When friend and fellow blogger Derek came to visit last weekend, he brought along his blu-ray player.  For those of you who don’t know, that’s a type of movie player which plays a special kind of dvd in high definition – hope I explained that well enough; it’s not like I know that much about it myself.  So anyway, we chose the movie 21 – even though I’ve seen it, it was interesting to see it in superior visual quality.  I really didn’t think I’d notice a difference – it’s not my style to care about such things, but I actually did notice the clarity.  I could actually see the grain on the paper of the deck of playing cards.  And the opening scenes of the movie are sweeping views of the city of Boston, which were really enjoyable eye candy on the blu-ray.

So anyway, while watching the movie again, I began to wonder exactly how much of it is a true story.  I have my laptop right in the living room, so I looked it up while watching the movie.  It was interesting because Jeff Ma, the “real” Ben Campbell (the main character in 21) actually makes a cameo in the movie -and I found this out in enough time to be able to spot him.  I found out a bunch of other interesting info as well, and here is a cool site called chasingthefrog.com where you can compare famous movies with the stories upon which they were based.  Here I  found out that Jack Dawson’s sketches in the Oscar-winning movie Titanic were actually drawn by the movie’s director, James Cameron.  Not that I can stand that movie – it think it’s horribly exploitative to invent a romantic plot not even remotely based on reality about an historical disaster which claimed thousands of lives.  I decided to give it a shot once, and I tried to open my mind a little, but I still didn’t like what I saw – it seemed cheesy, hokey, and unrealistic, not to mention that it almost cheapened the very horrendous event whose story it attempted to tell.  Anyway, I also found out from this site that there was only one black victim of the Titanic disaster – a second class passenger named Joseph Phillippe Lemercier Laroche.  As the website tells it, he loaded his wife and daughters onto a life boat and went down with the ship.  Even more sadly, his wife gave birth to their son later that year.  Here is a family picture:

The site only has a handful of movies to compare to actual events, but its comparisons are very interesting and insightful; including a picture to picture comparison of people and the actors who portrayed them – very cool, check it out!

We saw The Haunting in Connecticut at the movie theater for date night (after refusing pizza from “Carlos Zambrano” at the mall pizza shop – seriously, the guy looks just like the famously hot-headed Chicago Cubs pitcher!) and the movie made for a pretty good ghost story.  I had heard it was based upon a true story, but after seeing it, here is my guess on what about the movie is true:  a teenage boy has cancer, his family rents a house (a former mortuary) near the hospital where he is receiving treatments, and they had strange happenings while staying there; probably due to stress or lack of sleep or even just plain exaggerations but not hauntings, is my guess.  This is the basic plot of the movie, but I left out many events that could not have possibly happened in real life and would also be considered spoilers, so I will not go into details.  I will say that the movie opens with all kinds of vintage photographs of deceased people – I know this because of my friend who attended a lecture on the subject.  I had wanted to go with her, but we found out about it last minute and I relunctantly had to pass.  But my friend went and came back with all kinds of interesting info which is how I knew what the pictures were that opened the movie.  For instance, many people back then (the movie takes place in the 80’s, but the pictures were from the early 1900’s) didn’t have their photograph taken often, so when a loved one passed away, they would get their family portrait taken with the deceased – better late than never, I guess?  Not only that, sometimes they would pose as if the person was still alive – kind of morbid by our standards today, but then again, things are very different and taking pictures is so much more common; it’s difficult to imagine past attitudes about this.

But The Haunting in Connecticut is a very entertaining, edge-of-your seat nailbiter with plenty of startles.  To its credit, it’s scary and creepy without the gore.  Worth checking out, if you like that sort of thing, but not one of my favorites – it did give me some ideas for a haunted house though…  Now if I can just remember them until 2010 when we actually have the time to DO the haunted house…

We took the kids to see the Pixar movie Monsters VS Aliens last Sunday after church.  The good news is, we didn’t end up with any nude children running around the theater (see a previous post of mine; I forget which one, but I think this happened more than once so take your pick – we haven’t been to the movies in months, and now you know why!).  The bad news is that I didn’t think this movie lived up to the hype.  But I couldn’t be sure; I didn’t get to see much of it.  It seemed to me like they showed all the funny parts in the previews, but then again, once you read what I was doing instead of watching the movie, you’ll see why I could be wrong…

