jurassic park in 3D imax

i saw jurassic park in a theater in durham during the summer of 1993.  i was 10.  i had just finished 5th grade, and i was at the bad-ass summer camp run by the math teacher at my school, where we learned card games, watched and analyzed tv commercials, and probably did other things that i can't remember.  it was awesome.

one day of camp we went to the movies in the afternoon, and the younger kids (me) were supposed to see some movie that was rated PG, and the older kids went to see jurassic park (PG-13).  my friend molly's older sister was an older kid, and she and her friends went to see jurassic park.  molly and i bought tickets to the lame kids movie and then went to jurassic park, too.  rebellion!!  it was so freaking scary (during the kitchen scene, i remember thinking "this PG-13 rating is legit and i am too young to see this"), and also it ran longer than the weenie movie, so when we emerged into the parking lot the kids our age had already gotten on the bus to go back to school.  we had been caught sneaking into the other movie!!!  but no one yelled at us.  that was awesome.

fast forward TWENTY YEARS.  jurassic park just got re-released in 3D imax and i went to see it this weekend with my friend talia.  (we saw a preview for it a couple months ago and were like "we must see this!")  3D glasses have gotten cooler/less cool (you choose) since i last wore 3D glasses.  this is me being scared of the movie to come.

we are getting our scared faces ready.

3D imax movie tickets are $21.  TWENTY-ONE DOLLARS.  i had a discount ticket thing, so i only paid $15.  it felt like the bargain of the century.

not pictured: the wine and chipotle burritos we snuck in.  i'm still a rebel.

um, this movie STANDS THE TEST OF TIME.  for a while we just laughed at the 90s hair and clothing and technology.  then there were scary parts, but i remembered that they were coming.  then there were scary parts that i did NOT remember and they were so scary!!  velociraptors in the room with the circuit breakers!!  but for a PG-13 movie it's pretty tame...not much blood at all, no sex, you don't see anyone die.  times have changed.  PG-13 movies now-a-days often have lots of those things.

also, the music was as awesome as i remembered.  also #2, samuel l. jackson is in this movie.  how did i forget that?!

also #3, about 95% of people in that theater were 27-33 years old like us, aka reliving their childhoods.

totally worth $15.

annual post wherein i talk about the academy awards

movies i have seen that were nominated for stuff:
lincoln - great movie - daniel day-lewis was amazing - should have ended 30 minutes before it actually did.
beasts of the southern wild - i have a really hard time watching movies where kids are sad/scared/in danger, so this one was hard to watch but beautifully done.
les miserables - the best-worst movie i saw this year.  loved the stage musical and it was fun to see it on the movie screen, but seriously: it needed HUGE help with the editing.
brave - all pixar movies are well made, but this wasn't my favorite - the plot was pretty ridiculous...not that other animated movies aren't, but this was less entertaining for me.

movies i want to see that were nominated for stuff:
argo - wins best drama at the golden globes AND best director?  i obviously need to see this movie, which i was only moderately interested in beforehand.  love ben affleck and think he's a GREAT director - the town was brilliant.
silver linings playbook - seeing this tomorrow with andrea!

the end.

i love christmas movies, and last year i rented white christmas and watched it for the first time and really enjoyed it.  this year i rented holiday inn, another old christmas movie i'd never seen but that people speak highly of.

they are basically the same movie.  they use the same set for the country inn where most of the action takes place.  they have the same actor (bing crosby) playing the main character.  they both highlight the song "white christmas."  how is this allowed?

however, they are not the same movie.  holiday inn has a black character (the cook, obvi) who sings a song about "darkies."  bing crosby and the female lead WEAR BLACK FACE IN ONE SCENE.  black.  face.  i almost couldn't finish watching the movie.

in summary:
holiday inn - 1942 - WTF, do not watch.
white christmas - 1954 - great movie, no black face, recommended by miss claire.

the end.

last weekend i saw the best exotic marigold hotel, which is a really good movie with an incredible cast, and my friends and i decided that we want to move into a hotel together and just hang out.  this would be an awesome life.

