I went to see a movie last night. I went alone, as is common for me when the movie I want to see is not one my wife cares to see. Actually, it’s not uncommon for me to go alone even if the movie is one the wife wants to see (always a month after it’s been out — to avoid the crowds).

Some people consider it strange to go see a movie in the theater alone. I don’t understand why they think that, I mean, it’s not like sitting the dark, quiet, staring up at a screen makes for a particularly interesting social event. I’m told, even by some friends, that only weirdoes, losers, and social rejects go to the movies alone. Well, maybe they do, but I offer myself as evidence that they are not the only ones who do so.

Tuesday nights are apparently not a big day for movie theaters. There were maybe 15 cars in the parking lot at 7:00. There was no one in either of the ticket booths (which have four windows each). I walked in behind two young women, and we all went up to the inside manager’s desk to buy our tickets. I ended up following the two women across the foyer, down the entrance hall, and all the way down the side hall. I didn’t hear the movie they bought tickets for at the desk, but apparently we were there to see the same movie.

They stopped outside theater door number 12, and talked for a moment. I walked past them, and into theater number 12. I wondered if they were pausing to see if I was stalking them.

The theater was dark, and the projector was rolling when I entered. There was an older couple in the center seats, about half-way up the rows. I took a seat in front of them. A few moments after I settled down, the two women came in and took seats in front of me.

There was 17 minutes of commercials before the movie. Geez, but it’s getting ridiculous. Half the commercials were not movie trailers — there were at least two car commercials, two soft drink commercials, and a marine recruitment ad.

About 20 minutes into the feature, another couple came in the theater. A woman in a motorized (but quiet) wheelchair, and a walking man. They parked the chair at the bottom of the steps, and the man helped the woman very slowly up the steps to my row. He helped her sit down very slowly, and then went back down to move the chair out of the steps path. He brought back up an armload of popcorn and drinks.

I’ll review the movie later, in my movie section.

A couple times, I heard the woman behind me ask the man with her a question about what was going on. When the movie was over, they immediately started discussing the plot. It wasn’t annoying, really, even when she spoke during the movie. I just noticed it, because, well, I notice things like that.

I waited till the credits finished rolling, but found no after-credits scene. I kind of wish movies wouldn’t ever have anything after the credits. Only about half the movies do have such end scenes, but about half such scenes are actually relatively important to the movie. If it is important for the movie, or important for a potential sequel, it should be in the movie, not after it.

Before the credits finished, the couple behind me and the two women in front of me had already left. It took the man beside me the full time of the credits to get the handicapped woman back down the steps and into her wheelchair. I got out the door before they were ready.

Outside the multiplex, the two young women were standing and talking in the parking lot, and the older couple were standing on the curb. I heard the couple talking about the movie, and the woman was still trying to figure out parts of what had happened.

I passed them all and got in my car. Just a weirdo, all alone, going home to my sleeping family.

Bullgrit
bullgrit@totalbullgrit.com

Viewed: Theater

I’m not a fan of the Harry Potter series. I read the first book, and found it decently entertaining, but not engrossing. It wasn’t good enough to make me want to read the following books. I’ve been to see each of the movies because my wife wants to see them, but I’m not drawn to them for my own entertainment. This movie is about like the previous ones. It’s not a bad movie. In fact, the acting, effects, and general entertainment are good. But there are things about the whole Harry Potter world that I find . . . off putting.

The magical world is very dangerous towards children. Now, I’ll agree that the real world is plenty dangerous, but we don’t willingly and regularly put children (even those in their late teens) in dangerous situations for sport. Fortunately, this movie didn’t pit Harry or other children against monsters and villains for sport, but the specter of the previous movies pops to mind whenever an adult tells Harry they’re doing something (or not doing something) to protect him—they put him in a fight with a fire-breathing dragon last movie! They had the children handling flat-out deadly plants the time before that, and the whole freaking school is surrounded by evil Dementors to protect the children from worse dangers on the school grounds! If the adults wanted to protect Harry, they should just leave him to the muggle world of guns and bombs.

This movie has some great and exciting heroic fight scenes, which I love. Wizards and witches blasting each other, wisping from one place to another, etc. But these scenes have a weakness: we, the audience, don’t know what all this blasting and wisping actually can do. They’re all witches and wizards, and we’ve seen them do all kinds of magical things, but in a fight, they blast each other. Why aren’t they turning each other into frogs, or turning each other to stone, or some other classically magical things? Their magical powers in previous movies has seemed almost limitless, yet in a fight, they just zap each other like shooting guns.

When the children are learning how to fight, to be Dumbledore’s Army, they blast each other with their wands. I was thinking during this whole episode that this was like having students beat each other with baseball bats (or cricket bats, as befits the setting). The whole Dumbledore’s Army thing was like a Fight Club with wands.

And although this activity was banned from school in this movie, because the Ministry of Magic was afraid the school was building and army to take over, this activity of actively fighting each other in sparring matches was condoned and sanctioned in previous movies.

Now, I understand many schools have fighting sports: wresting, fencing, etc. But throughout the movies, it has been stressed how dangerous magic can be, yet the teachers at the school have pitted students against each other in wand fights. This would be like the muggle world telling students that “guns are dangerous, and you need to learn how to use them safely, so you two come up here and duel as an example for the class.”

