This is the website of Abulsme Noibatno Itramne (also known as Sam Minter).
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 Not this past weekend, but the weekend before that, we went to see the new X-Files movie. This was specifically prompted by Brandy, who REALLY wanted to see it, but both Amy and I wanted to see it too, so that was that.
I’ve seen a lot of reviews panning this movie for various reasons, but I’ll just say I liked it. I liked the X-files when it was on, and this was just like a giant episode. And not one of the “conspiracy” episodes either, but more like one of the one off episodes. I thought that was just fine though. I liked those kinds of episodes just fine when it was on TV.
And yes, it had more about Mulder and Scully and their relationship. Some people really hate that. I think it is just fine. And come on, given the whole history and all these two have been through, like they aren’t going to end up there? Geeze! :-) I like the two characters. I like exploring them as people. They don’t just have to run around doing the chasing aliens thing ALL the time. This was OK.
Anyway… as I said… basically just a long episode. If you liked the show, and you liked the non-arc episodes, then you should like this too.
If you didn’t like the show, or just didn’t care and never watched it, you are probably quite safe skipping this movie. You won’t miss a thing.
 In the couple of days right before we sent Amy off to Canada I started getting a more and more intense desire to go see Wall-E. I don’t know why exactly. I’d seen things about it for years of course, but had not gotten too horribly excited. But in the last few days, I kept asking Brandy, “Can we go see Wall-E?”. Eventually on the night before Amy left on her trip, her last rehersal ended with enough time left over for us to catch the next to last showing at the nearby movie place. So we got our tickets, we got our popcorn, and in we went.
Bottom line here, If you’ve read any other reviews of this movie, I’m not going to say anything new here. I’m going to agree with all of them. This was a great movie. Looking quickly at my list of movies I’ve seen at the theater in the last few years, it is easily the best of all of them since I have been keeping track. That might be true of the DVD list too.
Now, those of you who pay attention know the kind of movie I like… emotional, cute, a little humor, a little different… this completely does all of those and does it well.
The first half hour is wordless. Just getting to know Wall-E and his world. It is great. The use of Hello Dolly!… Great. Oh, I dunno. This is just the kind of movie that hits pretty much all of my buttons directly. I’m sure it is not for everybody. Some people hate things that are a little sappy… and yes, predictable… I don’t think there is ever even one second of doubt about how the movie will end… and there are some folks who have been mad that in some ways it looks like a bit of environmentalist propaganda… but whatever. It made me cry and laugh and had me in rapt attention from the first few seconds to the last seconds of the credits when there was a dedication to a member of the production team who passed away.
This is an awesome movie. Regardless of the presence or absence of children in your life (the theoretical primary audience for a “family” movie of this sort) if you didn’t see it yet, make room on this holiday weekend to go see it. Really. Go see it. Now.
 So, Sunday Amy wanted to go to a movie with some friends from school. She went to the new Narnia movie. Brandy and I decided to go to a movie ourselves while the kids did their movie. We went to the new Indiana Jones.
Now, this was a bit of a dilemma for me, as I wasn’t actually sure if I’d ever seen the second one. But in the end I decided to go.
Now, I think I actually have seen fully the first and third ones at some point along the line. Probably on TV, not in the theaters, and probably in edited for TV 4:3 versions. But I saw them, I guess. Just not sure I ever managed the second one in whole, although I’m sure I’ve seen parts of it.
Anyway, we saw it. My thoughts… which seem to echo most other comments about it… “Eh, OK”. I mean, it was interesting I guess. And there were some funny moments. And frankly, I can’t really remember the older ones to know if they were really about the same or not. It was fine and all, but I’m not sure exactly why they bothered. (Except for the $$$ of course.)
I mean, it was an OK movie I guess. I was entertained, I do not begrudge the price of the tickets or the popcorn. But it seems like this was just somehow… unneeded.
Especially the ending, which I won’t give away here. I mean really, did we need that? Did we? Really? (And I’m not talking about the actual end, but rather the climax.)
Oh well. An escapist couple of hours if you’re looking for that on a weekend.
 I’ve been bad, it has been a couple weeks since we saw this. Mother’s Day weekend actually, so just about exactly two weeks ago. Amy was away at a sleepover, so Brandy and I did dinner and a movie. The waiter messed up our order when we went to eat, and then we went to the movie.
