Movie Theater Etiquette

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My first mistake is that I went to the cheap theater at all. I know better. The sound is sub-par, and too quiet. The screen image isn't as sharp as it should be, although sometimes it's in one part of the frame. I'm pretty sure the projectors need some work, and the lenses are probably dusty, and they probably never clean the projection booth window. So why even bother? Because it's $1.75.

I'm aware of the theater rules, both spoken and unspoken. Turn off your cell phone. No talking. No kicking the backs of seats. Don't sit right next to someone if a theater isn't full. However, in all my movie-going experiences, I've never run into the one where you apparently can't sit in front of someone. I like to be as close to the middle of the theater as possible (which was an issue for me at Batman Begins IMAX when I had to sit all the way to the left in a full house.) When I walk into a theater that only has one aisle right down the middle, and I'm alone, I'm only looking at the aisle seats.

There's a guy sitting 6 rows back on the aisle. I take row 4 aisle, but it's too close to the screen. So I move back to row 5 aisle. The old man in row 6 huffs, grabs his popcorn, stands up, walks to row 4, stares me down, and sits down in row 4 about 5 seats in. I know I'm tall, but it's a theater. It's not like he can't see over me. So I figure, great, even better. Now I get to sit in row 6 aisle, and I take his previous seat. So I enjoy my muffled, not-quite-focused movie.

787 rollout

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Allegedly this is the first time Boeing has had all their 7-series models lined up like this. They landed one every 10 minutes starting at 7:07. The 787 of course is not flying yet, so it's not included (looks like a modified cargo plane on the ramp, the 787 only has 2 engines.)

The War

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It feels like I don't use this blog remotely the way I started out meaning to, and that I, instead, waste way too much bandwidth reposting things I've found and am excited about. Well, I won't apologize for it (okay, maybe for the headless girlfriend pillow, but that got more comments than any other blog I've done.) But this is something I'm really excited about. The top image pretty much says it all (except for the fact that it's partially narrated by Tom Hanks). Ken Burn, PBS, and 14+ hours of WWII. And not romanticized notions of war as portrayed by Stephen Spielberg, either, but the real stories told by the people who lived them.

(Saving Private Ryan was realis-tic, gritty, and in-your-face, but romanticized just the same. For the record, I happen to love that movie, as well as Band of Brothers, and I'm very much looking forward to its HBO companion piece, The Pacific.)

Back on track, the mini-series starts September 23, and the companion book will be released September 11. The DVDs are even available for pre-order from Amazon ($90 for 14 hours?! LOST will be 23 hours for less than $40).

"Introducing the new girlfriend"

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How awkward would this be--
"Mom, Dad, I'd like you to meet Headless Torso"

Back to the (35mm) Future

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It wasn't a new print, but Back to the Future has never looked...well, bigger. The scratches on the print were barely noticeable. What was noticeable were things I could never see on my small TV watching the movie on DVD. Like the fact that when Crispin Glover slammed down his chocolate milk on the counter, some of it actually splashed up onto the actor playing Lou. But he managed stayed in character with brown specs on his white frock, allowing Zemeckis to use Glover's best take.

All I want for Christmas is a movie theater. Maybe if George Lucas was my uncle...

Let absurdity reign

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I found more, and couldn't help myself:

(Is that Chris Farley?)

Jane Austen and Transformers

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You might think Jane Austen and Transformers have nothing in common...and as far as I can tell, you'd be correct. I just figured instead of two short posts, I'd put random stuff together into one.

Let's start with Transformers. I can pretty much guarantee I won't be paying to see this one, since there are about a dozen others I'd rather see first. But other than lackluster reviews, my beef is about how unrealistic the characters seem. I don't mean that I don't believe automobiles can "transform" into self-aware robots intent on destroying or saving Earth. That's all perfectly logical, but when they transform from a vehicle to a robot, it stands to reason that the robot has the same mass as the vehicle. From my rough, eyeballed estimates, the robots are twice as large as they should be, and have at least twice the mass as the vehicles they allegedly once were. For the space taken up by a vehicle in its "normal" configuration, 60-70% of that volume has to be air. Yet when these vehicles transform, they get larger and seemingly heavier (more massive.)

Whatever. Anyway, despite the fact that I rather like the following, I think that calling them action figures (as indicated on the package) is ridiculous. Aren't action figures supposed to do something? Shouldn't they be called inaction figures? Or static figures? Still, the fact that Jane Austen has been immortalized in polyvinyl is amusing to me. (I confess, I ordered Jane Austen off Ebay. Don't judge me! The woman could write. I'll probably end up with Beethoven eventually too.)