Also making the cinema-visit extra enjoyable was, while we were waiting, one of the lady's friends pseudo-surreptitiously taking photographs. (Flash; hide camera; look guilty/self-satisfied.)
I don't like having my picture taken generally. I like it less when the photographer is someone I dislike. I like it even less when it's deliberately done unexpectedly and hidden.
I grumbled to the lady, and she asked the person to delete the pictures and stop doing it. She returned to tell me she had done so. He took a picture of her telling me this, while wearing a bonus extra-smug expression.
I was angry at this. Five seconds later, another photograph being taken (not of me this time, but with my Holly in shot, who also doesn't like being photographed). Nor had he made any gestures towards deleting the original two offending pictures from the (digital) camera.
So I snapped. I crossed the queue-zigzagging barrier, to express my anger (in the form of shouts and obscenities), and to take the camera from him and delete the pictures myself. The lady stopped me before I took the camera, because she thought my intent was not that, but a punching.
While that wouldn't have gone amiss, I'm really not a violent person. I'm usually not even aggressive enough to act as I did - I'd more often just be annoyed with myself, later, for not having done so. Thank heavens for noisy stinky crowds putting me on edge. [12:33] [2 comments]
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This is a long one; I title it "why Lord of the Rings part 2 is really awful". I don't think it contains spoilers. Even if it did, I don't think you could actually spoil such a movie.
I should start by mentioning that I began from a somewhat biased position of unexpectedly having to wait an hour and a half, in a noisy tight-packed crowd of smelly annoying people, with all the waves of stifling body heat and rebreathed air which that implies. I had hence decided I would probably hate the movie before it even started.
That said, the movie certainly didn't go out of its way to disappoint me in that respect. It had all the lengthy musical shots of 'epic' scenery that the first had, and more. It had clichés piled atop clichés. The dwarf had apparently been turned into comic relief, though the humour was rather on the level of "hee hee, look, he's short, and he has a funny voice". That didn't stop the audience from laughing at every single shot in which he appeared. Even ones in which nothing was said.
Why do American audiences applaud at movies? Is there a secret hidden "applause" sign to which I am not privy? Do they think the actors/writers/director will somehow be able to pick up on their approval if they bang their meaty paws together enough? It makes no sense. I fully intend to never go to the cinema again. If you ever see me blogging (or saying to you in some other way) "I'm going to see (movie X) tonight", please comment swiftly and say "don't do it, you'll hate it - remember Lord of the Rings".
Don't think I hated it because of the wait or the audience, though. I hated it because it was really really boring. It must have been less than two thirds of the way through that I was hoping for each fade to be the fade to end-credits. Less than half way through that I was wishing I had been the driver, so I could leave, or that I was watching it at home so I could turn it off and do something else. I was tempted, even, to leave the screen-room and go and sleep in the corridor until it was over.
I suspect the movie was true to the book, but I'm not sure - did the book really make so little sense? Defending a castle without using boiling oil or any sort of fire, or any sort of dropping-things at all? Holding your fire from the battlements when you know your arrows can reach the enemy? Building a tower beneath a dam, at the very bottom of a drained pond that was deeper than the tower is high? Attacking a castle that's situated at the base of a cliff by exploding its lower wall, rather than by exploding the cliff onto the top of it? Defending a castle by going outside to fight the enemy? Sending a crapload of your troops to attack a castle that's in a dead-end at all, rather than sending them to attack non-fortified positions around the rest of the world?
The one redeeming feature of the movie came at the end. I mean really, at the end. With the walking out, and going home. The feeling of relief. At last, one of the fades really was to the end-credits. And about fucking time.
"What can we do against evil this strong?" "I know, let's stand around and have a conversation. Ooh, and we could blow a horn!" Feh.
[02:11] [6 comments]
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