I hadn’t realized just how long it had been since we had gone to a movie. The last one was Harry Potter and the Order of the Phoenix back in July of last year. That’s probably a bit too long. We should go out to movies more often.
Anyway, it was pretty much what you would expect from a superhero flick. It was light. It was entertaining. There was some action. It was funny at times (the robots). It did the job it was supposed to do.
It was a fun way to spend the evening. I ate lots of popcorn. It was a good evening.
As with most films I watch though, I don’t think I’ll feel any need to watch it again. But would I go to the sequel when it comes out? Sure. I’d do that.
 Saturday we went to see the new Harry Potter movie. Well, “we” in one sense anyway. Amy saw it with a bunch of other kids as part of a birthday party for one of her friends. Brandy, Cynthia and I sat in the back. Cynthia had already seen it, had not been very impressed by it, but agreed to come and watch it again anyway.
Anyway… thoughts… it was a Harry Potter movie. One must see them all out of completeness. It was OK. It seemed a little disjointed at times though. I’m thinking it is just a matter of exactly what was cut from the book and what was left in not being quite as smooth as one would have liked.
Overall the usual for a Harry Potter film. Special effects, magic. The final fight scene reminded me more of a Star Wars film what with all the force lightning and such.
The actors are all aging very quickly. You can tell they haven’t kept up with the one movie per year.
Hmmm… I guess I don’t have all that much to say about Harry Potter. And I’m in a bit of a hurry, so I’ll leave it at that I guess.
 Early today the three of us went to see Nancy Drew. It was Amy’s choice for a movie to celebrate her grades which had come in a few days earlier. She’d had a significant “dip” in her grades between 1st trimester and 2nd trimester of 6th grade. But for 3rd she had worked hard and brought the grades up considerably, even surpassing her 1st trimester grades. So we’re back on the right trend again, as long as first trimester of 7th grade is even better.
Anyway, this Nancy Drew movie is obviously based on the Nancy Drew book series which started in 1930 with “The Secret of the Old Clock” up to the 175th book in the series Werewolf in a Winter Wonderland published in 2003. I must admit to not having read any of the books in this series, although of course Nancy is an iconic character who I’ve heard about since childhood.
Bottom line, I liked the movie. It was a lot of fun. It was set in present day, but with a Nancy Drew who dressed and behaved in stereotypical 1950’s ways (um, but with a laptop and iPod) and drove a 1940’s era car and was dealing with a mystery who’s primary events took place in late 1970’s / early 80’s Hollywood but were styled as if they were 1930’s Hollywood. I really enjoyed the juxtaposition of the decades.
There was no semblance of realism of course. The villains were appropriately stupid in Scooby Doo cartoon fashion. And there were plenty of hidden passages and flashlights and such. And of course an explosion and a car chase. None believable in the slightest, but they were not supposed to be.
The whole thing was just funny and cute. A nice little weekend popcorn movie for the family. Probably won’t remember it too much a week from now, but not every movie needs to have a profound effect. Sometimes they can just be fun.
Of course, it was opening weekend and there were less than 10 people in the theater watching this movie. So chances are nobody else will remember this movie in a week either.
 Yesterday I was going to stay home working on things that need to get done, but instead I got talked into going to a movie along with Amy, a friend of Amy’s from school and that friend’s parents. The choice was the pirate movie.
My initial reaction: Long
It seemed like a very long movie. Looking it up, it was 167 minutes. Which indeed is pretty long. But there are some long movies that leave you glad for every minute. This is not one of those movies. For quite a lot of it I kept thinking “is it over yet?” Some parts just dragged. Some parts were all action and fighting and such, but I also generally have enough of those sorts of things in a couple minutes. There were enough betrayals and reversals and such to keep it confusing most of the time as well.
There were certainly decent bits of it. I just feel like it could have been a lot better if they cut out about a quarter of it and just tightened it up a lot. But then, I’ve never been super into these Pirate movies. They are OK, but nothing I would normally go out of my way for. I most likely would have skipped it entirely if the others hadn’t wanted to go. But once I knew they were going, I also didn’t want to stay home and miss it. :-)
 I am way late in posting this. It has been weeks since we saw this movie, but a few weeks ago we did the actual go out and see a movie thing and the movie we saw was The Last Mimsy, which is based on a 1940’s short story called Mimsy were the Borogoves which I have of course not read.