Our family now takes up an entire row at the movie theater.  Our oldest starting pouting because she was stuck on the inside and complained that she couldn’t see.  To her credit, she got over it right away and ended up being the one kid of the four who actually stayed awake for the entire movie.  The movie was about to start, and I felt something pelt my back – HARD.  I turned to my husband and said, “I think someone just threw something at me, intentionally because it was hard and it hurt!”.  He said, “It probably was intentional – turn  around and see who it is!”  Duh – why didn’t I think of that?  I’m not the type to want to draw attention, so I figured it was some poor kid who was going to get in trouble if I turned around or something…  so I turned around and saw some game-nighters grinning at us.  “Good thing you finally turned around, ” they said, “we were almost out of Junior Mints!”  Haha –  that was funny, and I learned my lesson, if you get pelted in the back at the movie theater, you should turn around to see who would actually throw candy at the movie theater – you might be surprised to find out it’s NOT  kids!

The lights dimmed, the previews came on, and my son dirtied his diaper.  By the time I got back from changing him, I had already missed a preview – my husband and I love the previews.  Oh well, better than missing the movie, I thought…  little did I know we would be missing that too.  So my son, who is 8 months old and just starting to crawl, didn’t want to sit still for a movie.  He was happy munching on things, but he was pretty rambunctious when I was holding him.  So I spent most of the movie trying to calm him down and keep him busy.  My 2-year-old daughter, who is usually the problem (and the nudist) at the movies, actually fell asleep.  My husband went to put her in her seat to sleep so we could enjoy the movie, and there was a horrible gushing sound followed by gasps from the people behind us.  Apparently, my husband’s pop had gotten knocked over, and wouldn’t you know it, it was almost full and of course it poured directly into the lady’s purse who was sitting behind us.  OOPS!  How can you possibly apologize for something like that, especially while trying to be quiet so others can watch the movie?  All the commotion of course woke up my daughter, so now we had her to deal with again.  Not more than 20 minutes later, my son made a lightening-fast grab for my drink, and I didn’t catch him in time, so SPLOSH – another one bites the dust.  At least this time it was in MY diaper bag and not the woman’s behind me again – that would have been lawsuit-worthy!  But now we were drinkless, had 2 rambunctious kids, and were only about halfway through the movie!

Well, we made it through, my 2 youngest daughters fell asleep before the movie was over, and my son was out about 10 minutes before it ended – he waited long enough to keep me from seeing the movie, and long enough to wake up when we left and screw up his nap cycle.  But I guess I  learned yet again that my kids are too little to go to the movies – at least all 4 at one time.  And the lady behind us didn’t say anything when she left, thank goodness.  But I wouldn’t take my word for it that Monsters VS Aliens isn’t anything special – I didn’t see most of it!

I’m going to take a break  from my New York Trip Diary to write up a few movies.  All I have left is the World Trade Center site post anyway, so that’s just one thing on a trip of hundreds!  Besides, writing up these 2 movies should be easy, since I don’t have much to say about either one…

Last week for date night, we saw Knowing, a movie we had been looking forward to.  Not that we’re Nicolas Cage fans (quite the opposite actually); the movie just looked intriguing.  It’s about a guy whose son gets a piece of paper with hundreds of numbers on it which was buried in a time capsule for fifty years.  After some investigation (and A LOT of liquor!), Nicholas Cage discovers that the numbers correspond to the dates, places, and the number of fatalities that would occur during certain calamities – they have all occurred already; except for the 3 left on the list.  And that’s about it.  Cage’s acting was no better than usual (why did I think this would be one of his better movies?  Can you tell he is Francis Ford Coppola’s nephew?), and I don’t want to spoil the ending for you, but I found it cheesy and actually kind of dumb.  I was entertained, but barely, and I did doze a tad during this one, although the action sequences awoke me with a start.  Feeling unsatisfied after this movie, we decided to make it a double feature and sneaked into I Love You Man – no, I’m kidding, we went back to the cashier and paid for the movie legitimately – besides, we needed a refill on our pop and popcorn, though the latter was quite regretful.

