Secondhand Lions
Yay, John is a hero and has spent most of the day repairing my computer and replacing the hard-drive that was toast. My computer is faster tonight than it's been in months. I am very happy.
Now, at
shirebound's request...
Had fun last night hanging out with friends. We went to "Memories of Japan" and the food was excellent. There is a grill set into your table and the chef comes and cooks your meal in front of you and moves in onto your plate. I had a meal that included soup, salad, sushi, salmon, chicken, vegetables, rice and green tea ice cream. Yum. My only complaint about the restaurant is that the tables are rectangular, with one of the longer sides taken up by the chef, so it wasn't the best shape for eight people to hold a dinner conversation.
After dinner we headed to the theatre where we started by getting a guarantee that the "Return of The King" trailer was playing in front of "Secondhand Lions". The ticket person thought we were crazy, but she called the projectionist and assured us the trailer was playing, so we all got our tickets for the movie. I was bemused when three of our party ended up buying -two- tickets each, one for "Secondhand Lions" to see the ROTK trailer and then one for "Pirates of the Caribbean" which they claimed they wanted to see more (despite having seen it several times already). So, as soon as the ROTK trailer was done they jumped up from our theatre and ran off to the "Pirates" theatre, instead. John and I and two others stayed for "Secondhand Lions".
First of all, the ROTK trailer was as cool as expected and left me misty-eyed, reminding me that I better take a box of Kleenex with me when I see the actual movie. Forget the myriad of highly emotional scenes that ROTK will surely deliver on, just seeing that majestic LOTR cinematography again brought me to tears. Minas Tirith, Cirith Ungol, Minas Morgul and the Pellenor Fields- it was pretty breath-taking. And Shelob! Scary and fast! Glad the trailer will be officially on-line tomorrow so I can watch it a few dozen more times this week.
"Secondhand Lions" was better than I feared, but I don't know if I would go so far as to recommend it, unless as light diversion after seeing the ROTK trailer. Michael Caine and Robert Duvall were highly entertaining with the flashback scenes of their youth being particularly fun, but I found the elderly eccentric red-neck routine they played through most of the movie wore a bit thin after a while. I didn't connect well to Haley Joel Osment in this role and his character reminded me a lot of what was said about Daniel Radcliffe in the first Harry Potter movie. Osment never really got interesting because he was constantly reacting to everything rather than ever being -active-. The messages struck me as a bit shallow and the sentimentality was somewhat heavy-handed. The artwork near the end is fun, though, especially for fans of "Bloom County" (same cartoonist). I also found the use of guns in the movie rather cavalier for a film advertised for kids, but John felt I was too sensitive about that.
Next weekend John and I are going to go see "Matchstick Men". Looking forward to that.
Now, at
shirebound's request...Had fun last night hanging out with friends. We went to "Memories of Japan" and the food was excellent. There is a grill set into your table and the chef comes and cooks your meal in front of you and moves in onto your plate. I had a meal that included soup, salad, sushi, salmon, chicken, vegetables, rice and green tea ice cream. Yum. My only complaint about the restaurant is that the tables are rectangular, with one of the longer sides taken up by the chef, so it wasn't the best shape for eight people to hold a dinner conversation.
After dinner we headed to the theatre where we started by getting a guarantee that the "Return of The King" trailer was playing in front of "Secondhand Lions". The ticket person thought we were crazy, but she called the projectionist and assured us the trailer was playing, so we all got our tickets for the movie. I was bemused when three of our party ended up buying -two- tickets each, one for "Secondhand Lions" to see the ROTK trailer and then one for "Pirates of the Caribbean" which they claimed they wanted to see more (despite having seen it several times already). So, as soon as the ROTK trailer was done they jumped up from our theatre and ran off to the "Pirates" theatre, instead. John and I and two others stayed for "Secondhand Lions".
First of all, the ROTK trailer was as cool as expected and left me misty-eyed, reminding me that I better take a box of Kleenex with me when I see the actual movie. Forget the myriad of highly emotional scenes that ROTK will surely deliver on, just seeing that majestic LOTR cinematography again brought me to tears. Minas Tirith, Cirith Ungol, Minas Morgul and the Pellenor Fields- it was pretty breath-taking. And Shelob! Scary and fast! Glad the trailer will be officially on-line tomorrow so I can watch it a few dozen more times this week.
"Secondhand Lions" was better than I feared, but I don't know if I would go so far as to recommend it, unless as light diversion after seeing the ROTK trailer. Michael Caine and Robert Duvall were highly entertaining with the flashback scenes of their youth being particularly fun, but I found the elderly eccentric red-neck routine they played through most of the movie wore a bit thin after a while. I didn't connect well to Haley Joel Osment in this role and his character reminded me a lot of what was said about Daniel Radcliffe in the first Harry Potter movie. Osment never really got interesting because he was constantly reacting to everything rather than ever being -active-. The messages struck me as a bit shallow and the sentimentality was somewhat heavy-handed. The artwork near the end is fun, though, especially for fans of "Bloom County" (same cartoonist). I also found the use of guns in the movie rather cavalier for a film advertised for kids, but John felt I was too sensitive about that.
Next weekend John and I are going to go see "Matchstick Men". Looking forward to that.