Beef Jergy

and go see it now. NOW! I can’t even talk about it. Just see it and you’ll understand.

Yesterday, I had a landmark day of sorts. I took my daughter to the movie theater. Being that she is 4 1/2 and loves movies I’m a bit disappointed that its taken this long. Unfortunately she had a bad experience at a theater with a blaring sound system a couple of years ago and has been unable to forget it.

After much talking and prodding, I convinced her to go. My reasons were part selfish in that the movie we went to see I REALLY wanted to see. We saw Pixar’s latest effort, Wall-E. Was it Pixar’s best movie? That’s hard to say. I think you can make arguments that they’ve made better movies. BUT as good as all of their films have been I’ve been hard-pressed to describe them as ‘brilliant’.

Wall-E is brilliant. It is a very smart, cute and conscious movie. Disney (and Pixar especially) have always tried to give these movies something for both parents and adults. This is a bit beyond that. It has more than just some funny in-jokes that adults will enjoy. Its overall message is something much grander. Its funny the reaction this movie is getting. I’m hearing things like, “It a very adult movie.” And its not a negative. But its just a shame that intelligent stories are suddenly ‘adult’. To me that’s what makes this movie great. It give children more credit than they’re used to receiving. I’d like to see stories like these become the standard instead of the exception.

There is so much more to say about it, but I need to comment on something else related to the film that has nothing to do with the content.

The decision to see the movie was kinda of a last minute one. We were working in a narrow time frame, plus wanted to pick a theater that was a calming experience for my girl. So we went to a theater I hadn’t been to in maybe 15 years.

When the Towson Commons opened it was THE place to catch a flick. The university I attended was right down street so I spend a lot of time there. It was located in the heart of Towson and seemed a perfect location to built something like this. Unfortunately the timing killed the theater. See at the time, stadium seating, digital projection, DTS sound were all yet to be a common occurrence in movie theaters. So the theater become outdated fast. The opening of a new complex just 10 minutes away in White Marsh put Towson in trouble almost right away.

I knew it was in trouble and am quite surprised that it’s still open. After going there yesterday I’m even more surprised. I knew it was going to be bad when I approached the box office and above the cashier were pieces of plain white paper taped to the light boxes with the name of the movie scrawled with a bic pen and the showtimes written underneath.

The theater itself is two levels and our film was on the second floor. When we reached the top the concession stand looked like it had been abandoned years ago. Everything looked in disarray. When we entered the theater most of the cupholders were missing which mean resting your arm on sharp bare metal. *sigh* It was quite a sad sight.

I don’t know if anyone has any plans to renovate, but if they don’t I can’t see it lasting very long. There are a lot of good memories in that theater. (including my first exposure to the Rocky Horror Picture Show) But as they say, “All good things…”

Work has been busy busy busy. But so I don’t leave you completely in the lurch, here is the greatest commercial in the history of commercials.

Hi friends.

So, I’m now 4 days returned from my week away in *beautiful* South Jersey. I’ve waxed poetic before about my love of Wildwood, New Jersey. So I won’t be doing that now. Honestly I don’t really have any great stories to tell. No big skill crane grabs this year. No particularly funny stories or horrible moments. Its was a pretty comfortable trip overall. I got to see my daughter become a skee ball master in a matter of days (she’s pretty damn good). I got to take her on the Zoom Phloom which also made me happy. (she just barely hit the height requirement).

We made the same general observations we make everytime we walk the boards.

1) People have no shame when it comes to clothing at the beach

2) Setting up a giant chair and charging people $5 a pop to have a picture taken in it, will earn you lots of dough. (Double it if you put giant props like ice cream cones and liquor bottles)
sadly I could not find any pictures of The Big Chair. But use your imagination. Its a big f’n chair.

3) You must have pissed someone off greatly to have to go to work dressed as a giant lime.

4) You can live off of pizza and frozen custard for a week.

5) The exact time simulated on the boardwalk is 1986.

6) There is no funnier way to say ‘bite-sized’ than this:

7) I still miss the castle.