I Love You Man looked like kind of a dumb comedy, but we’ve been appreciating the actor Paul Rudd lately (he is SO funny in Role Models and Friends reruns), so we decided to check it out.  What we got was kind of a dumb comedy, but actually not as bad as I thought.  It wasn’t entirely predictable, and there were some funny moments that they actually hadn’t spoiled in the movie’s trailers.  If you like silly comedies and Paul Rudd, check it out.  It’s not nearly as funny as Role Models, but it is much less crude.

Over the past year or so, Warner Brother’s Animation and DC Comics have released a series of direct to DVD movies starring some of their mainstay superheros.  Starting with Superman: Doomsday then with Justice League – The New Frontier) onto Batman Gotham Knight and, most recently to an adventure featuring the Amazon Princess herself, Wonder Woman .  In the coming months, we will have a Green Lantern movie.  Then a Batman/Superman team up entitled Public Enemies which is taken from the first six issues of the team up comic series.

United States President Lex Luthor uses the oncoming trajectory of a kryptonite asteroid to frame Superman and declare a $1 billion bounty on the heads of the Man of Steel and his “partner in crime” Batman. Super heroes and super villains alike launch a relentless pursuit of Superman and Batman, who must unite – and recruit super help – to stave off the action-packed onslaught, stop the asteroid, and uncover Luthor’s devious plot to take command of far more than North America.

Hopefully, this will eventually lead to the development of a live-action Justice League feature that has been in creative limbo for several years.  However, I forsee rival company Marvel unveiling their Avengers movie before this happens.

For date night on Tuesday, we really enjoy going to the movie theater, and this time we were between the movies Frost/Nixon and Push.  We actually decided to see Frost/Nixon, but we messed up on the movie times and ended up arriving after the movie had already started – so Push it was.

Push is a very unique type of movie.  It is action-packed, and I was never bored, but the intricate plot did tend to go over my head at times.  Not only that, it wasn’t exactly a feel  good type of movie, and it carried a constant theme of doom and gloom.

Dakota Fanning (man has she grown up!) stars as a teenage “watcher” – a type of fictional person with psychic abilities.  “Watchers” can see the future which they draw on paper, and there are also “movers”, “sniffs”, “shadows”, and “pushers” to name a few of the superhero-ish types of characters in this movie.  Dakota Fanning’s character, along with a “mover” named Nick, must find a girl who holds the key to helping their type survive.  And they must constantly stay one step ahead of  The Division, the secret government agency who uses these psychics like lab rats.  The movie is set entirely in China, so the foreign element really helps to establish the complexity of the unknown in this movie.

Like I said, Push is a very different type of movie.  It was both clever and entertaining to see how the different psychics would use their powers to both work together and against each other.  The most intriguing of the psychics to me were the “Bleeders” whose screams could burst blood vessels (creepily done), and the “pushers” who could get inside people’s minds and make them believe things that aren’t true.  “Shadows” could cloak people from “Sniffs” who could smell a person from miles away using just an old toothbrush.

I enjoyed Push, which is not normally my type of movie.  I would be careful who I recommend this one to as well.  If you can get past a lot of violence (though worthy of only a PG13 rating), and you like superhero-like tales and/or science fiction, check out Push – you might be pleasantly surprised!

I’ve certainly heard of the musical Meet Me In St. Louis, especially being a fan of the late great Judy Garland, but I had never before seen it until last night.  A great friend played the role of Grandpa, and we were delighted to have the opportunity to watch him age some 40 years and to be able to return to the stage.

First, I’ll begin with the venue.  The play was performed in a historical building in Hicksville, Ohio called the Huber Opera House.  As I learned in the director’s introduction before the show, the Huber was originally built by a wealthy man who wanted a place to stage-test his plays between Chicago and New York; I’m thinking some time in the late 1800’s; not exactly sure on that.  I do know that one of their stage curtains was created right around the time Meet Me in St. Louis takes place – 1903-04, and the gorgeous curtain depicting angels in a boat was hanging last night in all it’s glory.  The Huber is simply gorgeous.  I especially enjoyed seeing the pictures of it from the 1990’s and how far it’s come since then.  The owner of it at that time decided to trash the place when he found out he was going to lose it, and trash it he did.  The place was an utter disaster; they even went so far as to rip one of the opera balconies from the wall.  Apparently downtown Hicksville was not a place you wanted to be after dark at that time (coming from the ‘burbs of Chicago, that’s particularly amusing to me – I mean, Hicksville Ohio dangerous?  Yeah right!), and the city wanted the Huber torn down.  Some very dedicated individuals earned a lot of money and worked their butts off to restore it and give us back the beautiful theater it is today – and I was lucky enough to be able to see a show in it.

