Two Reviews For the Price Of One

So, I have no life. Let's just get that little tidbit out of the way. This is fact for various reasons, which I'm not going to go into detail here because at some point certain people might actually read this blog. Not that this is anything to be proud of, I'm not, it's rather embarrassing when I think about it so let's just say I have no life and leave it at that.

Because I have no life I never have weekend plans and whatever plans I do come up with I end up doing by myself. I go out to dinner by myself, I go to movies by myself and up until recently I went to gay bars pretty much by myself. Over time I've gotten used to this and for some outings have come to enjoy the company of myself. I am always on time with me, I don't ever complain or bitch about where we're going. But sometimes when I'm in a movie and something cool happens I have no one to turn to, no one to discuss with afterwards. I've discovered a great place to eat by myself, they even have these little two people tables where a lot of people come to eat by themselves, making me less self conscious.

So, on Saturday I had to get out of my apartment. Just had to. I would've gone a bit batty had I not. But where to? LA isn't exactly a place to be running around by yourself. It's either a money issue or a safety issue and the last time I went to a straight bar by myself I ended up getting hit on by an illegal alien who kept asking me to dance, pretending not to understand "No, thanks" every time I said it. I know "no" is the same in English and Spanish buddy, nice try.

The Arclight is a great theatre in Los Angeles that's pretty expensive but when you go there you understand why. There are no annoying commercials before the film, people don't talk during the film and there are no annoying small children in PG-13 and R rated films. Plus the seats are awesome. And they serve liquor at these special 21+ screenings where you can take beer into the theatre. It's great.

So I was going to go to the Arclight, which is also the great place for dinner for one (where the awesome tables are) but that left me to decide what to see at the Arclight. I was going to see Michael Moore's Sicko but that was sold out and I'd seen some of the other films so that left me with the one option I didn't want:

Fantastic Four: Rise of the Silver Surfer.

I didn't like the first one. I didn't see the first one in theaters I waited until a few months ago when it was free on HBO and even then I wanted my money back. It was bad. Laughably bad. Atrociously bad.

I sat at my computer going over other options. I could go to the Grove, where the food would be more expensive and I'd have to wait 45 minutes to get into the Cheesecake Factory or hover around the bar area like a jackal sniffing out an open seat. The film choices were the same as well.

But could I bring myself to do it? I did, in case you were dying of suspense. And to justify it I picked a showtime in The Dome and I capitalize that because The Dome is actually a separate theater altogether from the Arclight, though it's still apart of the same structure and company. I've never been to The Dome so that was my justification: I was going to experience The Dome, NOT to experience Fantastic Four (see what happens when you have no life, people?).

I buy my tickets, print them off and for the next four hours sit and watch whatever crap is on TV. I feel guilty about the purchase, as I do not posses anything that could be described as a "disposable income" but I know my mother will happy that I didn't spend the entire 48 hours inside my apartment, as I have been wont to do.

I get all dressed up for myself and head out, getting there in time to treat myself to dinner. I put in my name and number in my party (1) and the cool thing about Arclight is that they will take the time of your movie, as to make sure they get you seated, fed and out so you don't miss anything. A few minutes later I am lead to my seat and to my horror instead of being placed at a nice two person table I'm seated at a regular, four person table. I can see the two people tables, and I'm tempted to ask for one but the hostess leaves me before I can open my mouth.

Most people don't like to eat alone, for various reasons. Most of the time I don't mind (how can I?) and I've found that when you bring a book or a magazine people don't look at you with as much sympathy cause you're Doing Something instead of staring off into space.

The food was good, as always and I found myself relaxing and enjoying it so much that when I checked my phone I found I had five minutes until my film started. I quickly go the waiter who rushed to get me out of there and he was tipped nicely.

I get to The Dome (which is kinda outside) and discover what all the fuss is about.

It's huge. Like a big, open amphitheater. At the top there is what the name implies, a dome. I was disappointed that the screen was only a bit bigger than standard but it was very spacious and nice.

Onto what I thought of the film: Meh.

I will give it that it's better than the first one but then again how could it not be? It's sad that this was the best that they could do. Three fourths of the casting is great. But for some reason they tried really, really hard to make Jessica Alba look authentically Caucasian and the best way they figured to do this, aside from just going ahead and recasting the damn thing, was to dye her hair super blond and give her uber-Aryan blue contacts.

It. Did. Not. Work.

It was the most distracting thing EVER and every time she was on screen, especially with a close up, I found myself with the burning desire to grab her face and pluck those things right out. Mercifully either the director or writers realized she isn't the best actress in the world so she has very little to do here. Though they do put her in square glasses at every opportunity, as if to say, "Oh shit! Remember she's a scientist too? Yeah, neither did we."

Her plot throughout the film is to browbeat Mr. Fantastic into marrying her, even as the world (literally) hangs in the balance. Every time their failed attempt at a wedding came up I found myself wanting to scream, "Give it up! There's a planet eating cloud coming for Christ's sake!"

Speaking of which,

I am not a FF fan. My dad bought me the videos when I was a kid and I remember them vaguely so I know nothing of Galactus, the giant robot who the Silver Surfer works for. This is probably for the best, as I've had my heart broken enough by Spider-Man three and that was a storyline I knew well. *wipes away tear*

The Silver Surfer was cool, he's silver. He surfs and speaks like a black dude. Nice to know the deep black voice carries on throughout the universe.

There were bright spots in the film, oddly enough every time they happened Chris Evans was on screen. He's not bad on the eyes and distracted from the plot which was about as thin and stable as toilet paper. Having him on screen was like having a shiny object put in front of your face after staring at bricks, "Ooooh, pretty."

I could go on, but the film doesn't warrant any more of my time or energy.

Onto the second review, you lucky dogs.

I have a few people in LA that I hang out with occasional. And today was one of those days. We went out to lunch at this Mexican restaurant they picked and it turned out to be one of the worst meals of my life (see? this doesn't happen when you eat out by yourself). After that we ended up at The Grove to see 1408 which advertises itself as a horror film.

To know me you have to know that I have a thing against PG-13 "horror" films. I don't like them and I think they should never be allowed to be called "horror" as something that is truly terrifying will almost always be for adults. Now, I'm not a gore fiend before you start, I just think that anyone faced with a ghost, or a big ass snake, or a girl crawling around on their floor is going to say "fuck" more than twice and that anything that's actually mentally disturbing will not be suitable for tweens.

1408 is PG-13 but in my quest to get out of the apartment on the weekend and have Something To Do I overlooked this bit of information and decided to join my weekend friend for the outing (and I'd already seen Oceans 13, which was cute).

Watching 1408 only reminded me of why I don't like PG-13 films, they're like dude's who have really small penises and make up for it by lifting weights to make everything else bigger when they know you only came to see the main package. But instead of bulging muscles PG-13 "horror" flicks have pounding soundtracks. The kind you can go deaf from. They know that you won't actually jump when that black cat of a fake scare pops up on screen so they crank up the guitar and the violins to 11 to make sure you flinch, not from an actual fright but because it hurts your eardrums.

And that was pretty much 1408. There was a great first moment with the room radio popping on to the tune of "We've Only Just Begun" which was genuinely creepy but it was the only real scare. The ending was typically ambiguous and didn't help matters so a "meh" for this one too.

I know on the other end of the spectrum we have Torture Porn, where to try and get you to feel scared they show you the most graphic tortures possible without becoming a snuff film. I don't like those either, even though they're labeled as "hard R". It really doesn't take much effort or imagination to come up with torture, humans have been doing it for years.

So that was my weekend. How was yours?