softened. However, there's one that still rings as strong as ever. Seat Placement.

Mathematically and logically, when 40 people all go to see a film in a 300 seat theatre, there is absolutely no reason why you should have to sit directly behind, in front of or next to someone that you didn't go to the theatre with.

Granted, I understand that most people gravitate to the middle of the theatre, so if you were to graph the most popular seats in a movie house, you'd see a large build-up in the middle aisles of the middle rows. That and right next to wherever I decide to sit. Without fail, people love to sit close to me. I've already learned my lesson that I should try to never be the first into a movie theatre. Even if I sit in the far back corner, the other patrons will inevitably think that I know something that they don't know and come and join me.

Last night, I went to see There Will Be Blood and I purposely walked into the theatre after I knew that the bulk of the other people had already chosen their seats. I'm not that picky. I'll sit in the far right corner if I have to, but if I can get away with a slightly better seat, I want to take it. So, I chose a row that for all other intensive purposes (ed: I should say "intents and purposes..."...thanks darnedanalretentivestbloggirl) was probably a little too close to the screen, and I sat in the end seat. The end seat allows me to change location at a later point if things really got out of hand. That said, I'm generally anti-confrontational and I wouldn't want to to make even the most ignorant of moviegoers think that they've done something terribly wrong or have an odor problem of some sort, so I typically resign myself to my fate and stick it out for the long run. Perhaps I think that I'll sit myself into an even worse situation if I were to move.

That said, my seat pick seemed to be perfect. But I should have known better than to think that. Because as the first scene rolled through, a gentleman bundled up in what appeared to be 3 or 4 jackets stood next to my seat, pointing down the aisle, asking if any of those seats were taken. I reluctantly said no and stood up to let him through. Now would be a good time to point out that I was the only person in this aisle. He could have easily navigated to enter at the other end of the row. Alas, the movie had started, so I gave him a free pass for wanting to sit down as soon as possible. Plus, he didn't sit right next to me. He at least gave me a two seat buffer. Although he had 15 other further away seats to chose from, again, I'll give him another free pass.

And thus began the 20 minute ordeal of him (let's call him Loudman) peeling all of his layers off, opening however many bags of candy he had and generally adjusting himself. Good. That's done. Two or three minutes of pure silent bliss followed. Things are looking up.

Until it turned out that Loudman has a bit of a cold. I'm not going to fault anyone for being sick. Lord knows that I've had a chronic cough for the last two months that's probably been irritating everyone's who been unfortunate enough to have a conversation with. That said, I kept my cough in check for the entire twopointfive hour film. Good for me. This guy was another story.

Cough. Sneeze. Blown nose. Hocking throat noise. In the end, the ratio was probably one noise per minute. All dramatically louder than they really should have been. But illness is a force of nature. It wasn't this fella's fault. What was his fault was that after each disruptive sound, he made a point of saying "Ekscuseme" even louder than the noise itself. Cough. Ekscuseme. Sneeze. Ekscuse me. Blown nose. Ekscuseme. Hocking throat noise. Ekscuseme.

It should now be said that at the one hour mark in the film, some other guy came and sat immediately behind me. Did he really not mind missing almost the entire first half of the film? Had he already seen the first half the night before only to have to rush his pregnant wife to the hospital? Or was he escaping an annoying situation that was happening to him further back in the theatre? I gave him the benefit of the doubt and decided it was the latter. [Can you use the words "former" and "latter" when you had previously mentioned more than two thing?]

It was a matter of minutes later when Loudman decided that he might need to go the bathroom or the concession stand. I say "might," because he stood up and walked towards me. I stood up and my seat reached its full upright position, he said something that sounded like simply, "I forgot," turned around and sat back down. He forgot what?

Since I was already standing up, I should have taken this opportunity to relocate, but instead I sat back down in my original seat. Of course, ten minutes later, he remembered, and had to get by me to pop out for a Raisinette or something. I stood up and as each of his ten feet stepped on each of mine, he said, "Ekscuseme." He returned five minutes later, no worse or better for wear, and we did our little dance again.

At this point, I even tried to give IMissedTheFirstHourOfTheMovieBecauseMyWifeHadAChild a knowing glance of "Do you believe this guy?" thinking we might possibly be kindred spirits, but he just ignored me.

I don't know how to end this story.

The Movies That I Saw In 2007

Hi Blog.

I got this idea from a Feminist Blog that I frequent.

Of the gazillion films released in the United States in 2007, I saw 20 of them. 8 were viewed in a real live movie theatre and the other 12 were watched in the comfort of someone's home. More often than not, that home belonged to me. Today, I'll simply list the latter and harp on the former. In most cases, I've forgotten nearly everything about the film, so I'll be dealing in vague generalities.

