I’ve had all week off from work due to finagling my time around and connecting Election Day and Veterans Day to my usual time off. One of the reasons October/November continues to be my favorite months.

But then of course, it rains. And rains, and rains, and rains, and rains, and rains… Man, I don’t think I’ve seen the sun since Monday. This dude is not pleased.

So instead, I opt to go to the movies, but this time I wanted to check out one that had closed captioning available. There was only one nearby that captioned a movie I wanted to see (2012), so I decided to check it out.

I knew I was in for another whirly day when my GPS wouldn’t accept the address I put in. Sigh. Instead I drove to the location and of COURSE on the way I run into a MASSIVE traffic jam. Cars upon cars upon cars upon cars, and always the guy in front of me drives too slow while the guy behind me drives too fast. By the time I had reached my destination I was gripping the wheel so hard my knuckles were white. I was about THISCLOSE to flipping my lid and playing real life bumper cars.

By the time I got there the movie was just about to start. Only problem is, I arrived in front of a gas station.

Where between heaven and hell WAS this movie theater? Google Maps says it’s supposed to be right here, and Google never lies, @&%^!

I drove some more, than drove back again. After about a few miles I see a small sign indicating a movie theater was nearby. Turns out Google Maps was about 5 miles off the mark. By the time I had finally gotten to the right spot the movie had already started 30 minutes ago.

Sigh. It was just as well, the theater looked packed, and if there was one thing I could not abide by, it was the obnoxious, ugly weekend crowd of skanky kids, tired looking parents and stupid teenage couples getting all up in my space as I try to enjoy what more than likely turns out to be a sucky movie.

Not really what I had in mind to cap off my last week off from work. Grrrr.

Ah well, I might be able to redeem myself yet if it stops raining tomorrow. I’ll be heading off to Sleepy Hollow then for some geocaching and cemetery exploring. Babe Ruth and Lou Gehrig’s graves will be nearby too, so I might go see that as well. My coworker of course will wrinkle his nose at the thought of me going off to see a few Yankee ballplayers, but then again what else can you expect from a disgruntled Mets fan.

Pray I don’t get ticks or run into snakes or anything. I really, really hate bugs, and I really, REALLY hate snakes. Why can’t these people hide geocaches in like a Starbucks or something? Sheesh.

Tags: captioning, cemetery, crowd, geocache, geocaching, google maps, gps, movie, movie theater, theater, traffic, weekend
Categories: Lincoln's Personal Log
 
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Just came back from seeing the Dark Knight.  Good film, though certainly not the greatest movie I’ve ever seen in the history of mankind, and it certainly wasn’t better than Batman Begins, which I LOVED.

The movie experience is really starting to sour on me though, beginning with the ticket price of $7.75 that I had to pay… for a MATINEE show.  Just to get a bag of popcorn and a fill of soda set me back another $11, for a total of $18.75 overall before I’m even sitting down here.

Now about $20 poorer, I’m finally settling in and watching no less than 25 commercials because I arrived a few minutes early, which was then followed by previews mixed in with even MORE commercials, and now I’ve seen enough advertising that I should be watching this #$%^&ing movie for free, hell they should be paying ME money now.

But, still, this was a matinee show, and there was barely anybody there, so once the movie begins it should all be smooth sailing from here on out, right?

Nope.  Just before the lights start to dim, in comes in a parade of 3-4 year old little snotlings followed by their parents, who at that point should have been arrested, sterilized and caned for being the dumbest assiest parents alive.  Really, who takes their 3 year old kids to see a dark, disturbing movie like this?  You’re talking about a film that shows a horribly disfigured Harvey Dent like so:

And sure enough, during a scene in the movie where Harvey Dent shows his horribly disfigured face for the first time:

“WAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAA!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!”

Murder.  Death.  KILL.

I proceeded to turn my face abruptly and gave the parents a withering, disfiguredly look of my own, and then made an angry show of getting up and moving to another seat while they tried to calm down their traumatized children, who no doubt will now grow up to be violent criminal imitations of the Joker themselves, all because they had the misfortune of being raised by the stupidest, laziest, asstarded parents in creation. 

Gads.

And even when the little turdlings could manage to shut UP for five minutes, I could still barely hear the dialogue, which was all but completely drowned out by the booming, thunderous bass of 7 foot tall speakers that was designed only to maximize the sounds of ground shaking explosions taking place in the film (and nothing else.)  It’s not a stretch to say I came away from the movie missing 70 percent of the dialogue and wondering what the $%^& half the movie had even been about.