As for the show itself, I will say that Meet Me in St. Louis will never be one of my favorite musicals.  The cast and crew of this particular production did a wonderful job, but I just can’t identify with a cast of characters who randomly break into song at the strangest moments and whose greatest conflicts in life include relocating and deciding who to take to the local dance.  That being said, I still had a great time.  I really enjoyed being transported back in time, and it was both interesting and refreshing to see how much respect children had for their elders back then.  My friend Jamy was awesome as Grandpa, and I don’t think I’m being biased.  He definitely stood out as one of the better singers, and I was even surprised to see that Grandpa Smith is a much better dancer than Morat Notboratnichkov – one of the other characters I’ve seen Jamy portray on stage.  The little girls in the play were simply adorable, and adding to the fun of the evening was bumping into a couple of friends whom we didn’t know were going to be there.  Overall, a fun evening out away from the kids, and I even learned a thing or two, which I’ll share below.  Congratulations Jamy on a job well done!

Random Meet Me in St. Louis Trivia

– Ice cream cones and cotton candy were introduced at the 1904 World’s Fair which was in St. Louis.  I thought it was really neat that they chose to serve these as intermission refreshments last night at the Huber.

–  The 1944 movie Meet Me in St. Louis starred Judy Garland, but at first she refused the role because she was tired of taking childish roles.  After a talk with director Vincente Minnelli, she was convinced to take the role of Esther Smith, and it became one of the favorites of her career.  Judy and Vincente got married and had a daughter, Liza Minnelli, who went on to become an award winning actress and singer; earning an Oscar, a lifetime acheivment Grammy, two Tonys, and an Emmy award throughout her career.

– Two single recordings from the movie Meet Me in St. Louis became hits by Judy Garland before the movie was even released: The Trolley Song and Have Yourself a Merry Little Christmas.

– During the shooting of the large dinner scene (where one of the older sisters receives a long distance call from her beau in New York), Margaret O’Brien caused mischief on the set.  She would change the cutlery around and put two napkin rings beside a plate.  The prop man would say, “Please, Maggie dear,” when he would liked to have shaken her.

We saw the Oscar nominated film Doubt the other night.  Normally, I like to see as many of the major Academy Award contenders before the awards show airs as it did a few weeks ago, but it’s usually not possible to see every single one in time.  Even though it didn’t win any of the 5 Oscars for which it was nominated, the buzz that surrounded Doubt was so intriguing that we decided to check it out.

For a movie being based primarily on dialogue, it is very fast-paced.  I was never bored, which is something I can’t say about a Good Will Hunting, an Oscar winning movie we watched last week.  Good Will Hunting a long movie, so it took us two nights to watch it, and I fell asleep both nights during the movie.  Not that it was a horrible movie; I don’t know much about it – I  was sleeping!

Ok, back from the Oscar tangent, back to Doubt.  This movie is based on a stage play, and the author of the play also wrote the screenplay and directed the film version; which I think is very important so nothing was lost in the translation between stage and screen.  The story is compelling; it’s about a Catholic school in 1964 where the principal, a nun brilliantly portrayed by Meryl Streep, suspects the priest is having an inappropriate relationship with the school’s only African-American student.  Amy Adams portrays Sister James, a naive freshman nun who is caught in the middle of the conflict.  Amy Adams is one of the actors from this movie who was nominated for an Oscar, and it’s understandable when you see what a far cry Sister James is from Adams’ purse-selling ex-cheerleader Katy on The Office or the character Leslie Miller from her first film, the teen beauty pageant spoof Drop Dead Gorgeous from 1999.  Phillip Seymour Hoffman was excellent in Doubt also; hardly recognizable from the 1990’s roles where I saw him previously in the movies Twister and Leap of Faith.  It’s easy to see how Viola Davis received her Oscar nomination for Doubt as well – she had lines in just one scene in the entire movie, but her performance was excellent, however short on screen time.  You win some and you lose some, which explains how those 3 actors walked away without their Academy Awards.  Inexplicable, however, is how Meryl Streep did not win an Oscar for Doubt.  True, I haven’t seen The Reader with Kate Winslet, the actress who won the Leading Actress Oscar instead of Meryl Streep.  I did see Changeling with Angelina Jolie who was also nominated, and judging by the phenomenal performances of Streep and Jolie and the fact that Winslet was the winner, I might just have to see The Reader.  I loved Angelina Jolie in Changeling, and I’m not usually a fan of hers, so that says something.  I  loved Meryl Streep in The Devil Wears Prada, but honestly, I used to think Hollywood had a strange habit of sucking up to Meryl Streep.  How can she be THAT good, I would wonder…  until I saw Doubt.  She IS “that good”.

