Monday, May 22, 2006

The Estranged ‘BAM!’



I didn't have any artwork to go along with the music that I'm listening to for the day. The Estranged were a Greensboro rock band that played these parts in the early 90's. And since I didn't have a pic of the cover, I thought I would throw in a pic from my all-time favorite TV show, Green Acres.

As I mentioned last week, I got to see The Da Vinci Code this past Friday night. And the one good thing that I truly got out of the experience was something that Kristina showed me…

Popcorn and M&M’s go very well together!

I don’t normally consume anything while watching a movie… Every now and again, I’ll have some Snowcaps or Whoppers, but generally I go without snacks or beverages.

I purchased the tickets as soon as the box office opened that morning because I was worried about all the showings selling out. I got tickets for the 8:30 showing because Stina didn’t get off work until 6 and I wouldn’t be done at First Horizon Park until 7. That way, she had a little time to freshen up and we’d meet at Macaroni Grill between 7:15 and 7:30.

We had a couple of drinks and we hoofed it on over to the Grande Theatres to wait in line with other folks chomping at the bit to see this film. There was no line. We were early and we found good seats. Since I paid for the tickets, Kristina said that she’d spring for the drinks, popcorn, and candy.

She likes her salt with sweet and she asked me which candy that I preferred. I told her Snowcaps and she headed off to the snack bar. She came back within a minute or two and asked for my second choice. I told her Whoppers. Within another minute or two she was back again asking me for my third choice.

At this point, I decided that it was necessary for her to decide on which sugary substance she wanted with her popcorn. She came back with a 5 gallon container of popcorn, 2 drinks, and a small bag of peanut M&M’s.

I found out that those M&M’s went very well with popcorn! The Ying and Yang, baby! Sweet and salty rocks!

I have done it with potato chips and plain M&M’s, but never with any other combination.

So now lets get to the movie…

The Da Vinci Code is one of the biggest all-time sellers in bookstores and has now put itself in the second position for the all-time global box office opening weekend with 224 million dollars.

Buying advance tickets a dumb idea? I think not.

I had finished the book exactly one week before the film’s opening. I sort of wanted to know what all the hoopla was about and Stina made sure that I finished it. Although, I wasn’t as impressed with it as much as she was, it was still a good read.

The movie on the other hand is an entirely different story. If you didn’t read the book before sitting in the dark with strangers, there’s probably a good chance that you didn’t understand what was going on most of the time. The film seems like a good companion piece to the book.

I’ll bottom line it for those who don’t want to read it and may not even want to see the film…

An albino monk gets off with God by striking himself with a Cat ‘O Nine Tails. He kills a guy at a museum. The police question a guy who they suspect. The guy gets help from a hot French detective. They evade capture but find the person responsible for the albino monk and his murderous ways. The monk gives the hot detective a little cut on her sexy neck with a knife. The monk is killed. A priest is killed. And the uber-bad guy gets his just desserts too.

Why does all this take place?

If you haven’t read the book, that detail would be hard to figure out. There’s so much left out of the movie because of time constraints that the film isn’t worth seeing.

Basically, everyone is after the Holy Grail. Some want to expose it for the world to see which would shatter most Christian faiths and others want the secret buried. The monk was for keeping it buried.

The Da Vinci Code is a big mess! And… There’s no Clint Howard anywhere in it.

Originally, I gave it 3 out of 5 stars on Netflix. But after thinking about the flick all weekend long… I’m going to drop it down to 2 out of 5, which means that I didn’t like it.

Sure… It’s a well-made film to look at, but offers nothing in the entertainment department. There were times where I found myself wanting to turn on my cell phone to find out what time it was or perhaps send a few text messages. It was pretty boring.

After leaving the Grande, I asked Stina about something in the movie... I didn’t remember the Robert Langdon character having claustrophobia problems in the book.

“He didn’t,” she said.

“Then why did you say 'Yeah' when I asked if that was in the book during the movie?"

“I just said that to get you out of my face,” she said with a matter of fact like tone. “When I watch a movie, I don’t want to talk.”

I couldn’t argue with that.

No comments:

Post a Comment