Category Archives: movies

meme, movies

Movie Theater Meme

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Okay, one more freaking meme to get out of my system, this one is about movie theaters.

I did a quick blog search for movies and I saw an existing meme about film, and I’m gonna overlap for just a few of the questions. I am deeply sorry for the overlap, but this is a Movie Theater specific set of questions and I gots to ask them.

First movie you saw in a theater?
Last movie you saw in a theater?
Crappiest moviegoing theater experience?
Best moviegoing theater experience?
What’s a movie you *have* to see on the big screen?
Have you even seen the same movie more than once in the same day?
Have you ever snuck into a theater to see a movie?
Ever walked out on a movie?
Movie snack of choice?

First movie you saw in a theater?
I remember going to a drive-in double feature with my family, where Jaws was the second film after some crappy thing I don’t remember. I freaking fell asleep before Jaws started, so I guess I can’t count that. It’s probably best that I fell asleep. I was afraid of my own shadow back then.

Star Wars is the first movie that I definitely saw in the theater and didn’t fall asleep. Other movies I remember from my green years — the crappy Roger Moore Bond movie Moonraker, and The Villain (with Kirk Douglas, Ann-Margret and Arnold Schwarzenegger!). Of course I am saying “crappy” in retrospect. They were the absolute coolest things when I first saw them. A wristwatch that shoots darts? A live-action version of the Coyote/Roadrunner saga? Damn!

Last movie you saw in a theater?
Grindhouse. All six and a half hours of it.

Crappiest moviegoing theater experience?
Well, I have seen 5 year old kids chasing each other during a 9:30pm showing of an R-rated movie, I’d had people smoking cigarettes in front of me, but both these things were expected because I was seeing movies in a cheap theater. I would say that the a-hole looking at his extremely bright cell phone during the entire duration of The History of Violence I paid full price for would count as the crappiest experience in recent memory. He was sitting smack-dab in the center of the aisle, and close enough to the screen that I didn’t want to move in front of him. And the thing was, I was afraid to ask him to stop messing with his phone because the movie was giving me the heebie-jeebies about some possible violent altercation ensuing.

Best moviegoing theater experience?
It’s really great living around a big city sometimes. I really enjoy seeing classic movies I missed when they first came out, and especially movies that prolly would not have been available for me to see even if I was around when they were released. I have seen a lot of great movies at the Gene Siskel Film Center in Chicago — I was especially excited to see a kind of obscure Roman Polanski movie, Cul De Sac.

What’s a movie you *have* to see on the big screen?
When I finally got to see 2001: A Space Odyssey on a big screen, I was really bowled over. If you haven’t seen that one sequence in space with “The Blue Danube” music behind it on the big screen, for God’s sakes try to. The Road Warrior is also incredible on the big screen, too.

Have you even seen the same movie more than once in the same day?
I’m curious how many people have done this. I have done it twice. Once for Raiders of the Lost Ark, and once for GoodFellas. I was just so excited when I saw these movies for the first time that I had to see them again the same day.

Have you ever snuck into a theater to see a movie?
I think I have snuck in after seeing a dollar movie to catch the last 20 minutes of another, but I don’t know if you could technically count that as having snuck in. I’m kind of a wuss.

Ever walked out on a movie?
I did this once, for the movie Apt Pupil by Bryan Singer. It just struck a really negative chord with me. I just found it really offensive.

Movie snack of choice?
Salty – buttered popcorn, preferably in a tub (all food should be available in tubs!). Sweet – plain M&Ms. And Coca-Cola to drink.

So I tag:
lulu
dale
Coaster Punchman
and
beth

I would tag bubs again, but that’s plain rude to tag someone twice in a row, right? Consider this a non-tagging tag.

If you s’wanna tag yourself, please do so. I do so love enjoying other people enjoying the cinema.

movies, stuff-you-may-have-missed

Isolation

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Okay, here’s another one of those things I just somehow happened to notice which you may or may not have noticed.

I have seen The Shining in the theater once, and have seen it on DVD four or five times. During my last viewing of the film, a line of dialogue popped out at me for the first time.

So, in my last viewing of the film I happen to notice that a line spoken by the Stuart Ullman character (the character Jack Torrance goes to interview with for the job of the Overlook Hotel caretaker) has a strange change in it. The word ‘isolation’ sounds very slightly different — louder, with more force, having a slightly different quality (music snobs would call it timbre, but I’m not a music snob, folks).

