12DatesOfChristmas
- Why even make this movie? Didn't we already have a perfectly good 'Aladdin' (Well, if you don't know the answer to a question, the answer is usually "Money.")
- Is it possible that somebody can actually make me long for the singing talents of Robin Williams? (Yes. Will Smith really can't sing.)
Why did they cut that "A Whole New World" song out of the movie? (Note: It's possible that they didn't, and that the song may have happened while I excused myself to go to the mens room.)
- Date 1: 👍👍 Mary Poppins Returns
- Date 2: 👍👍 Green Book
- Date 3: 👍👍 Stan & Ollie
- See a good movie tonight
- Possibly in one of several different nearby theatres as long as I can get there in time
- Have a generally pleasant experience
On the ninth Date of Christmas, my true love saw with me: "Frozen II"
Two movies in two nights in the Twelve Dates of Christmas project! And we’re going to see Frozen’s 11, which I assume is a heist movie where they break into a cold-storage warehouse and steal some fish sticks.
Wait, let me read that again. OK. Apparently it’s actually “Frozen II”.
capsule review
You’re asking the wrong guy. I dozed off for the first 30 minutes. Woke to notice there was some sort of burning Pokemon character and somebody was singing about the unknown woods. Went out to lobby to get coffee. Checked phone. Got engrossed in Twitter. Did not return for rest of movie. I hear it was good though.
On the eighth Date of Christmas, my true love saw with me: "A Beautiful Day in the Neighbourhood"
Time for the latest instalment of the amazing Christmas 2018 gift in which Cathy promises to go to one movie a month with me, and we are almost caught up now with 8 movies in 11 months, so December is going to be busy.
what did we see
Yesterday the Mrs. and I went to see the highly-anticipated biopic, a profile of an Esquire journalist named Tom Junod and a look behind the scenes at the magazine business.
who was it about
Tom Junod, known as Lloyd Vogel in the film and played by Matthew Rhys, is a crusading journalist struggling with personal demons. Here, by the way, is the actual Esquire article from November 1998 that we see him writing in the film.
who was it supposedly about
wait, what?
this is actually about beloved children’s TV host Fred “Mr.” Rogers? Played by the equally beloved Tom “Tom” Hanks?
You could have fooled me. It’s a lot more about a guy writing a magazine article and his personal struggles than it is about somebody that absolutely everyone likes (and that could be either Mr. Rogers or Mr. Hanks.)
where'd you see it
Cineplex Queensway VIP. The VIP concept, or at least the reserved-seat concept, is the best thing movie theatres have done in years. I love knowing that I’ll have a good seat. I also love knowing that you can look at the published start time of the movie, 7:45, and realize that means “This is when you should leave home.”
what time did you actually leave home
6:45. I am married to someone who really really likes getting there early. Just in case. Wouldn’t want to miss any commercials.
how many times did you doze off
One, I think. (The chairs were really comfortable)
did you get food delivered to your seat?
Yes. Fish and chips and a Stella. Not bad.
get to the point, did you like it or not?
I am going to say something mildly controversial here which is likely to provoke much scorn: I generally love Tom Hanks and have enjoyed everything he’s ever done. (That is not the scorn-provoking sentence. Here comes the scorn-provoker.)
I really expected differently but … I didn’t particularly like this movie.
It’s beautifully made, and Tom Hanks is believable in his role but this is
the
slowest
paced
movie
I
have
seen
in
a
while.
It is ostensibly about Mr. Rogers but is really more about Mr. Junod coming to grips with himself.
Tom Hanks will probably win awards for this portrayal; Fred Rogers is obviously a wonderful person and the film is beautifully shot (particularly the use of kid-scale city models) but you don’t really learn much about him here. What’s his background? Was he actually a navy sharpshooter? (answer: no, and that briefly is mentioned.) How’d he get started doing this show? What’s it like doing a children’s TV show? And where was the cameo by Ernie “Mr. Dressup” Coombs, who was once Fred’s assistant?
what's up next?
We’ve seen lots of biopics during this film quest. Judy Garland. Elton John. Neil Armstrong. Laurel and Hardy. Don Shirley. I think I’m ready for a little more action. Cathy, howsabout we go see Ford v. Ferrari ?
On the seventh Date of Christmas, my true love saw with me: Judy
We’ve got some catching up to do on this amazing Christmas 2018 gift where Cathy promises to see one movie every month with me with “no whining.” So on Saturday, off we went to see the Judy Garland biopic Judy, starring a very convincing Renée Zellwegger.
So here’s a brief review.