At least this movie didn’t have a Quidditch match. Children too young to drive a car or motorcycle, put on brooms flying fast and high, ramming one another, and actively trying to knock opponents off their brooms? What sadistic adults.

Also, another thing that bugged me about these movies, and this was played up in this movie particularly: the magic world is stuck in the 12th century with castles and candles and carriages. They seem to eschew muggle technology for their homes and schools and personal conveyances, but they have a train? In this movie, Dad Weasley is impressed and awed by muggle technology, the London tube system particularly, but the wizards use many things that are essentially normal tech devices (telephone booths, elevators) powered by magic.

Anyway, the above complaints are things that just jolt me out of the setting. It’s like watching a Western-genre movie and spotting a radio antenna on the horizon or an airplane in the sky. Or hearing in an old spaghetti Western that Chicago is just a few days ride from Phoenix. It’s all like the author is just writing story and plot elements without really giving any thought to how it all would fit together logically.

Like Harry’s trial at the beginning: they knew, somehow, that Harry had used magic in front of a muggle, but they didn’t know about the two Dementors attacking him? And the magical, talking letter that expelled him from school, (for using magic in front of a muggle), did its magical show right in front of that same muggle and his parents. The school broke the very rule they were expelling Harry for breaking.

So much of the magical world of Harry Potter is self contradictory. Some of this stuff may be explained in the books (although nothing was explained in the book I read), but I can only judge the movie, and the movie series, based on what is shown in the movies. I know the books are written for children, and most children won’t question or have an issue with illogical elements, so maybe I’m just being too adult.

All in all, I don’t have any feelings for Harry Potter and the Order of the Phoenix. The setting problems just prevent me from really getting into the story and enjoying any of it. (And this is coming from a man who thoroughly enjoyed a movie about giant alien robots who transform into vehicles. I’m not hard to entertain.) But hey, I’m not the target audience anyway. If the kids love it, more power to the moviemakers and the kids who made J.K. Rowling the richest woman in the world. God bless ‘em. Just ignore my negative comments.

Bullgrit
bullgrit@totalbullgrit.com

Viewed: DVD

Although I had never seen the movie, I’ve heard and read the movie’s shocking last lines many times in various places. The last lines are part of the American culture like “Frankly my dear Scarlet, I don’t give a damn,” and “ET phone home.” Hell, I heard the lines and the name Soylent Green years before I knew it was from a movie.

Soylent Green, the movie, is a 1973 soft sci-fi film about a future overpopulated dystopia. New York, 2022 – population: 40,000,000. Unemployment is over 50%, the police are corrupt, and real food is extremely rare and expensive. People manage to survive any way they can. The main food is Soylent: red, orange, and new green.

Charlton Heston plays a detective investigating the murder of a very wealthy Soylent Foods executive. His investigation leads to learning the truth about Soylent Green.

The science fiction element of this movie is more in the story and concept than any flash or demonstration on the screen. There is one “futuristic” real element in the movie, and it is a video game. You see one of the main characters, played by Leigh Taylor-Young, briefly play a stand-up video game similar to the original arcade Asteroids. It gave me a chuckle to see that as the 1973 idea of a futuristic game.

The story was not compelling or interesting for me. I think this is because I already knew the shocking surprise to come at the end. I felt kind of robbed of potential interest and excitement all during watching the movie because I knew the answer, the punch line.

It’s ironic: knowing the end surprise ruined the possible enjoyment of watching this movie, but knowing the end surprise is the only reason I had an interest in watching this movie. Without that end surprise being a part of American culture, I may never have heard of Soylent Green, and surely would never have rented it to watch.

But knowing the ending of a movie doesn’t always ruin the movie. There are many movies I would and have watched multiple times even though I know the surprise at the end—“No, Luke. I am your father,” “Marion, don’t look at it. Keep your eyes closed.”

Unfortunately, the Soylent Green story and visuals just failed to entertain me. It wasn’t bad, it just wasn’t good enough to be worth watching to learn the set up to the ending catchphrase. If you haven’t ever heard or read the shocking surprise, and want to see this movie, I won’t spoil the end for you. Maybe it’s a better experience seeing it unspoiled.

Bullgrit
bullgrit@totalbullgrit.com

Viewed: DVD

In one sentence: It’s National Lampoon’s Vacation, without the hilarity.

In many sentences: This movie does have many funny moments, but I wonder if they are funny because they are just straight up funny, or if they are funny only compared to the depression that set up the gag. You feel sorry for this dysfunctional family: a failing inspirational speaker dad, a family-hating son, a drug-addict granddad, a suicidal uncle, a happy and sad daughter, and a mother just trying to keep it all together. Ninety percent of the family interaction is depressing, and then you get the ten percent funny.

The ending is comical because of how embarrassing it is. You laugh because most everything leading up to it has brought you so low that it’s a relief to see the family happy in their embarrassment.

It’s not a bad movie; it’s just not my kind of entertainment. The acting is great, and the writing is good. But the story is not happy. I like a happy comedy, not a depressing comedy.

Bullgrit
bullgrit@totalbullgrit.com