we were 100% the youngest people in the movie theater, and it was a funny anthropological experiment to see what parts the older people laughed at.

midway through the movie i leaned over and said, "let's get indian food for dinner!"  you will feel the same way, so write that into your plans.

i have two friends who love the same kinds of movies as me - independent and foreign films - and two of us are moving this summer - one to DC and me to new york.  our mini film club is breaking up.  this makes me SAD.  ugh.  i hate goodbyes.

speaking of goodbyes...it's my last day of work at my school.  DOUBLE UGH.  new adventures are fun, but endings are not.

on staying up until 2:48am on a school night

the hunger games movie was totally worth staying up until 2:48am for and then waking up at 6:30am to go to work.  i am saying that now.  how will i feel at about 1:30pm, when the post-lunch sluggishness hits?  probably pretty bad, but i can always take a nap when i get home.  AND I INTEND TO.

i won't ruin the movie for the 99.9% of the world that did not go to the midnight showing - though it felt like 99.9% of the world was actually at the theater with me watching the movie.  especially the 16 year old girls of the world.  though, in front of us sat two good-looking, straight-looking, 21-ish guys who apparently also enjoyed the books enough to come to the midnight showing.  this entertained us.

the hardest part was getting to the midnight showing.  i may have dozed through some episodes of 30 rock beforehand, but was ready to go once we got there.  all in all, i think the movie was great.  was it a perfect adaptation of the book?  no.  but if you expect that you will always be disappointed.  good acting, beautiful shots of the north carolina mountains - those were the highlights.  and peeta was hot.

i also may have literally jumped into willis's lap during the scariest part.  like, half my body got there unconsciously.  we know i'm not good with scary.

a thousand times yes:

i have never seen a movie at midnight on the day it opens.  until now!!  the hunger games, you are SO worth it.

the academy awards

since i'm traveling this weekend - i don't get back to atlanta until late-ish on sunday night - i'm going to miss the academy awards, which air on sunday night.  it also means i'm missing an oscars party with anderson (boo), but anderson: consider this my ballot.  i still want to win the pool!!

note: these are the films that i WANT to win...not necessarily the ones that i think WILL win.  but whatever.  let's see how i do.

anyone else want to share their predictions?

best picture: the artist
best actor: jean dujardin
best supporting actor: christopher plummer (the beginners was really good, if you haven't seen it!)
best actress: i don't particularly care...but i think viola davis will win.
best supporting actress: melissa mccarthy all the way!
animated feature film: who cares, so i will pick rango.
art direction: hugo seems pretty from the previews
cinematography: i don't know what this means, so i will pick another pretty-seeming one: tree of life
costume design: okay, so it's turning out that i don't care about a lot of these categories.  the artist!  why not?
directing: i know from my oscar-watching in the past that best picture and best director winners often go together.  so i will pick the director of the artist.
documentary feature: paradise lost 3.  i have not seen this, but the first film was incredible.  i won't say life-changing, but it was close.
documentary short subject: no one cares, but it will probably be sad.  incident in new baghdad sounds sad.
film editing: no one cares, so i'll pick the artist.
foreign language film: i keep hearing things about a separation.
makeup: albert nobbs
music (original score): the war horse commercials make me want to cry.
music (original song): only 2 nominees????  is that allowed?  "man or muppet."
short film (animated): la luna, picked entirely at random.
short film (live action): tuba atlantic has the best name, by far.
sound editing & sound mixing: i will pick the girl with the dragon tattoo for both
visual effects: hugo
writing (adapted screenplay): moneyball
writing (original screenplay): please let bridesmaids win!

movie review

the vow was a pretty entertaining movie, though veronica described it as "one step up from a lifetime original movie," and that is not an inaccurate statement.  the writing appeared to be done by a high school girl.  pieces fit together just too perfectly.  but channing tatum was nice to look at, and lily, veronica, and i made entertaining comments under our breath to one another throughout the movie.  AND!  the movie theater we went to serves alcohol, so i had a beer in the back row of the theater while watching it.  and that is nothing to complain about.

