The Left Coast Biased

First of all, for all of you who had any doubts, the movie was fantastic. Not a kids movie, by any stretch of the imagination, but fantastic. I encourage all of you to go see it as soon as you have finished reading the comic, this weekend. Don't get caught up trying to find inconsistencies, and just enjoy the movie. And the comic.

All of the midnight showings here in Tucson sold out, which is perfectly appropriate. If this movie does even half of Spiderman's opening weekend then it will be a testament, in this economy, of the greatness of this movie. Especially given that Spidey opened on a Wednesday and Watchmen respectfully opened on the traditional Friday. I can not encourage you strongly enough to go see this movie. And when you do, I pray your experience does not immitate the following:

We get there, fortunate to secure seats together because the courtesy of squeezing to the middle during a sold out movie does not seem to overcome to unwillingness to sit in the seat directly adjacent to a total stranger. The previews took a while to get started as the highly skilled and probably not at all impaired laborer running tprogector needed seven tries to get the sound, screen alignment and focus all working simultaneously. Which makes sense, because if you have a movie that is selling out, a completely common occurance these days, you would want to make sure your least competant employees are in charge of that sort of thing. Can any of you even remember the last movie you went to see that was completely sold out? Lord of the Rings? Way to put your best foot forward El Con. I am totally not going to go the Foothills theater for the next movie I am excited about seeing.

On the bright side, when the previews did get running they were in danger of batting a thousand until they threw the newer and dumber Seth Rogan movie in at the end. Public Enemies, the John Dillinger story with Depp and Bale, Star Trek, which looks great despite J.J. Abrams' involvement, Xmen Origins: Wolrverine where we finally get Gambit, Bale in Terminator: Salvation, and the Hangover which looks like we might actually get the Vegas movie we always wanted, and Pixar's UP, having finally seen a preview thatconvinced me to go see it. Well done there. That's how we get people back into the theaters.

Another pleasure in going to the midnight release is the joy of sharing a theater with all the super cool kids who pregame at the bar and then are incapable of following the plot so ask questions to each other loudly during the course of the movie, offering a pleasing running commentary that helps keep the rest of us engaged. Then there were the two Rhodes Scholars who couldn't find their seats so seated themselves on the step next to me and proceeded to make phone calls during the movie until passing out in the ailse. Literally.

None of that was enough to overshadow the film, which was everything I could hope it would be. Let me know what you think.

*This post was sent from my Blackberry Mobile device.