Category: Movies

The Drive-In

June 27, 2019

For about ten years now we’ve been going to a local drive-in many times during the summer.

We usually bring some food and snacks with us but always get the delicious French fries they sell as well. They sell all sorts of snacks and have an ice-cream stand as well.

We always try to arrive right when the gates open, which is 60-90 minutes before the first film. Time passes reading or playing phone games as we listen to the endlessly repeating tape of 1980s radio that they’ve been using as their intro forever.

It costs $10/person for two movies and for the low price we frequently see movies we’d never go and see at the cinema. They do a decent job of pairing films by genre/rating and nights with children’s or Marvel films always the most popular.

Originally the picture was a little fuzzier and darker than a normal cinema but they upgraded to a digital projector a few years ago and now it’s sharp and bright. The audio is broadcast on FM radio and is super-clear and perfectly synced. It’s obviously not as fancy as a cinema, but it’s perfectly adequate for all but the most special films.

Of course it’s outdoors, which means the weather sometimes gets in the way. I love when it rains (KLS doesn’t!) but we’ve had a few gigantic thunderstorms over the years that made it seem like we were watching a movie underwater! But the best was the evening with fog so thick we could barely see the screen. It was funny, but we left early 🙂

Last week I noticed that I’d never blogged the drive-in despite a decade of attendance. We attend so frequently now we almost prefer it to the normal cinema and may even buy the season pass in future years. If you’ve still got a drive-in near you, why not go and enjoy seeing a movie under the stars!

Sydney

January 12, 2019

I arrived in Sydney yesterday by train, and after checking in to an extraordinary hotel room wasted no time seeing the tourist sites.

I walked from Central to Darling Harbour to Circular Quay and back – some 30k steps – and by the time I crashed in my room after dark I was ruined ?

This morning I was up bright and early to pack, before heading to the Star Wars Identities exhibit at the Powerhouse Museum.

This is a remarkable exhibit of original props, costumes, models etc from the entire Star Wars saga (including Clone Wars). It is beautifully presented and it was magical to be so close to iconic items like the Millennium Falcon model actually used in Empire:

Or costumes worn by most of the major characters:

In addition, via interactive stations throughout the exhibit you create your very own Star Wars character!

I suppose the idea is to reproduce yourself in Star Wars firm, but I found myself compelled to spawn a uniquely original creation. Dear readers, I present my own Star Wars creation, Gab Frogger:

The name was my creation, and I’ll humbly suggest it’s much better than what others used (I saw an Ewok pilot named Brendan). Here’s Gab’s bio:

As with all Gungans, Gab is immediately endearing despite his dark side tendencies, and I’ve grown to love the froggy scamp already. I hope he turns up in Episode IX!

That’s Sydney Tower, which has stood since 1981 in the center of the city. I’ve been up several times but not in quite a few years and figured it was time once again.

Admission includes a surprisingly good (but short) 3D film which you watch before going up. I’m not quite sure why it even exists since it has almost nothing to do with the tower but I imagine the purpose was originally line-management which is redundant now since the tower doesn’t seem too popular.

But it was good! Today was sunny and clear and I could see forever. It wasn’t busy up top and I spent much longer than I’d expected up there. If you like observation towers, this is probably worth it at the slightly elevated price.

This will be my last post from Oz this trip, as early tomorrow I head to the airport for Tokyo where I’ll meet Bernard for the next 8 days! Stay tuned for our eastern adventures…

Review: Aquaman

December 31, 2018

I went and saw Aquaman yesterday, at an impressively early 9:30 am screening. I momentarily baulked at the ticket price…

But then remembered that the film was going to be awesome and couldn’t throw my cash at the attendant fast enough!

The cinema was crazy big. I dutifully sat in my assigned seat (N-16) and when the projector started I was the only person in there! But then I noticed the first half hour or so were just adverts (including many social engineering PSA’s: exercise more, don’t stay in the sun, start a savings account, etc.) and sure enough the locals knowledgeable about such things shuffled in just before the main show.

Aquaman is about a fish-powered dude that fights a lot and seems to wish he was actually a professional wrestler. I’m not going to spoil the overall plot here but I’ll say it starts off strong and within minutes I was intrigued:

Aquaman’s powers are a cross between Superman and Yoda and are frankly absurd (why is he bulletproof?!?) but you won’t question them because after the crazy start the film quickly evolves into madness and then ascends into bonkers territory.

This was my face during the political scene between the aryan riding the zeuglodon and the Viking riding the dragon:

And then when they introduced a pretty redhead fish girl and the film briefly stopped being about fish and became Indiana Jones meets Jurassic Park I was slackjawed.

This was my face when the murlocs (from World of Warcraft) turned up:

But it wasn’t even close to done! When a futuristic city sequence that makes Blade Runner look like the scribblings of a child was followed by a space battle that featured not one, not 1000, not 1000000, but every fish I was just roaring at the screen with joy:

There’s much to love about the film. Its visuals and design are astonishing, its script unfettered by tradition, its actors unconstrained by expectation and it’s easily got the best depiction of cetacean armies fighting a billion crabs that have ever been printed to celluloid.

It makes you feel every emotion, from love to hate to glee and yes, to terror. It’s unfettered fun, and easily gets my highest recommendation. Best fish war film ever by a mile.

Immediately afterwards I languidly strolled over to the Game Center and found a coin-pusher machine:

I was so full of DC comics appreciation I had to win a card, and quickly targeted this Batman that was right at the edge:

As you can see it was about to drop! So close in fact that a shift of only one atom would have caused it to fall…

…

…it only cost me $25 to ‘win’ it 🙂

Robot Claw