Since I've moved to New York, I've seen three movies. The amazing part is, I didn't have to sit through one damn trailer, and only had to pay for one movie.
The first movie was Harry Potter and the Prisoner of Azkaban. The movie felt kind of rushed, but the storyline was coherent and the direction was a little more interesting than the last two. I especially liked the handheld camera in the Dursley's house. I saw this for free at the Director's Guild on 56th St. The Screen Actor's Guild can see movies there for free with a guest, and I went with a friend who was borrowing someone's card. There were very strict rules, I was told. Make very sure your cell phone is off. Don't talk at all during the movie. Stay until the credits have stopped rolling. Don't get up at all during the movie either. It was all worth it, and the movie had very nice credits anyway, so I didn't mind.
The second movie I saw was The Chronicles of Riddick. Not exactly the kind of movie I would see by myself, but my friend Adam got a free ticket. I didn't think it was so good. One of the characters seemed so familiar to me, and I just now looked it up and saw it was Karl Urban, who played Eomer in Lord of the Rings. I saw this movie in Brooklyn, and ate a nice dinner afterwards, but it took me two fucking hours to get home. Still, two hours to get through three boroughs (I had to go through Manhattan) without a car is not horrible, I guess.
The last movie I actually paid for. I saw it just last weekend - City of God, which I've been meaning to see for a long time. It was completely wonderful, and horrifying, and funny at times too. The direction was great (everyone compares it to Scorcese for good reason), and the storyline was captivating. It really showed something I've never seen, the life in a Brazilian slum, and the characters that inhabit it. It was sort of like V.S. Naipaul's excellent book Miguel Street about the slums in Trinidad, except with all the light-heartedness in that book replaced by people shooting each other.
Posted by ahyatt at June 14, 2004 08:33 PMCity of God was great. From what I've heard, the real version of "Carrot" was actually called "Potato", because he had big Potato-like muscles.
BTW, if you're in Brooklyn, and you live in Queens, can't you just hitchhike straight up to Queens? Or do all trains lead to Manhattan?
BTW 2, I saw The Day After Tomorrow. It was bad, except that there was a very cool scene where Manhattan gets hit by a tidal swell. And you get to see a climatologist be the protaganist of a movie, which doesn't happen every day.
Posted by: Tash on June 15, 2004 08:35 PMHi Tash, i didn't know you were reading my blog, what a pleasant surprise! I have, let's see, four readers now. Woohoo!
Anyway, I suppose I could hitchike to Queens, but I've never hitchhiked before, I have no idea how to get where I live by car, and I'm a bit hesitent to have my first hitchhiking experience at midnight.