Anyhow, here's my top 12 films watched via DVD or Magic Download, sorta maybe in some order with the top 6 being significantly better than the bottom 6:

• Sunshine
  
• Zodiac
• Sicko
• Knocked Up
  
• Music & Lyrics
• Hot Fuzz
  
• Blades of Glory
• 28 Weeks Later
• The Simpsons Movie
• Spiderman 3
  
• Evan Almighty
  
• The Number 23

Evan Almighty, not very good, had my favorite moment. You see, this was one of those magic downloads that I watched at an acquaintance's house who does that sort of thing. Anyhow, it seems that the person who initially ripped this movie took a few liberties in order to try to make the movie a little more exciting. There was some boring scene in a bar, where you could see the Daily Show playing on one of the TVs. Well, all of a sudden, that particular TV goes fuzzy, and then this amazing technical genius replaced the original image with his tag and some silly non-sequitors. I think it might have just said Booyah!, but it was the most clever Booyah! that I had ever seen. I was also fearful that this meant that this movie now included some sort of computer virus, but was too giddy over Booyah! to care. At the end of the movie, I told this acquaintance to send $30 to Universal Pictures. He did and then I stopped being friends with him. I don't remember his name and I don't know how to find him.

I have also been renting an un-viewed The Wendell Baker Story from Netflix for over a month now. I'll watch it once I've computed that I've paid over $1000 for the privilege.

Okay, if you're still with me, we'll now move onto the multiplex views. I'll attempt to put them in order of best to worst:

• 300 - This was the worst movie that I've ever seen in my life. From the first time that I saw the trailer, I knew that there was never going to be a dumber movie available for my eyes. You see, my [then] 16 year old out-of-towner cousin came to visit earlier in the year. During his previous visit, he, our uncle and I went to see Nacho Libre, which itself is hardly in a position to be called even a guilty pleasure, but has now, nevertheless, been given a full pardon. When Cousin hit Baltimore again this time around, I knew that the three of us would be seeing another movie together. In my mind, the only thought that I had was "Please don't suggest 300. Please don't suggest 300." Obviously, he's a mindreader and since I couldn't walk out of the theatre, I purposely fell asleep for 20 minutes of the film, only to be awoken by some topless guy screaming something about Xerxes. I didn't find the green screened backdrops awe-inspiring. I thought the dialogue was god awful. And I had zero interest in that portion of dumb history, which seemed to be an opinion that I shared with the filmmakers. Booyah!
  
• Reno 911: Miami - My apologies to the Reno 911 crew for being second only to 300. My mother, the aforementioned uncle and I saw this one on opening day. One of the few Mitch Hedberg jokes that I never fully supported was one about sitcom characters, and how once any 30 minutes episode is over, you never find yourself saying, "I wish I could see that character for another 30 minutes." Well, this movie (and the Simpsons movie, for that matter) finally made me understand what he was talking about. It had a great deal of funny bits, but overall, it was probably 60 minutes too long. Plus the extended masturbation scene was maybe a bit uncomfortable.
  
• The Bourne Ultimatum - I went to see this one with my father and a different uncle. Two guys world reknown for forgetting every detail of every movie that they've ever seen. My dad was really excited to see this one, even though he had never seen the first two. So, even though I had only seen the first of the series, I felt like I was ahead of the curve. My uncle had seen them all! And while we waited patiently in our stadium seats, I asked him to give us a rundown on what happened in the last movie, to which he replied, "I have no idea." For a movie series about brainwashing, I couldn't think of a better target audience. Well, obviously, this has all rubbed off on me, because I have no clue what happened in this movie. There was a lot of running around and neck breaking and car bombs and switcheroos. As we left, my uncle found it in him to say, "It wasn't as good as the last one."
  
• Once - Whew, I finally got away from the family! I saw this with a friend of mine, upon her suggestion. I was out of the loop and it was only my glimpse of a plot outline an hour prior that gave me any clue of what to expect. I can't say that I loved it, but it certainly was worth my time. There was a lot of singing in it. They sang one song a whole lot of times. And at first, I didn't care for the song, but by the time that this street urchin type guy and his broken-vacuum girlfriend scrounged together a band and recorded the song during an all-nighter at the studio, I was really feeling it! Call me stupid, but I love those montages in musiccy movies where the band only has enough money for 8 hours of studio time, but they find a way to pull things together and make a kick ass record!
  
• American Gangster - Family! I didn't mean to see that last movie without you! I saw this one with the father. Denzel. Russell Crowe. Right in my dad's wheelhouse. An ex-girlfriend once described my father as a Russell Crowe type. And I have to agree. Just minus all the phone throwing and fist fights. One day, I imagine that I'll be a Russell Crowe type, myself. Yeah, I liked this one alright. What was it about? Some gangsters or something.
  