A) Renee Zelwegger is VERY convincing and I’m sure she’ll get nominated for whatever the awards are.
B) I am not convinced that the onstage band is actually playing the arrangement we’re hearing. This is a risk when you have violins and trombones on stage. We can tell by the way their arms are moving whether they’re faking.
C) Here’s a crazy idea. How about a movie about a famous musician who did NOT have a difficult and depressing life? After learning about Freddy Mercury and Elton John and Don Shirley during this journey, I’m ready for a great story about a musician who had a happy childhood, worked hard and became a success without alienating everybody or turning to drugs.
Hmm. Maybe we need an Anne Murray movie next.
bonus live theatre - The Band's Visit
The following day we went to the Ed Mirvish Theatre to see the Tony Award winning musical The Band’s Visit. I had offered to Cathy that - given the price of the tickets - maybe this could count for the July/August/September movies that she still owes me, but she graciously declined, meaning we still have some movie catching up to do.
I loved this musical. I loved the original film, and this production included Sasson Gabay reprising his role as the leader of the Alexandria Police Ceremonial Orchestra who wind up in the wrong small town in Egypt.
It’s the story of a talented group of musicians who think they are bringing culture to a sophisticated place, only to discover they are among a group of dullards in an exceedingly boring backwater town. No, wait, that was the last time Argonotes visited Hamilton.
Anyway. It was a great musical on a small scale, that I enjoyed much more than many of the huge productions we’ve seen lately.
And since we were in row 4, I had a pretty good opportunity to decide if the on-stage musicians were actually playing. I’m suspicious about one clarinetist, but everybody else was playing, even the trumpet player although he barely new enough of a scale to play the opening part of My Funny Valentine, and it wouldn’t surprise me to learn that he’d taken trumpet lessons just for this show.
I’m excited about seeing The Music Man on Broadway starring Hugh Jackman in 2020! THEY better be playing, although it will be very hard to top this 2000 Broadway production where the entire cast learned enough trombone to make for a spectacular encore:
On the sixth Date of Christmas, my true love - and a few others - saw with me: Rocketman
Happy Father’s Day to me! My three sons were persuaded that if we all went to see Rocketman, that that would be a great Father’s Day gift, so off we went to the aptly-domain-named Film.Ca cinemas, and the on-again off-again 12 Dates of Christmas gift was on again.
I think it was the first time we’d had that combination of the lads and me and Cathy all out to the movies in quite a while.
do i have any amusing anecdotes about the actual theatre going experience this time?
no.
Well, on the way there, Nick announced he would be singing along to the chorus in Crocodile Rock - you know, the part that goes La, la-la-la-la-la La-la-la-la-laa, La-la-la-la-la…. so I made sure I wasn’t sitting right next to him.
did I like the movie?
Well, the first part, sure. The big Saturday Night’s Alright For Fighting production number had me leaning over to Cathy to whisper something along the lines of “I’m quite enjoying this so far.”
But the movie took a pretty dark turn. Admittedly, I am a casual Elton John fan but not up on his whole family story, and his family story could be described as: dark. Sad. Unfortunate. Elton, I’m sorry, I didn’t know. I’m glad that things seem to be better for you now. Especially after you married your Canadian husband!
what about the guy?
Taron Egerton, who I knew nothing about, was great, there wasn’t a single moment when I didn’t believe I was actually watching Elton John. He’s a very convincing singer.
did elton john really take a cab from Madison Square Garden directly to what appears to be a rehab center in the UK?
I dunno. Go check Wikipedia, maybe it says something there.
did they do that song about candles in the wind?
No
did they do that frequent hollywood bit where the end of the movie shows a variety of self-congratulatory scenes showing something in the movie and a similar real-life shot to prove that they got it right?
of course.
how many of these movies you’ve seen with Cathy have been about rocket men?
Hmm. About a third. This one, and this one too.
is there another Elton John biography film that you like, preferably one that’s nice and short albeit running in reverse chronological order?
Funny you should ask. This commercial from John Lewis is pretty great. And not nearly as sad.
On the fifth Date of Christmas, my true love saw with me: "Aladdin"
[Recap: My wonderful spouse gave me an awesome Christmas gift of agreeing to go to one movie every month. Those of you following along might wonder what happened to April’s movie? Did we see one or not? I have decided that the gift actually means “an AVERAGE of one movie a month” so I’m looking forward to seeing two in June. Or perhaps seven in November.]
Last night we went to see ‘Aladdin’ with our great friends - and fellow extreme Disney cruisers - Ron and Linda, at the lovely “Wow, Did We Ever Get A Great Domain Name” Film.ca Cinema, which advertises itself proudly as “Oakville’s Favourite Cinema.”