thus ends the movie review.

i watched moneyball last night and it was so. good.  it's the kind of movie you can't help but love - i will cheer for the underdog ANY day.  best picture?  maybe not, but i really really enjoyed it.  now, how long until baseball season starts?  i can't wait to see some games...

every year i like to take movie recommendations from the list of academy awards nominations; often they are great recommendations, and they definitely make watching the academy awards more interesting.  this year the following films are nominated for best picture.  i have grouped them into categories for you.

movies i have seen:
midnight in paris

movies i have seen that i loved:


movies i would like to see:
the artist
extremely loud & incredibly close (but i should read the book first.  which means i won't see it for 5 years because i can never get my act together.  ugh.)
moneyball
war horse


side note: movies i would like to see that are not nominated for best picture:
the iron lady
beginners

movies i really have no desire to see:
the descendants (the previews make this look...boring?  is that the right word?  i think so.  anyone seen this and can convince me it's worth it?)
the help (i found this book simplistic in its handling of race relations in the south.  summary of the book: white people (except one who is more eager than good) are bad.  black people are hardworking.  the end.  perhaps this book is not for history teachers.  there's no way the movie will be any more nuanced.)
hugo (um...it looks pretty?  but that's about it.)
the tree of life (i can pretty much guarantee i would leave this movie confused.)

now that i've offended just about everyone, i can go on my merry way.

for all of you out there who love love actually, i present you with this.  again, props to nora. :)

http://thehairpin.com/2011/12/hate-actually

now i must go home and watch this movie.  oh wait!  i can go home!  half dayyyyyyyyyy!

do yourself a favor.  never watch the film gideon's trumpet even though (a) it stars henry fonda, and you like henry fonda, and (b) it's about a supreme court case - one that you're interested in.  this movie goes so slowly you think it must be made for a 90 year old...but is only assuming an intelligence level of a 5th grader.  DON'T TAKE 5 MINUTES TO EXPLAIN DOUBLE JEOPARDY AS IF I AM AN IDIOT.  additionally, THIS MOVIE IS AN HOUR AND 45 MINUTES LONG, YET WITH SOME GOOD EDITING WOULD LAST ABOUT 30 MINUTES.

yet, i continue to watch it.  what does this say about me?

on sunday i saw world peace and other 4th grade achievements as part of the atlanta film festival and i'd really like to recommend it to everyone, though it isn't in wide release and i don't know when it comes out on DVD or how widely that will be available.

basically i'm telling you to see a movie that you may not be able to see.  i am a jerk.

nora recommended this movie to me - she saw it in DC earlier this year - and recently i was so glad to find out that it was coming to atlanta!

i got a little (a lot) weepy in the dark of the theater at the end of this movie, just thinking about teachers and students and world problems and little kid minds.  that is only heightened today, i guess, with the news that osama bin laden was killed last night in pakistan.  real world problems, real world solutions.  no winners: only losers.  but finality, and no american deaths yesterday in this operation, and those are good things.  incredible news to wake up to, though; i had to blink myself awake enough to concentrate on NPR when i would normally be dozing before really waking up.

new celebrity crush:

waldemar torenstra.

(photo from here)

what?  you're not up on your dutch film stars?  shocking.

for christmas dad got me a membership to a film club that screens foreign and independent movies two sundays a month in a movie theater in atlanta.  a film professor from emory picks the movies and leads a discussion/analysis afterward.  today was the first showing, and we saw bride flight which was WONDERFUL and i've decided that i'm going to marry waldemar torenstra.  the film is in both english and dutch, and he speaks pretty good english (with a new zealand accent) in parts of the movie, so don't worry: i think we'll be able to communicate.  as this is the only potential barrier to our love, expect the wedding invitations soon.