In any case, I *really* liked this movie. It is a sweet family movie. There is nothing deep here. There is nothing controversial or thought provoking. You don’t come out feeling like it has changed your life or anything. But it is just solidly cute and sweet. And OK, many people do not like that kind of movie at all, and would feel like it was torture, but I like those kinds of movies.
I’m not sure I really have much more than that to say. Click the movie poster to go to Wikipedia if you want more on the plot and stuff. As for me, the summary is just that I came out going “Awwww….” kind of like when you see a cute kitten or puppy or whatnot. And that was enough.
Oh, and I liked the song at the end by Roger Walters. I’ll have to get a copy of that.
 I was pretty much dragged to see Ghost Rider. From every preview I’d seen, I knew I didn’t want to see it. But Amy had a good week, and Brandy wanted to reward her with a movie. We’d actually agreed on Bridge to Tarabitia as the movie least objectionable to all of us, even though Amy really wanted to see Ghost Rider. But of course when it came time to leave, even though we’d determined we needed to leave RIGHT THEN to get to the movie on time, Amy decided that it was a good time to clean out and reorganize her purse. (We didn’t know that was the hold up until afterwards.) By the time she got outside, the chances of us making it on time were slim, but we tried. But by the time the movie was starting, we were still several minutes from the theater. We tried to redirect to another theater where Brandy had remembered it was also playing at a later time. But when we got there, that movie was not playing at all. So we tried a third theater, but we had already missed the last showing there. But guess what still had a showing? Yup! Ghost Rider. Which is what Amy had wanted to see all along. I relented and agreed to see Ghost Rider.
I had not read anything about the movie and had only seen a preview, so I was expecting a really bad horror/action flick. Well, it WAS a really bad horror/action flick, but it was so bad that it was really funny. (Brandy claims they did that on purpose, and it was supposed to be so bad that it was funny.) In any case, I ended up really enjoying it. It was funny. I laughed a lot. It was just stupid. But stupid in a funny way. In a cartoon sort of way. And it was adapted from a comic, so I guess that is OK, but most recent comic adaptations have tried to be more dramatic than comedic. This one was comedic. Like I said, it was a very stupid movie. But an enjoyable stupid movie.
 After Amy’s last concert last weekend we decided to go to a movie. I knew Eragon had just come out, and was thinking “dragon movie, cool”. We were coming from Everett, so the first thought was to go to the nice movie theater in downtown Bellevue on the way home. But once we turned off the highway I quickly realized this was a mistake. The traffic was horrible and there were hordes of people doing Christmas shopping. I started to get a little wigged out by all the unexpected masses of people. (I’m fine in Manhattan and such, cause it is expected, but here I was thinking a nice quiet afternoon movie, and that was not what was happening, so I wanted to go elsewhere.)
So we ended up going to a movie theater closer to home, but not as nice, and not quite as crouded. Then they started the previews several minutes early. I had timed a trip to the bathroom to make it back just in time. It was just the commercials at the beginning, they hadn’t even gotten to the first actual preview yet. But it annoyed me. If you say you are going to start at a certain time, you need to start at that time.
Then it went downhill from there. The actual movie started with a narrator giving an overview of the history leading up to the start of the movie. During that Amy started talking about one of the actresses and some movie she had been in before, so I missed some of the narration. By this time I was already in a bad mood, so I decided I didn’t want to see the movie any more, cause I’d missed about 15 seconds of the intro. But Brandy wouldn’t let me leave. Then there were several other distracting episodes too, but by that time I was just mad, and not really thinking about the movie any more.
Meanwhile, it didn’t help that the movie itself was really really bad. Bad dialog. Bad acting. Obvious rip offs of other movies. (Although from my understanding, although I have not read it, this is true of the book too.) You never got to caring about any of the characters at all. And I dare say, even if I hadn’t already been in a bad mood ready to trash it even if it was the best movie of the century, I still would have thought it was bad. The dragon… I didn’t like her voice at all. Didn’t match. Didn’t work for me.
Anyway, if it is still in the theaters, definately don’t waste any cash on Eragon. Maybe wait for DVD if you are really bored one night and have nothing else to do.
OK, maybe that is all a BIT harsh, I was in a really bad pissy mood at the time I saw the movie. So maybe it actually was a good movie. But I’m thinking no.
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