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in the mood to whine
This past week, despite some fun moments, felt so very long. Friday morning I actually groaned aloud when I woke up and realized that I had to get out of bed and function. It just didn't seem possible, nor fair, that it was only Friday. I wanted it to be Saturday, I wanted laziness. But, it turned out to be an OK day. I have had some head cold all week that has been draining without leaving me really debilitated, so this is my latest whine in a week that heard much grousing out of me.
Today however was Saturday. Today has been the lazy day pretty much. Except yesterday I decided that I was going to vegetate at the movie theater today, rather than at home.
I noticed that "Gangs of New York" was out and decided that I really needed to go see that. At some point Friday, amid my feeling sorry for myself, I hit on the idea of catching not one but two matinees on Saturday afternoon. So, Saturday I got up, did some banking, then drove up to the movie theater. I was planning to catch the 11:15 showing of "Gangs of New York", then go watch "The Two Towers" again at 2:15 (I bought tickets to both). Now, "Gangs" is 160 minutes long. So, if it starts at 11:15, it should end at 1:55. That would give me 20 minutes between films... granted there will be some time for trailers in there, and I know "Gangs" might not start exactly at 11:15... but even so I figured I would have a good 10 minutes between movies. Or at least five, right? Well, I was very wrong - they somehow showed a full 20 minutes of bullshit before starting "Gangs of New York"... actually a little more than that I think, judging from the time on my phone. And of that 20ish minutes of crap, no more than half of the time was spent on previews ("coming attractions") - the rest was commercials for stuff other than movies. I was most annoyed, of course. I need someone to convince me these commercials are helping to hold ticket prices steady while theaters and movies are improving or something, otherwise I am going to keep grumbling.
"Gangs of New York" was quite good I thought - overwhelming really. It's loud, dirty, bawdy, gory, sprawling, grotesque; cynical bordering on nihilistic. Oddly enough, like "The Two Towers" it is a sort of invented myth-history for a country (or at least a city), although in the case of "Gangs" at least there is some real history woven in with the overblown Grand Guignol that seems its own sort of truth. Towards the end of the film things felt somehow condensed to me, like there were some parts of the story that were left out in a rush to the finish... but what do I know. At the moment I can't even think of a way to refer to the ending of the film that isn't a cliche. Daniel Day-Lewis was great. The voice he used put me in mind of some performance of Robert DeNiro's that I couldn't quite recall. It nagged at me though.
Once "Gangs" was over I hurried to the next theater and managed to get an OK seat. Fortunately they were just finishing up the previews. I liked "The Two Towers" more on the second viewing. No it's not perfect, and I can see where it might irk the purists, but it has an epic feel to it, and in my opinion does a great job of giving you the heart of the story while also being a bombastic mainstream movie. And it's just plain thrilling at times, what more do you want? Oh and I know this is not exactly welcome praise but... ok... I just keep thinking, given the material involved, things could have come out so much worse. It could have been some overly long SciFi Channel miniseries with bad effects. It could've been really fey complete with songs and Tom Bombadil. It could've had an industrial soundtrack and Matrixy effects and all sort of fightin' chicks with attitude and bad quips, and maybe also a black sidekick and wise child, and working single mother who needs to be saved from herself.
After all this I came home, ate too much, turned the taps to "scald" and took a shower that I wished would never end. Now I am sitting here. Always with the sitting here. I didn't exercise today; I will do that tomorrow. I am not sure what else I might do tomorrow but probably not much. I was reminded again today that I didn't hang up any of the various strings of colored lights I have for the holiday season. Maybe I'll put them up sometime tomorrow.
Today however was Saturday. Today has been the lazy day pretty much. Except yesterday I decided that I was going to vegetate at the movie theater today, rather than at home.
I noticed that "Gangs of New York" was out and decided that I really needed to go see that. At some point Friday, amid my feeling sorry for myself, I hit on the idea of catching not one but two matinees on Saturday afternoon. So, Saturday I got up, did some banking, then drove up to the movie theater. I was planning to catch the 11:15 showing of "Gangs of New York", then go watch "The Two Towers" again at 2:15 (I bought tickets to both). Now, "Gangs" is 160 minutes long. So, if it starts at 11:15, it should end at 1:55. That would give me 20 minutes between films... granted there will be some time for trailers in there, and I know "Gangs" might not start exactly at 11:15... but even so I figured I would have a good 10 minutes between movies. Or at least five, right? Well, I was very wrong - they somehow showed a full 20 minutes of bullshit before starting "Gangs of New York"... actually a little more than that I think, judging from the time on my phone. And of that 20ish minutes of crap, no more than half of the time was spent on previews ("coming attractions") - the rest was commercials for stuff other than movies. I was most annoyed, of course. I need someone to convince me these commercials are helping to hold ticket prices steady while theaters and movies are improving or something, otherwise I am going to keep grumbling.
"Gangs of New York" was quite good I thought - overwhelming really. It's loud, dirty, bawdy, gory, sprawling, grotesque; cynical bordering on nihilistic. Oddly enough, like "The Two Towers" it is a sort of invented myth-history for a country (or at least a city), although in the case of "Gangs" at least there is some real history woven in with the overblown Grand Guignol that seems its own sort of truth. Towards the end of the film things felt somehow condensed to me, like there were some parts of the story that were left out in a rush to the finish... but what do I know. At the moment I can't even think of a way to refer to the ending of the film that isn't a cliche. Daniel Day-Lewis was great. The voice he used put me in mind of some performance of Robert DeNiro's that I couldn't quite recall. It nagged at me though.
Once "Gangs" was over I hurried to the next theater and managed to get an OK seat. Fortunately they were just finishing up the previews. I liked "The Two Towers" more on the second viewing. No it's not perfect, and I can see where it might irk the purists, but it has an epic feel to it, and in my opinion does a great job of giving you the heart of the story while also being a bombastic mainstream movie. And it's just plain thrilling at times, what more do you want? Oh and I know this is not exactly welcome praise but... ok... I just keep thinking, given the material involved, things could have come out so much worse. It could have been some overly long SciFi Channel miniseries with bad effects. It could've been really fey complete with songs and Tom Bombadil. It could've had an industrial soundtrack and Matrixy effects and all sort of fightin' chicks with attitude and bad quips, and maybe also a black sidekick and wise child, and working single mother who needs to be saved from herself.
After all this I came home, ate too much, turned the taps to "scald" and took a shower that I wished would never end. Now I am sitting here. Always with the sitting here. I didn't exercise today; I will do that tomorrow. I am not sure what else I might do tomorrow but probably not much. I was reminded again today that I didn't hang up any of the various strings of colored lights I have for the holiday season. Maybe I'll put them up sometime tomorrow.
no subject
p.s. put up the lights!!