Sigh.  Somewhere along the way, mankind managed to completely destroy the movie going experience for me.  All I can say is, thank God for DVDs.  I can just grab up a digital projector, find a white wall here to use, and I’ll have my very own custom movie theater, with a comfortable easy chair to sit in, no little crapballs with legs running around and screaming at the top of their lungs to ruin it for me, cheap buttered popcorn from the local market, and finally, perhaps the greatest invention ever made in human history: the pause button. 

Tags: batman, batman begins, commercials, dark knight, film, matinee, movie, movies, parents, speakers, theater
Categories: Popcorn and Cinema
 
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I recently saw the movie Stardust on DVD, which I found to be a somewhat racy film, but one that had its tender moments as well. Here we had a guy who was doing his darndest best to win over the love of a beautiful (and shallow) town girl, but unfortunately, she sees him as nothing more than a lowly and clumsy shop boy. One night both of them witness a shooting star landing somewhere in the magical land of Stormhold, and desperate to prove his love for her, Tristan promises to retrieve the star and bring it to her as a birthday gift.

Ah, the things we do for love…

The star however actually turns out to be another beautiful woman named Yvaine. Apparently, learning that the star was actually a person didn’t seem to faze Tristan one bit, and he uses enchanted rope to tie Yvaine’s hands so he can take her with him:

Tristan: Now, if I’m not mistaken this means you have to come with me. You’re going to be a birthday gift for Victoria, my true love.

Yvaine: But of course! Nothing says “romance” like a kidnapped injured woman!

Too funny. As I watched the movie though, I was reminded of just how truly awful unrequited love can be. I’ve only been in love a handful of times in my life, and yet each time they’ve always been unrequited. I was never good enough for anyone I “loved,” and it broke my heart. If the film showed me anything though, it was that there was something inherently wrong in pursuing after someone who clearly would never reciprocate the same level of love and devotion you had for them. At one point Yvaine confronted Tristan with this uncomfortable truth:

Yvaine: The little I know about love is that it’s unconditional. It’s not something you can buy.

Tristan: Hang on! This wasn’t about me trying to buy her love. This was to prove to her how I felt.

Yvaine: Ah… And what’s she doing to prove how she feels about you?

Tristan: Well… [stares blankly for a moment ] Look Yvaine, you’ll understand when you meet her, all right? If we don’t get murdered by pirates first.

Yvaine: Mmm… Murdered by pirates, heart turned out and eaten, meet Victoria… I can’t quite decide which sounds more fun…

Finally, as Tristan and Yvaine’s initial dislike for each other melted away to reveal true affection, Yvaine declares her love for Tristan in what became my favorite scene in the entire movie:

Yvaine: Yes, I know that love is unconditional. But I also know that it can be unpredictable, unexpected, uncontrollable, unbearable and strangely easy to mistake for loathing, and… What I’m trying to say, Tristan is… I think I love you. [begins to cry] Is this love, Tristan? I never imagined I’d know it for myself. My heart… It feels like my chest can barely contain it. Like it’s trying to escape because it doesn’t belong to me any more. It belongs to you. And if you wanted it, I’d wish for nothing in exchange – no gifts, no goods, no demonstrations of devotion. Nothing but knowing you loved me too. Just your heart, in exchange for mine.

Ah yes, only in a fairy tale could a woman offer a love like that. Meanwhile the rest of us in the real world have to bust our balls just to get the object of our affections to acknowledge our existence. For a beautiful woman to offer her love so freely… man, it’s just not something I’ve ever experienced, and there are times I wonder if it’s even still possible to find in this cold, cruel, materialistic world we live in. I can only hope the bitterness borne out of a heart that’s been broken so many times before won’t blind me to the day when a star of my very own might cross my path, willing to love me just as unconditionally.

Tags: beautiful woman, darndest, devotion, fairy tale, film, handful, magical land, movie, pirates, romance, rope, shooting star, star, stardust, stormhold, town girl, true love, unrequited love
Categories: Romance and Relationships
 
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Guess what movie I’m seeing today.

Tags: bruce willis, die hard, kai, movie, movies, theater, yippie
Categories: Popcorn and Cinema
 
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