Gone to the Movies

I'm thankful for five straight days off of work, providing some much-needed rest, a good visit from the fam, and a chance to get caught up on a bunch of stuff. While my parents and brothers were here, we went to see the Lord of the Rings Movie exhibit, which turned out to be really enjoyable. Basically, it was like watching the bonus features on the DVDs with props. Lots of costumes, weapons, and scale miniatures that were actually used in the movie, and videos in each section that explained filmmaking techniques like how they created the armor or how they composited an effects-heavy shot out of four different sets. The videos were a lot of the same info that you get on the special edition DVDs, but there was some new stuff in the exhibit I hadn't seen before. Plus, it's a completely different experience when they describe how two guys hand-glued 200,000 rings together to make the chain metal armor, and then there's samples of the chain-metal you can touch. But the coolest thing to me was the production art: throughout the exhibit, there were framed and matted sketches and watercolor studies which eventually led to what you saw onscreen. In some cases, the earliest pencil sketch was almost exactly what ended up in the movie. By the time we left, we had been there for more than two hours, and I hardly even noticed.

In between eating, shopping and watching football throughout the rest of the weekend, I watched a variety of movies. The first was Walk the Line, which I liked a lot. I didn't know much about Johnny Cash's life going in, so I didn't get hung up about what the film skipped or glossed over. Joaquin Phoenix did a pretty good job. I enjoyed the way that his voice changed during the course of the movie, so that by the end I was hearing the voice I associate with Cash. But my brother and I both came away most impressed with Reese Witherspoon. She was the driving force in the this movie, and turned in a stellar performance. I wouldn't be at all surprised to see her nominated come Oscar time.

Next was Harry Potter and the Goblet of Fire. I've read a lot of negative reviews. mostly focusing on what was left out. Well, I hate to break it to the Potter nuts out there, but there's no easy way to trim a 730-page book down to 2-1/2 hours and keep everybody's favorite parts. I felt like most of what got cut was justfied—do we really need to see Hermione's quest to liberate the house elves? My biggest objection to this movie was that it felt rushed. Despite so much being cut, the filmmakers were still trying to cram a lot into the time they had, and so they lost the ability to explain what was happening. Even having read the book, there were still a few times where I was left scratching my head wondering what just happened. Plus, I was a little disappointed in Voldemort. Note to Ralph Fiennes: in the future, a little less chewing of scenery and a little more menace exuded, please. Think Darth Vader in the original Star Wars.

Speaking of which, next I watched Episode III on DVD. It's getting less offensive each time I watch it, but I still feel like in an ideal world, the prequels would have combined Episodes I & II into one movie and fleshed the events of Episode III out into 2 films. This is another one that feels way too rushed. And I'm sorry, but Darth Vader is not Frankenstein's monster. No matter how many times I watch that movie, I'll never get past that scene. It is just completely wrong for the character.

Finally, I had Shrek 2 from Netflix. Cute, I guess. I didn't like it as much as the first one.

I may try to watch some of the Lord of the Rings movies today. After going to the exhibit, I'm excited to watch them again. Although right now, I'm more interested in watching the bonus features than the movies themselves.