Best it Was a Saturday Full of Girl Movies

Sometimes things strange forces come into play and you find yourself seeing two movies, at the theater, in a day. Last time I remember this happening (excepting Star Wars prequels, of course) was in 1998 when I saw the X-Files movie and Can't Hardly Wait in the same evening . . . but Saturday I found myself at Salt in the morning and, err, Eclipse in the evening.



Re:Salt--I've seen and heard opinions of all sorts on this movie, but once I found out that my parents were seeing it for their anniversary, I decided I should take it seriously and have a look. Turns out I'm with my Dad and Roger, this movie does the job it sets out to do (or, like my Dad said, "fills the measure of its creation nicely") and for that I give it a thumbs up. It's a perfectly fine spy movie of the modern variety where there isn't any spying done, per se, mostly just escaping, inventing, fighting, double-crossing, and secret-having. The movie moves from Point A to Point B to Point C and onward, as long as you just stay with it and where it's going and don't look back on the steps that have brought the action to where it is, I believe you'll have a good time, because I did . . . but it probably helped that I was sitting a couple seats over from a little person (meaning midget/dwarf/you know what I mean) who punctuated each on-screen reveal or thrilling/actiony moment with loud exclamations of expletives.

A Thought that Crossed My Mind as It Happened: When Salt rolls off the overpass and lands on the truck on her back, what if the puppy had still been in her backpack? Wouldn't that have been hilarious?

It's a shame they didn't leave an opening for any sequels with the ending, though.

(that's sarcasm.)


Re:Eclipse--This is the first Twilight movie I've seen in the theater. Let me just say I was definitely entertained, perhaps not in the way I was meant to be, or perhaps I should congratulate this film on the way it can please both people that think it is Great and people that think it is Not Great at the same time. I had actually begun listening to Eclipse at work (if you need that explained, this post will help) but, seeing the movie, I am definitely NOT going to finish the book . . . I can't even imagine what it's like when Sister Meyer has Bella give her first person present narration of what happens in the tent while she's sleeping in the sleeping bag with the "much HOTter" Jacob while he and Edward turn from hating each other to almost making friends. Just about everything in this movie was absolutely ridiculous, I was giggling or laughing or just squeezing my head in disbelief the whole time but never once felt like getting up and leaving so . . . I mean, does that mean I liked it? No. . . but I guess I liked watching it? Not that I could ever do that again.

But here's the most remarkable thing about my Eclipse experience: the movie has been out for nearly a month, which is years in Summer Movie time, but the theater was PACKED. They actually set up folding chairs to fit more people in. There were shrieks of excitement for every kiss and a cheers of glee when it ended (no, not snarky cheers, cheers of gleeful praise) . . . essentially behavior you'd associate with opening night. ALSO, there was an African American gentleman sitting with his lady friend in front of me who seemed to know/appreciate Twilight even less than I did and his moans of disbelief and bewilderment at the nonsense he was being handed made my moviegoing experience even richer. I went into this film wondering if I had essentially just lit $13 on fire and left wondering if I had had one of the finest movie-watching experiences of my life. But don't get me wrong, I certainly don't think I could stand to watch that movie again YET I am tempted to partake of the rapturous full-on Twi-hard freakout that opening night (or weekend, if tickets are already sold out) of the next Twilight movie will be. It may prove too much entertainment for me to even handle.