Stanley Kubrick, to put it mildly, could be called a detail-oriented kind of guy. One could even go so far as to say he is somewhat of a perfectionist. The chance that this use of ‘isolation’ somehow slipped in unnoticed by the man to me seems pretty slim. He could have easily re-recorded the line of dialogue so this difference wouldn’t be there. But he wanted it to be there.

What? You say you can’t hear the difference? Close your eyes and play the clip again. Still nothing? Okay, put on headphones, close your eyes, play the clip again and concentrate.

Now, you say, okay, I hear it. So what?

So what? You ungrateful bastard.

comix, movies

Rory’s First Kiss Update!

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There is a gargantuan old US Post Office building off of Van Buren Avenue in downtown Chicago that, to my knowledge, has sat dormant for at least 10 or so years.

A week or two ago I noticed some people building this wooden “gateway” at the service entrance of this building. I was curious as to what its intent was. The fact that it was just a wood frame made me think there wasn’t anything permanent about it.

Later, the facade was painted to match the stone of the post office building. It matched surprisingly well, I thought, but still, what the hell were these people doing?

Last week, I had lunch with a friend who knew someone in the “Industry” who said they were building a set for the new Batman movie, The Dark Knight.

Sure enough, this is true…

Latest on The Dark Knight Filming
Dark Knight Set Pics

To not stir up the comic book geeks, they have all the Production signs referring to the film as Rory’s First Kiss. Of course, by having all these ‘RFK’ signs everywhere, they don’t even realize the amount of buzz they are creating for fans of the Kennedy family, a far more rabid group of people than your average comic book gaggle.

Seeing this cool set in person (I walk by it every day to get to work) reminded me of the time I was walking downtown when I saw a parking lot full of police cars that said “Gotham” on them during the time they were filming Batman Begins in Chicago. I was only mildly interested, due to the fact that the Batman movie franchise up until then was absolute garbage (yes, even the Tim Burton ones). I figured, oh wonderful, they are making another crappy Batman movie.

Now with the realization that Batman Begins was such a good film (up there with Sam Raimi’s Spider-Man films, even), it’s fun to be excited about Rory’s First Kiss.

Go Rory!

movies

A Face In The Crowd

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I recently saw Elia Kazan’s 1957 film A Face In The Crowd, starring Andy Griffith as a drunk in a county jail, who through a variety of circumstances quickly rises to a position of power, predominantly through his charismatic behavior on radio and television.

It was the first time I had seen the film, and it had a lot of interesting echoes given the current situation the world is in. I’d recommend you see it if you haven’t, and see it again if it’s been a while.

I thought the movie was very well-made. Andy Griffith had a great scenery-chewing role, and Walter Matthau gave a nice early career performance.

The film had a pretty strong political message, which I took it to be mostly an apprehension to the new media (television) coming down the pike, and how it could be used by a common rube to sway the masses of common American rubes and possibly ruin our country.

I know a little about the politics of director Elia Kazan — he considered himself liberal, but testified and named names in the HUAC hearings in the 50’s. This film –and don’t get me wrong, I liked it — seemed really threatened about the rise of some form of populism, that could spread virulently through the airwaves of television and radio.

This kind of grassroots populism never really took root, at least via the medium of television. The best example I can think of this is when Ross Perot spent millions of his own money booking airtime to show us pie charts. People were excited, but then it just sort of fell apart. What’s wrong with being excited? Isn’t it offensive to paint the involvement of everyday Americans as a threat, or something to be ridiculed?

From time to time I’ve seen the mainstream media belittle the involvement of the American people. I remember seeing a puff piece on the NBC news where it showed everyday Americans running for President. Tom Brokaw chuckled at the audacity of American citizens attempting to run for office. Don’t they know how the political process works?

Now, decades later, people are somewhat empowered by the rise of the Internet. I don’t want to paint an overly romantic picture about it, but there seem to be more options and a give-and-take, perhaps the faintest whiff of a new populism.

One thing that the film sort of glosses over, or doesn’t make much of, is that Andy Griffith’s character is being shaped by various people in power in order to further their own agenda. I remember reading a while back about how neocon George Schultz convinced Dubya to run for President. The two situations seem very similar, except for the fact that Dubya’s charisma seems a little forced and manufactured. For me, this is the big threat — unaccountable people pushing chess pieces on a board, outside the realm of a democracy. But, for Kazan, it’s the rubes.