Avi goes to the movies
One of the things that I like doing just because it annoys other people is wax nostalgic. There's something about a 25-year old pining for the old days that makes people give me this look like I'm nuts. I love it.
Today I had an actual reason for nostalgia—I dug up my last free pass to the Star Southfield. It was going to expire at the end of the year, so I had to use it. That's where the nostalgia starts.
The Star Theater chain used to have an online club where you'd get a weekly email telling you about the movies that were coming up, plus opportunities to win passes to pre-release screenings. Those were the days. The first month I was a member I must have gone to three screenings. After the screenings wound down, they had trivia contests where the first n people with correct answers won movie passes for two. That's where I'd gotten today's movie pass.
Alas, good things never last, and the owners of the Star chain sold their last bits of ownership to Loews Cineplex. Soon, the email club became just another newsletter listing times. No contests, no free tickets, nothing.
So I had a free afternoon with nothing to do, a movie pass for two, and a desire to see the new LOTR film. I grabbed Aaron Z, and we got settled in our seats at 6:55 for the 7pm showing.
It's time to wax nostalgic again. Weren't trailers less annoying in the past? At 7, they started trailers. One for a movie that proves that they have run out of ideas: Darkness Falls. (Do you get it? Darkness falls. Darkness Falls! <insert sound of knee slap here> How clever!) The plot: the Tooth Fairy comes to take vengeance. Really!
Then there's The Core. In this movie, some scientists accidentally break the world, causing the core to stop spinning. This causes mysterious electrical storms to grow, making glowing balls that target every well-known structure of historical significance, and make them explode. (If you thought the exploding White House in Independence Day was cool, wait until you see the exploding Acropolis and Coliseum.) Nothing like an excuse for special effects.
Can you get worse than Dumb and Dumber? Sure you can, if you really try. Meet When Harry Met Lloyd: Dumb and Dumberer which makes me mourn once again for my country and my people.
Half an hour of previews. Finally we can see The Two Towers. Mike had seen it earlier, and hadn't liked the liberties that they took with the book. I can't say that it bothered me that much. The real reason is that the book is long. Really really long. I don't remember it in the amount of detail that would be necessary for me to start ripping it apart. And anyway, when I read the book, I had enough problems just keeping track of how things were going.
That reminds me that I have to read the Lord of the Rings again. Eventually I'll get it.
Comments
I have to agree with Mike. I haven't read the books in a long time also, but the scene with gollum talking to himself, about precious, never happened in the book. Second, they ended the movie before the second book ended. The only discussion gollum had was about with "she". Also they change Gimli, who was known for his axe, to a dwarf who was known for his really bad jokes. Also, the king of Rohan was depicted as a coward by pulling back and back and back. While in the book, he was a couragous character.
Posted by: Ari Drissman | January 5, 2003 1:36 AM