Things got off to a less then auspicious beginning when this dialogue happened:
Me: “Two tickets to Aladdin please.”
Cashier, sincerely attempting to be helpful: “Will that be a General Admission ticket or …”
… awkward pause …
Me: “NO I DO NOT NEED A SENIORS TICKET THANK YOU VERY MUCH”
Helpful spouse: “Well it won’t be much longer.”
Anyway. The movie is gorgeous to look at, and it was interesting to see credits acknowledging both governments of the Hashemite Kingdom of Jordan, and the Canadian Province of British Columbia. Try and guess which parts were filmed where.
But I am left with a few questions …
Disney certainly enjoys pounding good ideas into the ground. The Lion King started out animated, turned into a Broadway show, and is returning as a - well, not exactly “live action” movie, but a different kind of animated movie with CGI animals on real backgrounds or something and it’s getting hard to know how to name these things. Maybe Disney should do it the way Apple names laptops. “Lion King Late 2019”.
I remember when we saw the Broadway production of “The Lion King” at the Princess of Wales theatre and my niece announced that she preferred the original Lion King animated film over the Broadway show because it had, and I quote, “real lions.”
Maybe I'm getting old - perhaps the cashier is on to something - but I didn't particularly like this movie. There are a lot of very clever lyrics in the songs, some of which go by way too fast for anybody to decipher, and this Aladdin guy is a pickpocket and why are we exactly are they celebrating that, but on the other hand, Disney loves celebrating pirates on their cruises and pirates are actually thieves and criminals, and isn't there some sort of time travel loop going on here because by the end of the film, the genie turns out to be the guy telling the story about the genie at the beginning of the film, but anyway ⭑⭑⭑⭑ because it was, as always, fun going to the movies with friends and my wonderful and still much younger than me ⭑⭑⭑⭑⭑ wife.
On the fourth Date of Christmas, my true love saw with me: "Apollo 11"
Cathy and I saw Apollo 11 last night as part of the ongoing 12 Dates of Christmas gift, wherein she agrees to see a movie with me once a month. It won’t surprise you that I loved this amazing documentary. She did too. I regret I did not wear my MOON SHOT 1969: I WAS THERE shirt. Next time for sure.
You should totally go see it. It’s fantastic, and even though I like to think I know everything about the Space Program, there were dozens of scenes I’d never seen before. Apparently the director stumbled across a collection of 65mm film that had been shot in 1969 for a documentary that was abandoned - now I want to know more about that.
Some of the scenes are just breathtaking. The elevator ride up to the capsule. The launch itself. Tracking shots of Apollo 11 hurtling through the atmosphere. I was wowed by these, and caught myself thinking “well, the scenes on the moon will be a bit of a letdown since those were shot with relatively lame cameras”, but even those were gripping. Director Todd Douglas has done a fantastic job putting all this footage together - including excerpts from 11,000 hours of uncatalogued audio recordings.
Watch the trailers. Then go see it. I truly regret that we missed the chance to see this in IMAX; I hope it comes around again in that format closer to the actual 50th anniversary this coming July.
Here’s a neat bit of trivia. The film’s score adds a lot of heart-pounding tension to a plot where you already know the outcome, which is pretty great, but apparently it was all done on instruments and technology actually available in 1969.
Several friends who already saw it told me, half in jest, “Well, I looked but I didn’t see you.” But - you sort of can. As you’ve all heard me mention constantly for the past 49.5 years, Mom and Dad took Michael and me to see the launch in 1969, and I have a very distinct memory of a helicopter flying along the crowd gathered on the beach to see the launch with a cameraman hanging out the door. Sure enough, we see what I think is that helicopter in the movie, and some good footage from it of the million people who’d gathered to watch the launch. I like to think we’re in those scenes, although I cannot exactly say “THERE: THAT PIXEL IS ME.”
Watch for the helicopter above if you see the movie - this is a frame from Dad’s Super 8 film of our 1969 vacation, although it’s certainly not quite the quality of the Apollo 11 film I saw last night, but they both stir fantastic memories. Thank you, Mom and Dad.
Here’s the actual launch from our viewpoint in Parish Park, Titusville, Florida, July 16, 1969. (Fast forward to 6:00 for the launch, and you can skip a lot of completely dark film that Dad optimistically called “The Rocket At Night”)
I hope my children and grandchildren get to experience something this breathtaking and awe-inspiring in their lifetimes. But if they don’t, I’m glad we have this movie.
