grr arggh and yay

[verbicide]

I just read in my copy of last week's EW that Melissa Banks has FINALLY written another book. She's the instant-hit author of Girls' Guide to Hunting and Fishing, which is one of my all-time favorite books and I've loaned it out to someone and don't know who and thus can't quote my favorite passage. Meh.

Anyhow, she's just written another book (called Wonder Spot), and the review was glowing (though I didn't read it all the way through because I hate being spoiled for stuff like this and bad reviews overly spoil).

I'm going to buy it right this minute. Well, order it from Amazon rightthisminute at least.

In other upcoming "FINALLYs" --Jodi Foster is finally coming out with another movie. A plane-based thriller. And I don't care that the entire movie is going to make me tense, I would watch Jodi Foster in an infomercial. Or even a movie about football.

Also, the new John Cusak/Diane Lane movie looks cute. For I am a chick and torture myself with romantic comedies. But no, it really looks cute. Diane Lane is unbelievably beautiful. And I love John Cusak. Even when he's playing a complete fuckup (see: High Fidelity), I still love him. Even when he's in a movie whose premise I seethingly hate on principle (see: Serendipity), I still watch and coo helplessly. And of course Lloyd Dobler is the fantasy against which all real men fail.

I am now looking forward to the Sisterhood of the Traveling Pants (thanks to a great review by Dawn Taylor) next weekend during Stace's visit. And Batman Begins should be exciting.

Though, last night in the movie theatre I was reminded about the growing hatred many of us feel about seeing movies in theatres. Namely, I felt like I was sitting in the home of the couple behind me that kept loud-whispering inane things to each other. I wanted to club them. Shut. The Fuck. Up. Please. Now. It's lovely that you understand what's happening on screen. But as I am not retarded, and able to figure out things for myself, I don't need your commentary.

Sometimes I feel like I should just calm down, because it's kind of common and getting all frothed up about it doesn't do me any good. Unless I am willing to actually turn around and tell them to shut up (which would make me as annoyingly distracting to others as they are), I just have to suck it up, and try to tune them out. And normally I can, but they went beyond my threshold. One of these days I'm going to break down and buy these.

Comments

[coffeeinhell.livejournal.com]

The problem with the little cards is that they won't be aoble to read them in the dark, and that's when you need them to shut up -- DURING the movie.

I find that most movie talkers start early on in the film. Like, while the credits are rolling. Usually they can be stopped from the outset by turning and saying cheerfully, "Okay, movie's started -- time to stop talking now!" If that doesn;t work, they get a glare and a "ssshhh." Strike three is when I have to say "Shut the hell up!"

I usually try not to say "shut the fuck up" because most of the time I'm sitting in a press row and there, you know, in a professional capacity.

I did once turn around to a couple who were chatting merrily away about something, look straight at them and say, "Look, the movie's only 90 minutes long. Maybe you can wait that long to finish your damn conversation?" Amazingly, that was at a fucking press screening where only members of the media were supposed to be. Asshats.

Oh, and as for "Traveling Pants" -- there are a couple of moments in the movie that are so hokey and so trite that the audience was laughing despite themselves (one line in particular, "No, the pants worked their magic -- they brought me to you!" had me groaning out loud) but as a confirmed hater of most things chick flick, I have to admit that I enjoyed it immensely. Mostly because all of the main actresses, even the blond in a first-time role, who are just amazingly watchable. It was far better than I expected.

[verbicide.livejournal.com]

You're right. And if they wanted to read the cards, they would do so by the glow of their cellphones that they hadn't turned off.

I used to be a lot more aggressive in theatres and would turn around and shush people. But they've broken my spirit. There are so fucking many of them. Where do they come from? I don't know anyone who doesn't know it's bad manners to talk in movies and doesn't keep comments to a very bare minimum, whispered practically inside my ear.

And I'm all prepared for hoky, cheesy fun! Knowing you to be a confirmed chickflick hater, I was excited to see the review. I agree with your assessment of chickflicks, but I still can't help myself.

[archaica.livejournal.com]

of course Lloyd Dobler is the fantasy against which all real men fail. So THAT is why I fail. Kickboxing - it's the sport of the future!!

Movie-theater etiquette really is dead. I think the forced march I call "The Twenty" (Regal's advertising blitz) is really what pisses people off so much that they just lose all sense of place and propriety.

[verbicide.livejournal.com]

Heh--yes, kickboxing is the answer!

And what is 'The Twenty' ? I mean, I know it's Regal's ad blitz but um, is it twenty ads or twenty minutes of ads?

[archaica.livejournal.com]

oh, it's 20 minutes of ads. I loathe all pre-movie advertising. Frankly, the spread of advertising to fill every available corner of our world is what will produce the "grey goo" scenario feared by critics of nanotechnology, not runaway microscopic robots.

[leighdb.livejournal.com]

God, I fucking hate that shit.

The theater I tend to go to the most often, for reasons too boring to, um, bore you with, is a Regal, and The Twenty is therefore the bane of my existence. Really, I never, ever needed to be forced to sit through a 5-minute diatribe on how I really should go buy a DVD of freakin' Matilda.

(Seriously, Matilda? On DVD? Are you kidding me? This is a movie that no one saw, which no one cares about, that was clearly just a pet project of Danny DeVito's, and which came out NINE YEARS AGO, and I have to spend entire minutes of my life in 2005 hearing about how we really need to find out how they made that one little day player's braids fly out when they swung her around in a circle? WHAT THE HELL IS WRONG WITH YOU PEOPLE?)

[archaica.livejournal.com]

I would go to the theater far more if there were no ads. And, compared to some of my friends, I go *all* the time. (these are, of course, the hermits I refer to). I just despair at how advertising has to be *everywhere*. I mean, I'm paying for the privilege of watching advertising? Come on!

[saavedra77.livejournal.com]

I mean, I'm paying for the privilege of watching advertising? Come on

Crossed that Rubicon with basic cable, though, didn't we ...?

[archaica.livejournal.com]

Well ..... basic cable is really just bundling together broadcast-available channels and piping them through a different medium. *Premium* channels, like HBO, you can't get anywhere unless you pay for them. It's a debatable point though, and you make a good one.