you and me

on friday night i saw blue valentine, a movie that was at times really really hard to watch, at times SO sweet, at times depressing.  it was an emotional rollercoaster for sure.  i really liked it, though, and found the story so compelling...and i have a new-found crush on ryan gosling.

big shout out to erica, who saw this movie before we did and played this song for us when we were in nashville.  for the first thirty seconds i was like, "what IS this song?" and now of course i've purchased it from itunes.



even more interesting is the story behind it - experts don't really know who wrote or performed the song. i love me a good mystery.

jolene

um, the town was a REALLY good movie.  were you guys aware of that?  interesting story line, not TOO scary for weenie little me, good acting.  ben affleck: you done good.  as the film ended and the credits started to roll, this song plays:



i said, out loud to my empty living room, "ben affleck: i love you."  anyone who likes this song can be a friend of mine.


interesting side note: i know three songs called "jolene" - same title, different music and lyrics.  for a song about a woman who a pretty obscure name, i'm impressed she's the title of three songs.  anyone know something i don't about these songs being connected somehow?  here are the other two, by the weepies and dolly parton:






which song is my favorite?  impossible for me to say.

"Nate Silver will be providing awards-season insight for Carpetbagger leading up to the 83rd Academy Awards on Feb. 27. Mr. Silver is the author of the Times’ FiveThirtyEight blog, which is devoted to the analysis of statistics and data in politics and other areas." (from here.)

the new york times knows how to make a girl happy.  my favorite political analyst will participate in a discussion about my love of movies?  i'm kind of losing my mind with excitement.

while we're on the subject of awards shows, my analysis of the golden globes winners from a couple weeks ago:
yay natalie portman and colin firth!
seriously, golden globes: the social network?!?
yay chris colfer and jane lynch!
i heart jim parsons.
the end.

miss claire's movie reviews

i'll take a break in live blogging my snow day to give you this post.  (five of the seven snowed in friends are outside playing in the snow, kelly is working on her computer, and i'm enjoying a little quiet time.  but let's be honest - there aren't enough exciting things going on to give you hour by hour updates any more.  we're eating, watching tv, reading our books, playing games, predicting if we'll have school tomorrow, planning to sleep over again tonight.  these things do not interest the entire world.)

this weekend i saw two movies in the theater - a lot for me in one month, let alone one weekend.  on friday night lily and her cousin and i went to see black swan, which was amazing - natalie portman should win lots of awards for that part, and the visual effects took the film to another level.  but it was also SCARY AS SHIT, which i should have known from seeing pi and requiem for a dream, two other films by the same director.  i watched about 25% of the movie through my scarf, so i could follow the plot line without seeing all the scary details.  at one point, lily screamed.  i was really glad i was covering my face with my scarf - i have no idea why she screamed, and i don't think i want to know.  all in all, awesome movie, but i won't be seeing it again any time soon.  steel yourself before you go.  darren aronofsky is a genius.

as we left the movie theater, i realized i could not go home to an empty house, because natalie portman might be hiding somewhere or i might see something in the mirror that isn't really there.  (yes, this sounds ridiculous, but you haven't seen the movie - these are legitimate fears.)  lily and i walked around barnes and noble for half an hour to calm ourselves down.  whew.

on sunday, joey and hannah (an oxford friend who came to visit for the weekend) and i went to see the king's speech, which was also amazing.  colin firth and the dude who plays lionel logue were amazing, the story line was so compelling, and it made me appreciate the power of one person to change another's life.  i had to hold back tears for a lot of the movie - parts that weren't even necessarily sad - and a couple tears leaked out near the end.  loved it - i didn't want it to end.  a perfect little movie.  which one will i cheer for when awards season comes around?  i really couldn't tell you at this point.

claire's best of 2010, part 1

first of all, merry christmas!  mom woke us up (the exact opposite of the events of my childhood) at 9:30 to open presents, and it started snowing at 10.  hooray!

now: regularly scheduled programming.  i've discussed my love of lists before...in the coming days i'll give you some of my "best of" lists for 2010.  here's part 1:

the top 6 (i couldn't narrow it to 5, okay?!) movies and tv shows i rented from netflix last year:

6. the first three seasons of the big bang theory.  i rented the first disc of the first season when becky came to visit in september and then i went into a dead sprint of watching the first three seasons so i could catch up to the current season, which i successfully did.  i miss watching several episodes a day.  i miss sheldon and leonard.  i love this show.

