Wednesday, February 03, 2010

This Week In Tickets: 25 January 2010 to 31 January 2010

Unreal. I go pretty much all last year without losing a ticket stub, and this year I've lost two in the first month. I'm guessing that this one either wound up tossed in the trash with the little slip the concession stand at AMC Boston Common gives you so that you can claim your mozzarella sticks when they come out of the kitchen, or somehow slipped out when Matt and I went to the Elephant & Castle for lunch. There was a lot of paper moving around there.

I managed to keep a lid on a minor horrified reaction when I gave Matt the Red Sox tickets I got him and his finacée for Christmas, because he placed them in his wallet and folded them. They're going to be in rough shape three months ago, when the time comes to actually use them.

This Week In Tickets!

(It's a little amusing that the piece of paper that tells you how many MovieWatcher points you have - 393, a neat trick considering you get two per movie - has an exhortation to join MovieWatcher. Since that's the one I got when watching Edge of Darkness, it can sub for its ticket stub.)

Mostly empty space, since the Friday night Mystery Team with filmmakers in attendance was sold out by the time I got there, and the Chlotrudis Society nomination meeting ran long enough for me to miss Saturday's. It was fun, although I'll have to get there earlier next time, as when there are only a few seats left to choose from, the already-high probability of being caught in the middle of a conversation about cats climbs frighteningly close to certainty. Here's the results; sometime later this week I'll post my thoughts on them compared to the Oscar list.

One thing I'm a little disappointed that I missed was the AfterDark horror fest; unfortunately, it's just too difficult to get out to Revere for movies that, at least in recent years, have been far under the radar. The year it was at Fresh Pond, I actually went to Fresh Pond for quite a bit of it, but I'm kind of surprised that they can't get it booked someplace closer to Boston proper than Revere. Does it really draw such a small crowd that the Somerville, Arlington Capitol, Fresh Pond, Harvard Square Cinema, and the Coolidge all figure they're better off not giving it a screen? If so, I'd be surprised if they had any sort of theatrical release before the DVD release next year.

Edge of Darkness

* * * (out of four)
Seen 31 January 2010 at AMC Boston Common #10 (first-run)

Based upon the previews to this, I wondered a couple of things: Did Mel Gibson listen to anything but Kennedy speeches while working on his Boston accent? If so, bad choice, because I don't believe that anyone outside that family actually speaks that way. Also, how much Ray Winstone are we going to see, because he looked aces in the previews.

I suspect that there was more of Winstone's character in the original BBC miniseries, and not just because six hours of time lets you see more of everybody. At times we seem to be a bit too aware of the streamlining; it's the sort of movie where they'll show the villains discussing something and then cut to Gibson's Thomas Craven knowing it. It's not that he couldn't; it's just that you can see the filmmakers trying to save a little time.

It's a good role for Mel Gibson, who has been laying low for a while; he plays this sort of tough guy well. For much of the movie, I was thinking that it was too bad he hasn't played Mike Hammer (yet), as the plot of the movie reminded me of Kiss Me Deadly: Detective who tends to work as a blunt object winding up way over his head, dealing with conspiracies and nasty nuclear material. It works in large part because Gibson does great hard-boiled; give him a line filled with pulp and he will sell the heck out of it. And while I imagine that you could cut Winstone's character, I'm glad they didn't, because the scenes of them together are gold; two different varieties of tough guy who understand and respect each other, and thus aren't trying to outdo one another.
Ong Bak-2-BakPolice, AdjectiveEdge of DarknessRann

No comments: