no, I'm not talking about Christmas here. I'm talking about this:
yes. In one year, this epic story will grace theaters with its presence. I'm exicted! just 365 more days to wait...
More immediately, and more importantly, Christmas is in 11 days!!! (just in case you guys hadn't figured that out yourselves). AHHH!!! I feel like December came really early this year...I was definitely not ready for it yet. :/
Okay, I still can't figure out how to fix the date thingy, so just ignore it. And if you really don't know what day it is, it's Sunday, June 5th, 2011. Now that that's out of the way, I will tell you what I was doing this morning.
It was actually a continuation of something I was doing last night. It was a celebration - that spanned two days!!! So, yesterday, we celebrated Sarah's graduation with a special meal which (of course) included APPLE PIE!!! It was yummy. :)
For the post-dinner festivities, we had decided to go to the drive-in movie theater in Trenton, GA. Last night/this morning, they were playing X-Men First Class (which Sarah has been dying to see ever since the first trailer came out) and Pirates of the Caribbean: On Stranger Tides. The gates opened at 7:30 and the first feature was supposed to start at 9:15.
We got in line at 7:20, waited for it to open, paid admission, claimed our spot, parked the car, bought popcorn, and opened our Sour Dots (another of Sarah's favorite indulgences). We got situated and then the waiting began.
All in all, 2 hours isn't that long to wait, but when you know all you're waiting for is for it to get dark, it seems like the sun takes FOREVER to set. Dad, Kathy, and I threw the frisbee some and I don't really know what Sarah and Mary did. Knowing Sarah, she was probably reading. Oh, by the way, Peter and Mom decided not to go...they value their shut-eye more than we do, I think. :) It was the four girls and Dad out on an adventure!!!!
Actually, let me back up for a second. When we got there, there were two lines we could wait in before they opened the gates and let people in. We got in the shorter line. Then Dad started thinking "maybe one line goes to one screen and one line goes to the other. Wait a second, what if we're in the wrong line?" He voiced his opinion, and no one knew for sure if it mattered. I offered that I didn't think it mattered, but I wasn't positive, so my advice was overlooked. No one was behind us in line. We had no way of finding out if we were in the wrong place until we got up to the gate, and then it might be too late. so, what did we do? We pulled a James Bond move and reversed the car all the way back to the entrance to see if the sign there told us.
It didn't. We did, however, find two workers driving a golf cart, and Dad asked them. They assured him it made no difference which line he was in. That's what I had said to begin with.
Then we put the car back in drive and drove right up the line again. All we really accomplished was gaining the incredulous stares of all the people in the cars next to us.
Fast-forward to where I left off before. The sun had just set, and the announcer came on over the speakers and told us our first feature was about to begin. It was 9:36, and we were excited to finally get started!!! After being fans of the other X-Men movies (for the most part, anyway), we had high expectations for this, the newest installment. It did not disappoint. It was well thought through, and it carried the storyline that began so many years ago with the first movie really well.
After the first movie ended, there was a 15 (that turned into 20) minute intermission. People who had just come to see the first movie left, but not us. Oh, no. Not us.
It was 12:15 a.m. when Pirates started. Our expectations weren't quite as high for this movie. After the first Pirates of the Caribbean, the next two moved downhill steadily. In the third one, they kill one of the main characters. Not exactly the best way to set up for a stellar fourth blockbuster. But, in it's defense, On Stranger Tides did seem to have more thought and depth to it than the others - even the first one, which was always a favorite for me. :) Of course, it still had it's not-so-great moments and overall, I wouldn't really recommend it, but it was nice that the creators at least seem to have tried harder to make it a worthwhile film.
The second movie ended at 2:25-ish. We then drove home and went to bed around 3. We went to the late service at church. Go figure. And everyone stayed awake!!! Poor Sarah has to work a 7-hour shift today. Plus, tomorrow she has freshman orientation at UTC. That dear, exhausted, girl. But we had a blast!!!!
I might post more thorough reviews of the movies, but not right now.