On the third Date of Christmas, my true love saw with me: "Stan & Ollie"
Yesterday, after a brief outpouring of angst about how complex it is - for me anyway, apparently not for anybody else - to search for a movie, Cathy and I decided to see Stan & Ollie at the Cineplex Varsity downtown.
Capsule review: we both loved it. Steve “Stan Laurel” Coogan and John C. “Oliver Hardy” Reilly are great and to my mind totally believable. I am not quite old enough to remember the glory days of Laurel and Hardy, but now I want to see more of their work. And this movie focuses on the team in the twilight of their career - I’d love another biopic about their early days!
Also Cathy and I need to learn the dance number from “Way Out West”.
AND NOW THE NITPICKING
Cineplex continues to tinker with the style in which they present a movie. Apparently our choices now include IMAX, DBox, Ultra AVX, VIP and a new thing called “Prime Seats” - which we chose; the best two rows in the theatre are reserved, slightly more comfortable, slightly wider seats. I don’t mind paying a couple of bucks extra for that. I wish searching for that option was easier. See earlier whiny post.
“VIP” means different things at different theatres, it seems. Sometimes it means “This is the kind where you can order a beer to your reserved seat” but not at the Varsity, where it now means “VIP is just our word for this particular theatre. Oh you want a reserved seat? That’s ‘Prime Seats’. And no we don’t wait on you at this one.”
I’m glad they’re working on refining the experience. Just like professional sports is discovering, people find it pretty comfortable watching on their big screen TV at home and it’s hard to get them out.
Also, people, PLEASE, stop talking when the movie starts. I had to give the couple behind me the half-turn a few times.
FOR THOSE SCORING AT HOME
Searching for Movies
Cathy and I want to go to a movie tonight as part of the #12DatesOfChristmas and I can’t believe that in 2019, the process of searching for showtimes is still awful. It took me way too long this afternoon to come up with a list that might work.
How It Is Now
We live in the Greater Toronto Area, where most of the theatres are part of the Cineplex chain - although we’re lucky to have the excellent Film.ca theatre nearby too.
By my count there are at least half a dozen movie theatres within a reasonable drive of here - Film.ca, the 5 Drive Inn, two Cinepleces (Winston Churchill and Oakville) in Oakville, a Silver City in Burlington, a few more in Mississauga, and even Cineplex’s flagship Queensway in Etobicoke is only 29 km away. And for the right movie we might even venture to downtown Toronto.
We’re lucky to have this many choices. The Maps app shows even more than I thought -
And here’s Cineplex.com’s main site -
why is this so hard
So why is it so hard to find a movie to go see? I’ve just spent way too long on the cineplex.com site searching. Their search process seems to assume you know exactly what movie you want to see, and in exactly what theatre. And I guess it’s good at that.
But it shows me WAY too many choices, or hides the info I really need.
Tonight, f’rinstance, I’d really like to see “Stan & Ollie”, the new Laurel and Hardy biopic starring Steve Coogan and John C. Reilly. If I search for that, here’s what Cineplex shows me -
I recognize a couple of those theatres - but Park Lane? Where’s that? [Spoiler: Halifax.] “Eau Claire Market Cinemas”? [Spoiler: Calgary] Why are you showing me these theatres thousands of miles away?
Fortunately I know that the Varsity VIP is in Toronto at least. Let’s check that out. Two or three clicks later after specifying the date, here are my choices
OK that’s fascinating but useless to know that the movie was on at 1:50 PM, several hours ago, and, I dunno, it’s 4:40 as I write this, have I got time to get to the 6:50 show?
Other search options aren’t much better. The actual show times for tonight are always hidden away, buried under the clutter of a bunch of movies I have no interest in. Or, if I decide I want one of Cineplex’s reserved seat options, it shows me what theatres have that option, and I have to dig through to figure out which movies are playing that way.
What People Actually Want
My conjecture is that most people visit a movie theatre web site wanting to do one thing:
For me a pleasant experience at the theatre is sometimes “A nap in a comfortable chair in a dark room”, but the older I get, the more I like the idea of paying a slight premium for reserved seats so that we don’t have to gamble on how early to get there.
What Movie Theatre Web Sites Should Actually Show
Why can’t it be like this? Let’s assume I want to see something tonight, and I’m not too particular.
And show me the results on a map - but only show me the ones I can reasonably get to from home -
Look, it’s 2019. You, Cineplex, have a computer. So do I. You know my location. I might be willing to share that. You know how long it takes to get somewhere. You can avoid showing me the 95% of things I won’t want, and pick out a couple I might like.
Help me out like that and I’m WAY more likely to go to the movies.