• Pan's Labyrinth - Since the aforementioned feminist blog already stole my bit about how its really tough to spell Labyrinth, its tough for me to find much else to say about this one, beyond that I feel bad for not seeing enough subtitles this year. Discounting Reno 911, this was obviously the most beautifully filmed movie that I saw this year. It was so beautiful that I've forgotten completely who I saw this with.
  
• The Darjeeling Limited - It didn't take much for Wes Anderson to fall out of my good graces, and The Life Aquatic did it for me. Not that it was an awful movie. And maybe when I get around to seeing it for a second time, I'll enjoy it immensely. And its not even that I entered that film thinking that Wes Anderson was impervious to imperfections. Against most of my friends' better opinion, I think that Bottle Rocket is pretty much a crappy movie. So, I went into this one with an Everything Goes Bagel attitude. Actually, knowing that Bill Murray had nothing more than a cameo and Mark Mothersbaugh did not do the music, I would call that EverythingGoesBagel-2. Five of us, including another cousin, drove to Bethesda to see this one. The showing that we were shooting for was sold out, so we decided to see the Arbutus sights, read some magazines and eat some potbelly sandwiches. There's so much more involved with this story, so I'll have to make a note to put it all in another blog sometime. Man, these build-ups are becoming increasingly larger than the reviews. Movie good.
  
• Superbad - Of course, the movie that I saw twice this year would be crowned my No. 1. Three of us went to see this the first time? I think? Definitely at least one cousin was involved. Whereas the above filmmaker has disappointed me in the past, the Judd Apatow crowd has yet to offer me a clunker. I mean, maybe I'll never watch Knocked Up or The 40 Year Old Virgin again, but I enjoyed them while I was there. My friend Ddot said that he cried at the end of this movie because it reminded him so much of our high school days. I don't remember us knowing that many girls, but otherwise, I probably agree with him. What made the movie even funnier was when I took my father to see it. I knew he would love it and in advance, I had picked out all of the scenes that I knew he would get all ROFLy over. Low and behold, I was dead-on and I heard him laugh maniacally and he slapped me on the shoulder at all the right moments. Typically, you don't picture Russell Crowe laughing and shoulder-slapping maniacally, but I respectfully ask you to reconsider.

This blog took me three point five hours to type. I'm really sorry.

Egg Bagels

"The only good thing about the weekend, baby, is that Monday's just two days away. C'mon boy!"

Name that lyric. So after secretly deciding that blogging on the weekend would be kinda the lame way to go, I just quietly counted the seconds until I could type some more words into my little space here.

This weekend, we finally got the big Egg Babies/Eric and Bovie artshow off of the ground. For once, Eric and Bovie are their actual names. I didn't really see a point in giving them pseudonyms. But now that I've brought it up, let's call them Arty and Painty. This was Arty's first show ever or at least since he was required to include things at school-sponsored things at MICA. Well, it shouldn't have taken him this long. The other friends and I have always encouraged him to do more with his talents. So after years of pulling his hair to work up some album covers and show flyers...Painty was finally the one that convinced him to do a joint show. And it worked like gangbusters. They shared materials, so that from a distance, you couldn't necessarily tell that they were two different artists. Of course, as you approached, you could see the obvious Paintyisms versus the obvious Artyisms. My one complaint is that Arty had promised me a life-size painting of a man on stilts rescuing a cat from a tree. Didn't happen.

As for the Egg Babies, we lucked ourselves into another insanely well attended show thanks to the draw of the art, the Good Guise and J-Roddy Walston & The Business. And, also, as luck would have it, the crowd was quite attentive and gave us all sorts of cheers at all of the appropriate times. To complete the trilogy of luck, a kind soul had recorded the set, so I just got through listening to it.

Now, after the last show, we received a copy of the set and it was quite a humbling listen. Not that we were terrible...just that there's a certain amount of Eggdrenaline (sorry) that runs through us on stage and we think we're infallible. So, after that one, I had expected the worst, but low and behold, we actually played pretty well. Of course, I've pinpointed a problem area in each song, but overall, it was a real party set. Our new female singer was really freaking great and she added a nice counterpoint to that typical Chris Sound that everyone's come to expect. And after the way "Holiday Road" was sounding at practice all week, its a real wonder that we somehow convinced 200 people to sing along to the chorus with us.

So, its nice to have that eggshausting (sorry again) week of practicing over again. I have a throat issue that I'm hoping to resolve before the band takes a lucky contest winner out on a romantic date next week.

Okay, that's all I've got.