Wednesday movies are a dollar at the cheap theater here. Consequently, we went to see Tangled for a dollar a person last night. Everyone except Dad had seen it before. It was packed (the theater's tiny) with little girls and little boys (ages 2-12, for the most part). They were really loud. As I said, there were a lot of them, but they were restless. And the toddlers were upset. It was humorous, but not necessarily enjoyable. They settled down after previews, though. So, we were all sitting there watching the movie and right when we reached the climax, the film reel thingy melted. The screen went blank, and we saw the brown film melt (like bubble and disintegrate). The kids erupted. All the little girls and boys were outraged, upset, hyper, talkative, and overall LOUD. A worker came in and explained it would be fixed and running again in about 10 minutes. 15 minutes later, it started about 30 secs before it had stopped the first time, and we cranked out about 2 minutes (getting further into the climax, but not quite resolving it yet), and then lost video, but retained audio...for another 15 seconds. This time they didn't turn on the lights (they had the first time it stopped) and so we were left in pitch darkness with the restless kids and their frazzled parents. Keep in mind that at this point it was about quarter after 9, so most of these kids needed to be in bed. They tried to start it again, but that time no video came on at all, just the audio again. THEN, they turned on a couple of lights and a policeman came in to keep the people calm and told us the manager was on his way and we needed to stay in our seats. I don't know what people were thinking, but about half of them left at that point. Lots of people had left when the movie stopped the first time, and more left after the second time. So, the theater was only about a third of the way full with little kids who needed to be in bed and they were all talking at once, and not staying calm at all, and they were all discussing how the movie was going to end. It kind of felt like how I imagine it would feel to be in detention with a bunch of juvenile delinquents waiting for the principal to show up. The manager came in with replacement tickets, and most of the people who were left got up and were scrambling to be first in line for the refunds because they wanted to go home. Re-enter policeman. He made them all sit back down where they were and then he went from row to row with the manager and gave out the tickets. And some of those kids still don't know how it ended. You can totally guess, and most people had a sibling or parent who had already seen it, so their curiosity was satisfied, but I think there are still some confused little kids who don't know how it ends or why they couldn't see it. But now, we have replacement tickets and we can watch a (different) movie for free. It was an adventure, and I think, overall a success.
I know my template is not exactly conventional. But, as you all probably know, I love the Lord of the Rings. The books and the movies. So, I looked high and low for a template that would reflect that, and this was the best I could do. It wouldn't be my top choice if there were any other options, but I was tired of my old one, and decided I should just change it. So I did.
Now, in keeping with my near-obsession with the Lord of the Rings, I was watching the Two Towers last night, and I noticed a discrepency that had never caught my eye before. So now I have a challenge to see how many of you can find it, too. Whenever you get 5 free minutes (and if you have access to the movie...which I believe everyone should), watch the scene where Aragorn meets Eomer on the plains of Rohan after the slaughter of the Uruk-Hai by the Rohirrim. Aragorn calls out to Eomer's company, they turn around and challenge the three wanderers, and then Eomer ends up giving them two horses. Watch as Eomer bids them farewell and mounts his horse again. If you don't see anything the first time, then watch it frame-by-frame and then tell me what you see.*(note below)
If you don't have time to watch it soon, or just don't want to have to deal with that, or just want to know what I saw, I can tell you. But I want to see if you can find it yourself first. :) I will post the answer after I know what some of you did - and didn't - find.
ONLY READ THE NOTE BELOW AFTER YOU TRY FINDING IT WATCHING AT FULL SPEED...I don't want to make it too easy for you. :)
*The actual *incident* (for lack of a better word) occurs as/right after Eomer mounts his horse. When you're watching frame-by-frame it can take forever, so I'm trying to give you a closer target area without giving it away. I think you'll see it the first time around if you know you're looking for something.
On Saturday, the girls took Mom out to see a movie and get dessert for Mothers Day. (better late than never, right?) We went to see Letters to Juliet and then went and got cupcakes. It was delightful.
Live Free or Die Hard is a complex, exciting, and completely unrealistic movie, but a good one nonetheless. It stars Bruce Willis and if you know about Bruce Willis, you know that at least 98% of the movies he's in are rated R. This is the only one of the Die Hard series that is PG-13. And someone people object to that. It still has massive amounts of language, (we Clearplay it, and about 1/3 of the dialogue is gone...okay, maybe that's an exaggeration, but really, overall, it's a movie of few words, and the fact that they use bad language for a lot of it, it's kinda disappointing.)terrific explosions, and plenty of other violence. I really like the movie, for one reason because it's so unrealistic. It has a good story line, the special effects are excellent, and the acting is superior. It's a really good movie to watch right before or right after either the 4th of July or a trip to D.C. It has it's good moments (and bad moments) but overall it's one of the best action thrillers I've ever seen. It's my personal favorite out of the Die Hard series. (followed closely by the first, then the second, then the third) I haven't seen it in a couple of months, and the only reason I'm writing this post is that I decided to post again, and some of our best friends (you know who you are:) watched it recently. I'm sure I would have more to say if I watched it last night, but that's all for right now.