I can see where this movie would make an excellent stage play.  But after seeing 4 of the most talented actors out there portraying the lead roles on the big screen, who would even want to be compared to that by  staging a live theatrical production of Doubt?

Entertainment Weekly has published a list of no less than 17 movies that are to hit multiplexes beginning this weekend.  There are some that look like must sees, some that can wait for DVD viewing, and others… you get the point.  Opening Friday is the apparently long-awaited film based on a graphic novel from the 1980’s, Watchmen.  Until the hype of the movie began, I had never heard of the comic book heroes but the movie looks amazing.

I recently saw a spot on the television for Nicolas Cage’s new movie, Knowing, that seems to be joining the latest trend in Hollywood: the number theory thriller.  This, too looks like it would be worth a viewing.

Growing up in the mid-70s, I was a fan of the Disney live-action Witch Mountain movies (there was a less than memorable remake in the 90s as well as a failed weekly series)  Instead of a total remake, a re-imagining of the franchise is coming: Race to Witch Mountain.

Moving down the list is the ridiculous looking Dragonball movie.  Is this based on a video game or one of those card collecting games that I never got into like Pokemon.

In the category of senseless sequel/reboots comes the newest installment of Fast and the Furious.  I lost count of the number after the first sequel.  It looks like the producers of the franchise are going back to the drawing board and bringing back the stars of the original movie whoever they are.  But the title is perhaps the most brilliant thing about it:  The Fast and the Furious.  WAIT A MINUTE… Haven’t they done that before?!  Get my drift.

There is at least on screwball comedy coming.  Sunday night, I endured the trailer for I Love You Man.  Is there a male counterpart to a “chick flick?”  Apparently, this movie, centering on a newly engaged man’s search for a male BFF, attempts to fill that bill.  The preview did not endear itself to me.

The tween set has not been left out, either.  Miley Cyrus is taking her phenomenally popular character Hannah Montana to the big screen in a plot-driven movie.  Did she not have a big-screen concert extravaganza a few years ago a la the recent Jonas Brothers foray to the cinema?

FINALLY, the movie that is on the top of my must see list for the spring: Monsters v. Aliens.  After watching the 3D preview on Super Bowl Sunday,  I said OOOOOHHHH!!! Looks really fun!

Today was a rather hectic, busy, but ultimately rewarding day.  The Sunday before the opening of any show I have ever been in (no matter the venue) is known as Tech Sunday (or as I like to refer it… Hell Sunday).  This day was much different than ones I am used to.  Today involved trying on the rented costumes which we just acquired… I am happy to report that my costume fits nicely.  After trying on the costume, I helped hang three drops that will be flown from the rafters of the Huber.  FINALLY, the tech rehearsal began.  Microphones tried for the first time… some successfully, others… well, we were promised that they would be worked on.  Good to know!!!  the rehearsal was much more for the lights and sound cues as we just rushed through lines, songs, everything.  I have every confidence that the dress rehearsals will go magnificently beginning tomorrow… The best of times; the worst of times.

I am happy to say that my ticket count continues to grow.  Today, I had to pick up two for opening night.  For Saturday night, I have already purchased 4 and tomorrow I have been asked to pick up 4 more.  Glad to know that I am contributing to the audience count.

After rehearsal, I needed to get the tickets to Megan and Carol.  Megan and I decided to make the final showing of The Uninvited.  A very suspenseful movie that I will not dwell upon since taylhis has already done so.  I, too would find it hard to post a full review as there is just so much good stuff packed into the 90 minutes that it would be hard not to give anything away.  Excellent movie.  But I am pleased to say that we both enjoyed all the twists and turns and even were getting to the point of overanalysis while eating at Pizza Hut which I can now tell I will be paying for.

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