Monday, August 19, 2019

Cinebros, Walk-On's, Woodstock, Earth Fare & Apocalypse Now: Final Cut

I will start this off on a positive note by telling of my adventures one night. I went on a bit of a journey to see a random Chinese movie that was playing on the big screen; it was The Bravest, about firefighters dealing with a blaze at an oil refinery plant. It was about as silly and melodramatic as I expected, but I can say that China can make goofy blockbusters almost as well as Hollywood can these days. At least there were plenty of explosions/stuff blowing up, heroic sacrifices, and all the rest. Before that I went to two nearby places that are new to me. Dinner was at a joint known as Walk-On's Bistreaux & Bar. The name is accurate: it's a sports bar originally founded in Louisiana. Only some of the food is Cajun-flavored and I had the chicken tenders; a wise decision on my part as they were great. Pretty soon a location will open on I-Drive and that is a place I plan on frequenting. After that it was Earth Fare, a store that can be compared to a Whole Foods or Lucky's Market. Several items were purchased.

On another evening I went to a Bob Evans with someone; that was not out of the ordinary. Onto the big events of the preceding week. Thursday night I went to the Cinemark in Orlando (not at Universal Studios but the one by Bass Pro Shops) to see an old movie on the big screen. It was 1970's Woodstock, a documentary about the seminal event where many performances are seen and various people at the festival are interviewed. It was the Director's Cut, meaning it was 224 minutes long! It was something I've seen before and it is great as I love the music and it was tremendous seeing it in a big way. To be honest, a big reason why I chose that place to see it-it was on in a few other locations-was that this Cinemark had reclining leather seats and those are great for something so lengthy. Thank goodness for that and there being an intermission, which some modern movies should bring back.

Sunday was the last day of excitement, and it was another lengthy motion picture. This time it was Apocalypse Now: Final Cut. In my life I've seen the original version of that and the very long Apocalypse Now: Redux (202 minutes); this Final Cut was basically done to advertise that the films will later this month be released on 4K UHD, which also explains why it's being shown two days only on select IMAX screens. I thus was at the IMAX at Pointe Orlando, notable as a “real” old-school giant IMAX screen that is far bigger than what IMAX has meant in the past decade with the giant cash grab they made... not that I can really fault them for taking the money. I hadn't seen anything on that screen in a long while so seeing that it now has leather seats was a relief as The Final Cut was 183 minutes long.

Apocalypse Now is great, and that version is great. What a surreal nightmare of a journey the characters experience. Of course not everyone in the audience appreciated this opportunity... two young men I'll call “cinebros” left early to get drinks at a bar in the lobby (that was also new to me) and they did return... only to leave shortly thereafter, never to return. Not only was that dumb because I am sure those drinks were cheap and I know the tickets to the screening were at a typical not cheap IMAX pricing, but of course they left all their trash there for the poor staff to pick up afterwards. Figures.

When I return a week from today, I should have another interesting week while doing entirely different things.

No comments:

Post a Comment