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I am a movie going machine. Or at least, I have been for the last few days. Let's look back at my schedule:
12/26/2001: It's the day after Christmas. The kids are back in daycare. Claudine went to work. Hmm, what should I do?. I know! Go see The Lord of the Rings! And so I did. Growing up, I read these books (starting with The Hobbitbecause I thought I was supposed to. I didn't really like them at first but there must have been something in them to make me come back. I still reread them about every two years. Well the movie was as faithful to the book as the medium of film allowed. That is kind of a cop out, because they could have made a 10 hour movie. I guess I mean, as faithful as the medium of commecial film allowed. The locations in New Zealand were wonderful. The casting was very good with one or two minor exceptions. I didn't imagine Bilbo to be as much as a dandy as he was portrayed. Ian McKellen was great and so was Christopher Lee. Although I first thought that Saruman was really the Grail Knight guy at the end of Indiana Jones and the Last Crusade
I went by myself and sat next to three Asian woman who were quietly talking throughout the movie. About halfway through the movie, I realized that two of the women hadn't read the book and were continally asking the poor woman who had read the trilogy what was happening. I tried to imagine watching this movie without having read the books and couldn't do it. There was so much to process and a ton of unusual names. If you didn't know the difference between Sauron and Saruman beforehand, I can't imagine you were able to figure it out during the movie. But who cares, I did read them, so I enjoyed it.
12/27/2001: Kids are still in daycare (well, not still in daycare. We got them yesterday and returned them the next day. Kinda like renting a video - if we are late, we have to pay an extra charge). Claudine worked from 7-12 this day. That means an afternoon movie for us. Like a date. Only with my wife. Today was Vanilla Sky. Toothy was ok. Claudine doesn't really like Tom Cruise. The last thing that she liked him in (and I agree) was Interview with the Vampire. But Claudine's brother Bill and his wife, Pam really liked this movie so we took a chance. It was pretty wacky. It actually turned into a science fiction movie. It started as some type of character piece and turned into a gimmicky science fiction movie. I don't say that in a negative way. I love Arnold gimmicky science fiction movies (Sixth Day, Total Recall). Cameron Diaz was sufficiently crazy and Penelope Cruz was way cuter than I realized. I Maybe it was her character, but I liked her.
12/28/2001: Claudine is working. Kids are in daycare. Hmm, what could I do today? Uh, go to a movie? Don't mind if I do. Today's fare was Harry Potter and the Sorcerer's Stone. Well it's a movie. I think what I mean is that it was a faithful adaptation of the book. It looked great. Again, the casting in this was as good as LOTR in that, everyone looked pretty much as I imagined them. The problem was that I didn't care. For some reason, I just didn't care what happened to these kids. It was bland. The sets, settings and costumes were visually great, but the emotional connection wasn't there. Eh...
12/31/2001: Well, thank God for daycare. Claudine had the day off, sow what did we do? We went to the movies. This time it was that delightful remake of Ocean's Eleven. I'm not gay, but I think George Clooney is totally hot. Isn't interesting that guys have to say "I'm not gay, but...". 'Course most guys don't use the phrase "totally hot" either. Maybe I am gay. Let me go ask my wife. (har har... that's a joke son). Anyway, Clooney was perfect as the smooth criminal. Everyone was good in this one. I wished there was more byplay between Clooney and Pitt. I think they could make a successful "buddy" picture, by themselves. I said the everyone was good, but then I remembered Julia Roberts. It's not that she was bad, it was just that anyone could have done that role. Clooney brought something to his role, Brad Pitt brought something of himself to that role, but Julia was just "there". But, all in all, it was a caper flick. And it handled that well enough.
So that wraps it up. I'm currently up to date with popular culture. For the first time in a long time. Of course that means in movies only. I still don't watch all the "cool" T.V. shows. Don't know the cast of Friends, never saw Buffy. And I'm not completely up on the rock-and-roll music the kids play these days. But for the next 4 or 5 days, I'm up on popular movie culture.
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