X3
May 28, 2006 in General, General Family
We managed to get out to see X3 tonight, entirely thanks to Aunt Pam for baby sitting (THANKYOUTHANKYOU!). The flick was pretty good overall. Much like the previews made it out to be, it was a fight centric roller coaster. Less ideological and more muscle focused then the other stories but not a in a good way. The story was all over the place and not nearly as tight as the first two movies. While the phoenix was introduced she was almost irrelevant to the story line accept for as a add-hoc tool to review pieces from the board (the queen yes, but total disengaged). Actually the Chess analogies got a little annoying in the movie too
. All and all I say a B tottering on B-. I was not impressed with their model golden gate, it looked and seemed all wrong perspective wise. It was fun and frankly I enjoyed taking Charise out to a movie so much it pretty much made well disposed to everything..
A lot of net pundits have been beating the doom drum for the movie theaters when/if simultaneous release to DVD ever happens. I’m generally inclined to agree. Though I think it will be a very slow old elephant kind of death that will ll likely see protection from congress dragging it out for years and years before fading away… After $20 to get in (no discounts mind you accepted), $10.55 for popcorn and 2 modest $1 caliber items I was looking for a drum to beet too. Through all that I did see a small spark of innovation that was new to me. They rolled in a mobile concession stand into the theater during the preshow (no commercials at the Century which was nice I fucking hate the AMC and the 20 minutes of TV grade commercials the flay you with). They sold Popcorn, cold sodas, candy. While not quite the Hot dog at the ball gamer experience it was nice to have somebody run my soda up to me (the least they can do for $3.25, no wait the least the could was to make me go out and buy it in crappy syrup form for the same price). This was a small, still very overpriced, thing, yet it added quite the level of satisfaction for me. Course I had already hit he concession stand, but I had forgotten napkins. I asked one of the girls at the mobile stand, they where out but she ran off and got some to reload and then handed some up to us specifically. Holly crap, service? Unbelievable but there it was.
Not exactly revolutionary, but such a small step toward a time of service focus, even at vastly movie inflated prices, was nice to see. The whole thing gives me the barest glimmer of hope that theater owners won’t continue to print their own tickets into extinction. Of course on the flip side that fact that I would gush about such a series of little things suggests just how bad it’s all gotten.



