Went to see Apocalypto with HdM tonight… over at the Balmoral Cinemas where tickets cost the princely sum of $7.90 for a Saturday night session… back to the land of cheap cinema tickets and loving it.  The critics appear to be alternately loving it and hating it, but I certainly enjoyed it.  It was an interesting story, with a bit of something for everyone… romantic drama, groovy historical setting, action sequences, bloody minded fisticuffs, anthropological tidbits, cool makeup/costumes and a bit with a tapir to boot.  Not to mention… more tight brown butts than this cinema goer has seen on the big screen in a long time.   😀 

   

Loved the cinematography and the gorgeous locations, and quite enjoyed the brevity of dialogue.   Mind you, it was a little on the brutal side.  So if you’re one of them people who winced and looked away when Mrs Marcellus Wallace got an adrenalin shot to the heart in Pulp Fiction, or when Big Russ did the two swords decapitation bit in Gladiator, this one might prove a little challenging through some of the more barbaric passages.

Hanging out with my Dad is getting really really difficult, I spent most of the visit just crying because I couldn’t understand what he needed. It took 15 mins for him to tell me that he just wanted a couple of spoonfuls of apple juice. I hate going to see him now, and then I feel guilty if I dont. The distress is greatly increased when Mum decides to take advantage of you being there to run out the door. I hate seeing him like this, it feels awful that we all know we are just sitting around waiting for him to die.

Anyway after a really hard day with my Dad, I went to dinner and a movie with LuckyPhil tonight. I am so glad I managed to get out of the house for a bit. Dinner was really nice, we had a few laughs, and I really enjoy his company. We went to see Fast Food Nation at the cinema and the movie was a bit of a let down.

From the trailers we thought it would be a comedy, dark comedy maybe, but it wasn’t funny at all. And the end of the movie showed some really disturbing imagery of the kill floor at the slaughterhouse the movie centers around. Not for the faint hearted that bit. It was a bit of a slamming indictment of the state of the fast food industry both in the US and here no doubt. Makes you wonder…. and worry about what we’re being fed.

Went to the movies last night with LP (my pick this time). We went to see Little Miss Sunshine, which turned out to be a fantastic and fun movie. I laughed a lot which was just what the doctor ordered.

It was a quirky and amusing movie about a rather dysfunctional family who hit the road to get the youngest member of the family to the Little Miss Sunshine Pageant in California. Along the way they have several mishaps which would be reminiscent of a National Lampoon film, were they not so ‘real’ somehow. The characters and the film had a solid cast (Greg Kinnear, Tony Collette, Steve Carrell, Aaron Arkin and introduced us to the precocious Abigail Breslin) all of whom were great, and you could warm to them and understand them, while at the same time want to slap them around the head! I particularly love the Grandpa, who was a bit of a dirty old man was definitely in that “I don’t give a shit what people think anymore” stage of his life.

I especially enjoyed the statement at the end of the film about just how much adult-like behaviour is suitable at a kids beauty pageant, and how much is just going too far. Never liked them much – and especially not since seeing this picture on Dave2’s blog over at Blogography (http://www.blogography.com/index.html ) Dave calls them Dead Hooker Babies, which seems fair enough when you see this image. Don’t know if it’s just Sepos or what – but they are doing strange things to sexualize their children with these beauty contests.