5. the young victoria made me love victoria and albert, as well as emily blunt and rupert friend, and i could not stop being gushy about their love.  there was lots of dramatic sighing from me while watching.  i really like historical quasi-fiction, and this is an excellent example of that.

4. the first five seasons of weeds, which i also watched at a dead sprint, because THAT IS WHAT I DO.  a dead sprint because you can't wait to find out what happens next...coupled with a sadness because every episode you watch means there is one less episode to watch.  i am such a dork.  netflix made it so easy to watch these quickly because all five seasons were available to watch instantly - no waiting for the next disc to be mailed to me.  i had been hesitant to watch this show because i thought suburbia + pot dealing was not something i'd be interested in.  I WAS SO WRONG.

3. the hurt locker - i was cheering for this to win best picture and i'm so happy that it beat out avatar.  do you see how i'm still talking about that nine months later?  because i am.  i will be happy for a long time about this little film.  again: war movies aren't a genre i think of myself loving, but this film really hooked me, even though parts of it were very hard to watch.

2. (500) days of summer - i love films with an easy premise, so this goes into the same category as slumdog millionaire - in (500) days, we find out very quickly that we're going to see some of the days in the life of this relationship.  in slumdog, we're going to learn about this guy's life through the questions on a gameshow.  i think this is brilliant - it lets me know what the basic framework of the film is going to be, what to expect, where we're going.  joseph gordon-levitt, whom i've loved since third rock from the sun, and zooey deschanel are awesome in this film.  and parts of it are so HAPPY.  the emotions aren't subtle here.

1. and the winner is: the first season of gavin & stacey.  absolutely in love with this show - the music, the characters, how understatedly funny it is.  only season 1 is available in the US, so right now i've been left hanging and waiting for the other seasons to be released.  i love this show so much i bought it...the first DVD i've bought in a LONG time.  this must mean something.

on airplanes

the scene: me in new york city.  raining.  snow in atlanta.  flight out in two hours.  expected delay of my flight, according to delta.com: 1 hour.  amount of reading material in my bag?  1.5 newsweeks.

PANIC.

the solution?  becky lent me mennonite in a little black dress and recommended i download a movie on itunes ($3.99 for a 24 hour rental is a small price to pay for not dying of boredom).  BEST. IDEAS. EVER.  during my hour delay and two hour flight home i read 50 pages of the book and watched an entire movie: the kids are all right.  which was really wonderful, and i was glad to see annette benning and julianne moore receive golden globe nominations for their roles, as did the film for "best picture, musical or comedy," when it isn't either.  i am so confused.

(in slightly related news, it makes me really uncomfortable to watch movies with sex scenes in them while on an airplane, but i do it anyway.  once i was sitting next to an old woman on a plane and i was watching part of the tudors.  if you've ever seen this show, you know that there are some pretty scandalous sex scenes and torture scenes (not at the same time, mind you), one scene of torture in the last season that was so horrible i had to mute the computer and then close my eyes.  is it rude to watch something like this on a plane, where the person next to you can't run away?  i hope not.)

the kids are all right wasn't marketed in mainstream media...i mean, i know the movie is about a gay couple, but it was about everything BUT a gay couple, really.  and, um, how did no one tell me that mark ruffalo is in this film?  i have loved him since eternal sunshine of the spotless mind and i continue to love him.  GREAT movie.  if you haven't seen it, you should.

the end.

[sometimes i feel like i have to end a blog post with "the end."  like, i've just told you a story, but it isn't complete yet.  so let me tell you it's complete.  annoying?  possibly.  but it gives me a sense of closure.  the end.]